B1G Coaching Tenures
There has been a lot of discussion on the MGoBoard about whether patience is warranted given that this is only Hoke's fourth season as head coach. I'm not going to belabor that discussion directly, but I thought it was worth pointing out that only Mark Dantonio among B1G East coaches has more seniority than Hoke and only four coaches overall have more seniority.
Here's the East: Hoke - 4th year; Flood - 3rd ; Edsall - 4th; Meyer - 3rd; Franklin - 1st; D'Antonio - 8th; Wilson - 3rd
And the West: Ferentz - 15th; Fitzgerald - 9th; Pelini - 7th; Kill - 4th; Beckman - 3rd; Hazell - 2nd; Anderson - 2nd.
September 11th, 2014 at 3:18 PM ^
Dantonio probably doesn't get his program going if UM is not self-destructing at the same time.
September 11th, 2014 at 5:17 PM ^
Hoke took over a team with talent on it and an easy schedule. Dantonio won the Big Ten in his 4th year and 9 games in his second year. Hoke has lost as many games to MSU in 3 years that Dantonio has in 7. This is not a let's wait and see if he can build a program moment, Hoke walked into a decent situation, especially considering the turmoil OSU was in.
September 11th, 2014 at 5:56 PM ^
Dantonio started from a worse base than Hoke. He had John L Smith and Bobby Williams as his table setters. He could not recruit anywhere near like Hoke. His facilities are below what UM has. His assistant coaches were paid a fraction of what assistants get here, etc. In year 4 he had a 11 win season. And now we want to push it out YET another year and say "that's the year to judge?"
Again look at Harbaugh at Stanford. In year 3 his team was only 8-5 but he started punching some heavyweights out in the mouth. Year 4 they went ballistic.
UM deserves a coach in the sphere of Dantonio to Harbaugh. That sort of coach will at SOME POINT in year 2-3-4 beat SOMEONE of value and I dont mean a Fickell OSU. He will at some point show he is out coaching, out developing, out scheming, out adjusting, out something other coaches of similar programs. Hoke has relied on hero ball QB performances. We came into this year expecting the "2nd best defense in the Big 10" to hold over the team until the offense came around. If 7-8 games from now this was all a hoax he doesnt deserve another year IMO. Hoke needs to beat someone he should not beat to show some coaching acumen and at this point there are only 1.5 chances... MSU or OSU. I asterisk OSU because with a broken OL and a new QB I dont know if that is going to even qualify but since it is on the road I guess it does.
Cmon all these elite coaches show SOMETHINg to hang your hat on - Urban at Utah, Dantonio in year 4 (year 3 was the Rathers Hall incident), Kelly in year 3, etc etc. Show us something special for a game or two against a very good opponent.
September 11th, 2014 at 10:36 PM ^
Wow, your comments hit the nail on the head for me. Looking back at the Hoke era it's hard to hang a coaching hat on ANY victory. The big wins felt a lot more like the result of luck and/or individual player skill than any aspect of coaching.
Hoke's Michigan just doesn't feel like a program that is looking for ways to win. It feels like a program that is committed to doing things a certain way and assumes that this loyalty will lead to wins. Q: "How are you going to beat team X?" A: "By being Michigan."
September 12th, 2014 at 7:33 AM ^
September 11th, 2014 at 3:46 PM ^
who has a career losing record in college prior to being hired? I can't imagine it's very common.
September 11th, 2014 at 3:49 PM ^
September 11th, 2014 at 4:25 PM ^
This isn't a perfect comparison, but wasn't Kiffin a flameout in the NFL (and then Tennessee) and people kept hiring him?
Focusing on Hoke having a barely sub-.500 record after taking over a couple of bad programs and making them competitive feels near-sighted. Let's say he had stuck around at SDSU one more year, he would have probably had another winning record (maybe even 10+ wins), and then his career record would have been above .500 and we wouldn't have that talking point.
Hoke was never my favorite hire, but the guy didn't look like a trainwreck. He was mostly hurt by a couple of really bad years when he started at Ball St., and it's telling that both programs needed to go through some rather tough growing pains after he left to at least be competitive again. Hoke's tenure at UM has had many problems, but his record at crappy programs prior to that is pretty low on the list of reasons.
September 11th, 2014 at 4:30 PM ^
chizik
September 11th, 2014 at 7:48 PM ^
September 11th, 2014 at 8:19 PM ^
Even if you can justify the hiring (and I'm just playing devil's advocate) can you honestly draw much distinction between the end of Hoke's and RR's 3rd seasons? I know there are mitigating factors but they're probably a lot more similar than DB would like to admit.
One difference of course is RR bombed his first year, but what would have been RR's 4th year was a Hoke 1st year 11-2. In my mind to be credible Hoke has to duplicate that this year or we have a big problem.
September 11th, 2014 at 5:18 PM ^
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September 11th, 2014 at 10:46 PM ^
Ferentz is in his 16th year, Wilson is in his 4th year. Here's what I came up with, in order:
Iowa - Kirk Ferentz (16th)
NW - Pat Fitzgerald (10th)
MSU - Mark Dantonio (8th)
Neb - Bo Pelini (7th)
Minn - Jerry Kill (4th)
IU - Kevin Wilson (4th)
Maryland - Randy Edsall (4th)
tUOS - Urban Meyer (3rd)
Illlinois - Tim Beckman (3rd)
Rutgers - Kyle Flood (3rd)
Purdue - Darrell Hazell (2nd)
Wisconsin - Gary Anderson (2nd)
Penn State - James Franklin (1st)
September 12th, 2014 at 9:17 AM ^
That should be Hoke's team and that means Hoke owns the result good or bad.
Should he get time? How much is Michigan willing to pay? If it is Hoke (the devil I know) vs some middling MAC coach then I say keep him. If it means going after some coach that is a great assistant (maybe Smart the DC at Bama) or a coach that has had success (the crowd favorite is Harbaugh) then let's write those big checks necessary.