The Brady Bunch
Yost's latest at The M Zone is clutch, but in this comment, he says it like he means it.
My thoughts are that you, and Gerd and I don't know. We. Don't. Know. Am I going to say he's gonna come in and we're gonna compete for MNC each year? Of course not. But did a certain hiring in Cbus send shudders down anyone's spine 10 years ago?
I think most people were like "Jim who?" You're replacing a coach who consistently went 9-2 or 10-1 (albeit that "1" was against us) with a [D-1AA]coach. And then he gave that speech about being proud of the team in A2 in 300+ days and you could almost hear the laughs coming from A2.
And Auburn fans showed up AT THE AIRPORT to boo Gene Chizik when they hired the 5-19 - f'ing 5-19! - Iowa State coach to replace Tommy Tuberville. Chip Kelly was an OC at New Hampshire two years before taking over at Oregon.
So, I don't know, you don't know and all the people ripping on the guy before he even comes out of the tunnel to coach his first game don't know. Give the man a chance.
All this shit about, "If Hoke were a former line coach somewhere else besides Mich, we wouldn't be taking about him." Bullshit. If Brady Hoke had been Jim Tressel's line coach when they won the NC, then went off and turned Ball State - f'ing Ball State - into a 12-1 squad, then left there and went to SDSU and had them at 9-4 with their first bowl win since before the Tet Offensive, those same naysayers would be saying he could be the second coming of Bo.
I think the biggest problem is some folks have a problem with the fact that he was LLOYD'S line coach. This isn't so much about BH as it is about LC. Again, the animus toward a man who did nothing but win an NC and 6 B10 titles in 13 seasons at the helm is crazy.
Short of Harbaugh, no choice was going to totally unite the masses. But we got the "Harbaugh of his day" three years ago in RR. He was the can't miss choice. And that didn't work.
I find it especially ironic that folks most ripping Hoke before he coaches his first game were the ones urging patience and a 4th year for Rich Rod.
So if Hoke is 7-6 in his third year, after getting smoked by 20, 30, and 38 points in his last three games and against anybody with a pulse. And if squeaks by the shit teams like PU and IU. And if he fields the worst three defenses (or offenses) in the HISTORY OF THE PROGRAM, then let's talk about him not working out.
Until then, give the poor man a chance to at least run under the damn banner to the fight song before lamenting the choice.
Co-signed. Now quit your bitchin' and get on board with The Hokester and The Brady Bunch.
January 12th, 2011 at 12:07 PM ^
however, none the less, Hoke is going to be great! Because it is our time again to rise! Trust in Hoke...He will get it done. This guy is awesome! We should be really excited! May take some time, but you will see the players will love him! A good young team with tons of talent is what this guy needs to start out!
January 12th, 2011 at 12:27 PM ^
However, I am also extremely annoyed with many aspects of his hiring and the reaction towards it.
1. Suddenly, complete and total support is necessary for Michigan football to succeed according to the local media, national media and fans. Where was this mindset from Day One of the Rich Rodriguez era?
2. If 7-6 wasn't good enough, 8-5 really couldn't have been that much better, so why did we have to wait over a month to receive a decision that more than likely destroyed recruiting for the 2011 season?
3. We gave up on a coach who was going to have his first season with stability on both sides of the depth chart and who happened to be the perfect coach for our electrifying young quarterback.
4. The uneasy dread that Brady Hoke MIGHT - and I hope not - be Lloyd Carr 2.0, only in a Windows Vista kind of way and actually be an inferior version of Lloyd Carr. Is this really what we want? I know that Lloyd Carr won a national title, but think about this: since Tressel won a NT in 2002, no Big Ten team - playing BIG TEN GRIDIRON MANBALL, THE BEST FOOTBALL IN THE WORLD - has even come close to winning a championship. And yet, there are Oregon and Auburn running the table and competing for a title with offenses that look suspiciously like RR's.
5. As was stated on the front page, if most of the team stays together and we go 9-3...how is that any different than what would have happened if we'd stayed with RR and simply broke the bank for a new DC who would have more authority on how the defense was run?
6. What were this year's team's problems? On offense, I noticed two: Denard's decision-making (he's young) and the lack of a running back to take some of the run game pressure off Denard. So RR goes out and gets Dee Hart and if Denard even comes close to the progress he made this year, he will have improved his decision-making. We needed a kicker? RR goes out and get's Matt Goudis. The defense? RR recruited the DB pretty well. We had guys like Zettel and Frost lined up, who by all accounts, left because of the CC controversy. If DB does a "national search" for a DC, by all accounts, every weakness of this Michigan team would have been answered. Yet DB would rather listen to what OSU and MSU fans, ESPN and the freep, SI, MSN, etc. were saying and simply get rid of the guy, rather than giving him a chance to fix the problems.
To me, Brady Hoke's hiring was simply a lesson that even if you are a CEO of a multi-billion dollar company, peer pressure still exists. I want BH to succeed. I want him to be the best coach Michigan has ever had and I will support him as long as he has the job. But I will always have a chip on my shoulder when it comes to the people who did not give RR a proper chance to succeed.
January 12th, 2011 at 12:12 PM ^
but Devin Gardner tweeted yesterday "i'm gone". Anyone know any specifics? Will we really find anything out for at least a couple of weeks.
January 12th, 2011 at 12:22 PM ^
...his reaction to watching "The Game". Context is important.
January 12th, 2011 at 12:33 PM ^
I'm not too familiar with Twitter, I wasn't sure what the context was at all.
January 12th, 2011 at 12:13 PM ^
You can't judge a coaching hire by how the coach turned out, because there's just so much variance involved. All you can judge it on is the information available to the relevant parties at the time, the other available candidates, and the coach's resume.
Gene Chizik was a bad hire. His resume did not suggest that he would be a successful head coach at Auburn. That he has won a national championship does not change that he was a bad hire, it just means that sometimes teams get lucky, and that Auburn got lucky (and got Gus Malzahn, which we're not doing).
Brady Hoke is a bad hire for the same reason. If you run a million trials with "guy with Brady Hoke's resume at head coach", you will not be happy with the results. Could Michigan get lucky and have Brady Hoke turn out awesome? Sure, but they'll be getting lucky, and that means this was a big bucket of fail.
p.s., no one (well, no one with a brain) is actively rooting against Brady Hoke or hoping he fails. They're just pissed off at the process that led to Brady Hoke as the head coach, and the AD that thought that was somehow a +EV play.
January 12th, 2011 at 12:38 PM ^
It is silly to say that luck is what makes a "bad hire" seem good. So Bill Belichick was a "bad hire" and he's lucky? Same with Pete Carroll (who was USC's 4th choice)? Same with Jim Tressel (who was also down OSU's list)? And Chip Kelly?
I'm sorry, but this is just you grasping at straws to find reasons to hate this hire. This is your way of never having to admit being wrong if Hoke does eventually succeed. Because it is illogical to say these coaches succeeded because of luck. An evaluator of talent is supposed to see potential. This is all very idiotic.
January 12th, 2011 at 12:43 PM ^
I'm not saying that Gene Chizik is lucky. I'm saying that Auburn is lucky that a guy with Gene Chizik's resume ended up being a successful coach.
January 12th, 2011 at 12:58 PM ^
And I disagree with it. Obviously they saw something in him that they thought would lead to success. That's why I provided other examples of guys with less than stellar resumes that had amazing success. I still think you're setting this up so that you will always be "right" about the Brady Hoke hire and that is ridiculous.
January 12th, 2011 at 1:15 PM ^
I promise you that scouts and ADs have "seen something different" in numerous players and coaches who have failed miserably. Luck is a part of this stuff. It's hard to predict how a coach will do coming from one environment to another, and there's inherent variance in the entire enterprise. It's just a question of how high a probability any coach will give you. Hiring a guy with Nick Saban's resume is insanely high probability, hiring a guy with GERG's is insanely low. Rich Rod's was higher than Hoke's, and it's entirely possible that Hoke will be far more successful than Rich Rod was. But that's why you have to look at the bigger picture and ask "how likely is it that a guy with this resume will succeed?" It's why Robert Gallery was a fantastic pick even though he was a bit of a bust, and why bad coaching hires sometimes work out.
January 12th, 2011 at 12:40 PM ^
As much as I hate people saying he could be the next Gene Chizik, saying that Gene Chizik is a bad hire is being ignorant for the sake of argument. He was the guy in charge of their defense for several years, including their 13-0 run. He left to attempt to turn around a bad program and they brought him back before he had a chance to show anything for his efforts. They were half decent squad this year, so you have to assume that he was at least on the right track with them.
You don't get brownie points for hiring a coach with a great record, who tanks at your school. You get them for hiring a coach that succeeds no matter what he did before he came.
January 12th, 2011 at 12:44 PM ^
you get brownie points for hiring a coach who gives your team the highest probability of succeeding.
January 12th, 2011 at 1:03 PM ^
'If you run a million trials with "guy with Brady Hoke's resume at head coach", you will not be happy with the results.'
Nice work -- I very much agree with that. Yes, Hoke is a good guy and he might succeed here. The measurables don't look great, though.
- - -
Comment on the original article: I disagree with the author. Hoke's Michigan background got him in the door. In terms of accomplishments, he lags behind most other coaches that were mentioned as candidates for the job.
January 12th, 2011 at 12:13 PM ^
Word
I offer the same words to people bitching, moaning and such today as I did to the rich haters, player haters, booing douchebags and this is unacceptable crowd of the last three years while we were trying to rebuild and recraft our roster.
GTFO. Leave and find a new team if this somehow embarasses or shames you. We'll let you know when its safe to come back.
We just hired a coach who is 30-19 the last 4 years at programs that have been nothing but bottom feeders during my life as a fan.
He's a great coach, more than qualified for this job and will do fine here.
Support him and the team or just find a new team to pull for.
January 12th, 2011 at 12:33 PM ^
...jamiemac and I are in concordance.
January 12th, 2011 at 12:13 PM ^
A Mother F'ing Men! Back off and let the man put together a staff and salvage this small recruiting class before you throw him off the bridge! Z
January 12th, 2011 at 12:15 PM ^
This post got me fired up a little bit. I will admit, I wasnt thrilled with the hire but the more I read the more Im starting to warm up to him. He is a complete 180 from RR in terms of knowing the Michigan traditions and what not. I still think RR got a raw deal but I guess it is nice to see former players/alumns all backing BH. This is something that was lacking the last 3 years and whether you want to believe it or not, it did hurt the program. Anyways, BH will give 100% to making Michigan get back on top, so lets all support him. Go Blue!
January 12th, 2011 at 12:16 PM ^
I won't start another thread but:
Denard meeting Hoke. I can't embed this.
January 12th, 2011 at 12:24 PM ^
Please let that smile mean he's staying. And please let Hoke's mean he's going to continue to unleash Denard on the world.
January 12th, 2011 at 12:35 PM ^
Denard's smile lives!!!! Thank you so much for posting.
January 12th, 2011 at 12:56 PM ^
that doesn't look like he is sporting dreads. Please be a bad picture!
January 12th, 2011 at 12:20 PM ^
Could be next Bo or Tressel.
Can't do much worse that the last 3.
January 12th, 2011 at 12:30 PM ^
I'm one of those who hated the treatment of RR, one of the skeptics about Hoke, only because I didn't really know much about him except what I read from others. But (forgive me for repeating myself from another post) I'm feeling much better this morning, now that I've read more about him, his coaching ability (as reported by former players, not statisticians who only note his W/L records without understanding where those records occurred and what background "drama" was going on [sound familiar?]), and personal qualities (as reported by everybody).
And knowing that he was the D-line coach at a time when Michigan's defense was still solid and feared makes me feel that wavering and/or potential D recruits-- once they know this, and not just that he's an anonymous small-school guy-- might make the smarter ones think it might be good to come and learn from him (and his hires). There's nothing sure about him being able to bring his brother with him, but wouldn't it be tempting for our young DBs and DBs-to-come to work with the DB coach from the Bears? I seem to remember they're in the playoffs now...
I didn't know who else was out there, but it seemed clear, even before Brandon's recent quotes, that JH's ambition was going to take him to the NFL, if not now then certainly soon, and I'm so glad that we're not going with someone with a more obvious big-time winning record but questionable ethics.
I will always wish RR the best, and hope he forgives the rotten treatment he got here. But that isn't inconsistent with joining the Brady Bunch. Count me in.
January 12th, 2011 at 12:34 PM ^
straw man, to say that people hate Lloyd Carr and that's what this is about. The idea that people dislike Lloyd in general is an invention, and results from people being unable to separate criticizing Lloyd's recruiting at the end of his tenure from actual criticism of the man himself.
I know of very few real Michigan fans who don't think Lloyd was one of the most unique and greatest of men to ever be a head football coach. And it's a positive if the next coach gets Lloyd's approval, because it means the guy is a good person.
The criticism of hiring Hoke has NOTHING to do with Lloyd Carr. It has to do with a losing record and a lack of track record of success.
I am cautiously optimistic but it's a little silly how people are so blind in their support that they don't acknowledge what are indisputable flaws in Hoke's resume.
January 12th, 2011 at 12:37 PM ^
I was a big, big RR fan and wished for him to get a fourth year. I am not one of those who believe Hoke is a bad hire. Actually, I think, given some of the names out there, that Hoke is the BEST hire UM could have made, even over Harbaugh.
Being somehow related, football-wise, to Carr is seen as cronyism amongst many of the UM faithful. Some call this Carr's hire. I don't give a crap, personally. Carr engineered some of the best UM teams since I've been watching cfb. And remember a guy named Fred Jackson? Everyone loves him and most want to see him rehired as RB coach under Hoke, and he is a longtime remnant of Carr's coaching legacy, yet no one claims any sort of cronysim where Fred is concerned.
Hoke's SDSU team this year was hardly the "three yards and a cloud of dust" offense that many fans think he will bring back to UM. And guess what? The engineer of that SDSU offense is widely rumored to be coming with Hoke to UM. I see more of an Alabama or 2010 Stanford type offense coming to UM, which isn't a bad thing, IMO. And I believe they know who Denard is, and his potential, even if it is at another position, and will do everything they can to retain Denard's services at UM.
I love the hire and wish fall was already here.
January 12th, 2011 at 12:54 PM ^
The Tet Offensive was in '68, just sayin'.
January 12th, 2011 at 12:59 PM ^
I will be the first to tell you that I absolutely hated this hire for these reasons:
1. Wanted Harbaugh, then we missed.
2. Wanted Miles, then felt we missed (again).
3. Felt like Desmond Howard felt when Hoke name was mentioned by Kirk..."Hoke? Where'd that come from."
4. I don't know much about Hoke, even though I live in Indy (not too far from Ball State) and remember the talk about the BSU run some years ago.
Now that I've had a chance to check out the only game that seems to be on the internet (Poinsetta Bowl), I've really warmed up to our new coach and am excited about seeing a full utilization of all of our talent. If you don't like the guy, it's probably because of one of the reasons mentioned above and you really need to at least check out the bowl game.
I was a huge RR supporter and wanted a 4th year for him. Other than the defense, the only criticism I had off RR is that Denard was being used in a way that no QB should be used...that is he was being ran too many times. I've been playing football since the age of 3 and I know that being hit like that play after play will eventually catch up to you. I do not believe a qb should run the ball 29 times in a game and I cringed everytime Denard would get hurt because one injury could be your career. I'm sure someone talked to him about this before, so he might be more welcoming to the fact that he don't have to be utilized like he was last year. Also, I'm anxious to see how our receivers (who are a solid group) will perform in our new offense.
Go Team, Go Coach Hoke, and GO BLUE!!!
January 12th, 2011 at 1:06 PM ^
I'm amazed at the negative opinions and nasty speculation already from some so far. So much criticism from supposed fans sitting behind their screens with no clue about what it takes to do this job. We all like to give our opinions and want them heard and recognized, but let's just sit back, watch what the guy does, and go from there. Say what you want but please show some respect for the guy and the job he needs to get done. WE WANT HIM TO SUCCEED. Let's get pumped up and all be recruiters. How many recruits have read the negativity floating on the blogs, etc. and say the hell with that school.
GET BEHIND THE MAN AND CHEER ON THE MAIZE AND BLUE. If things don't go so well, life goes on. Other programs have been through a down period (USC, Florida) and look what happened there. Don't fret. We'll be back!!