Dave Brandon statement of support for Hoke
http://www.mgoblue.com/sports/brandon/spec-rel/112713aaa.html
Also strong support for Mattison. No mention of Borges.
November 27th, 2013 at 11:41 PM ^
Urban had a clause in his contract ALWAYS that if the OSU job came open he could leave to fill it? How is that not DNA?
November 28th, 2013 at 12:20 AM ^
Did you know his clause also mentioned Michigan.
November 28th, 2013 at 12:21 AM ^
Wasn't Notre Dame his dream job?
November 28th, 2013 at 12:24 AM ^
See if you can figure out who the young grad assistant is in this picture...
November 27th, 2013 at 10:10 PM ^
It's sad that you cannot stop trashing Rich Rod. We get it, you think he was terrible. (For what its worth, his impotent offense in year three was far more effective than the current one.). He's not the cause of every problem the program is currently dealing with. Enough already.
November 27th, 2013 at 10:15 PM ^
Whoops. That comment was supposed to respond to one of SQ's.
November 27th, 2013 at 9:16 PM ^
That tells me Borges is gone unless they win the next two. It also tells me unfortunately that DB is going to ride out Hoke until the whole thing collapses and the next coach will have to start all over
November 27th, 2013 at 9:42 PM ^
They largely are a disciplined bunch that plays hard and plays clean. I don't understand the anti-Hoke feelings. Certainly there are aspects that need to be improved(offense), but his teams are much better then why RR gave us in two of the three aspects of the game.
November 27th, 2013 at 9:57 PM ^
The rest of the team is great IMO. (Really it's just the O line letting at least 1 guy in the backfield on every play)
The RR teams were shaky everywhere. If you don't remember every half decent play just looking lucky as hell, every punt or kick being received by M would most likely be dropped or fumbled. The D getting lit up everywhere. Guys on offense looking like they were running for their lives on every play. It's time you look em up on YouTube and realize where we were. He did that with Lloyd's recruits..... Hoke did this w RR recruits. People bitch about Where Hokes good recruiting is? The good class is true freshmen, the best class is in highschool & the other great class is 2015. That is why we haven't "seen it on the field" yet folks.
November 27th, 2013 at 10:01 PM ^
Exactly. Disciplined, clean teams that play hard. That says 8-4 or 9-3 not National Titles or even Rose Bowls. Outside of Stanford none of the top teams you would describe that way. DB needs to let go of this "michigan way" bullcrap and find a guy like Meyer with some of the SEC stink still on him. Need a guy thats going to lead some badass hoodlums that are going to fly around making plays and knock people out
November 27th, 2013 at 10:02 PM ^
So you're not the brightest... it'll be alright. The poor character thing though, that's tougher to overcome.
November 27th, 2013 at 10:07 PM ^
Lol have fun at 8-4
November 27th, 2013 at 11:04 PM ^
I'll take 8-4 with class if that is the trade-off. The day we have to start cheating to win is the day I stop following the school I spent 8 years at.
November 28th, 2013 at 1:03 AM ^
I never said "cheating" really. But yeah you pretty much sound like the perfect person for where this program is and is going
November 28th, 2013 at 1:30 AM ^
You're the guy who gives Walmart Wolverines their bad name?
November 27th, 2013 at 11:22 PM ^
I don't think you need the "SEC stink" on you. I think you need a type A coach ala Saban, Meyer, Harbaugh, Carrol to win big. Unfortunately, type A is almost always win at all costs, and now of days the cost is often bending the rules with payments or having criminal players.
Hoke's a good dude, a bit of a schematic dunce, and doesn't seem to have that killer competitive edge. He's pretty much a more hearty/ folksy less sophisticated version of Lloyd Carr. So yeah, 8-4 / 9-3 seems about right. Second fiddle to OSU for another decade is probable.
November 28th, 2013 at 9:17 AM ^
Lemme guess: you've never set foot inside a UM classroom, have you?
November 28th, 2013 at 10:09 AM ^
about college football players. Some of the best athletes are also really smart guys and really good guys. The idea that someone who plays fast and aggressive on the football field also needs to be a badass hoodlum is prejudicial and borders on the racist.
November 28th, 2013 at 10:15 AM ^
Also agreed. We often get the assumption around here that guys who play for programs like Michigan State are not that smart, but hard workers. This elides the fact that doing well in school takes hard work, and that often its the same basic drive for self-improvement that leads to excelling in the classroom and on the playing field.
November 28th, 2013 at 11:54 AM ^
How does it border on racist? Is it because white kids can't be hoodlums? If that is your insinuation, then that is the only moderately racist comment here.
For the record, the comment/poster you're referring to are pretty asinine, so I agree with your overall stance here.
November 28th, 2013 at 2:19 PM ^
But it shows up an awful lot in comments that are pretty clearly racist (for instance). I should have said somthing like, "you comments could be construed as racist".
But it's better that we not get into this. No politics, etc.
November 27th, 2013 at 9:52 PM ^
This is good news and bad news.
The bad news: Hoke is Brandon's guy and there is no way Brandon is ever going to admit a mistake on Hoke unless he starts having losing seasons.
The good news: Brandon cares about the bottom line a whole bunch. A bunch of 8-4 seasons won't bring in the attendence to finance Dave's big spending plans. So Brandon will help his guy Hoke be successful by "suggesting" changes to the coaching staff and throwing a bunch of money at whomever they pick.
November 27th, 2013 at 11:20 PM ^
If this is true, my fears are confirmed for having Jerry Jones as our athletic director.
I don't think it's good news that our head coach may be simply a pawn that DB has to manipulate.
November 27th, 2013 at 9:27 PM ^
This is just completely bizarre. Michigan has become a circus, starting with PT Brandon at the head.
November 27th, 2013 at 9:35 PM ^
UM is the New York Jets of college ball.
November 27th, 2013 at 10:02 PM ^
... but only by the historical standards we are accustomed to.
We live in a brave new world of social media. I think Brandon is responding to that. I don't mind that he is doing so. This is the age of Twitter and Facebook and blogs and hyperreactive recruiting sites.
Bo Schembechler would never have had any part of anything like this. But as I say, times have changed.
Like others, I am sensitive to the Kremlin-wall aspect of Brandon's trashing Rich Rodriguez by omission. And the startling telegraphing of no confidence in Al Borges. But hell, Brandon fired Rodriguez. Trashing him, by omission in a press release, is now pretty much inconsequential for Rich Rod. Coach Rod is trying to figure out how to beat a good Arizona State team in a rivalry game and get Arizona into the Top 20 and a good bowl game in just about forever. I don't think that Coach Rod has more than about 25 seconds to think about a Dave Brandon press release right now.
I agree with you, Bando. The depth and the detail and the snarkiness of this press release is just as you say; bizarre.
He might just as well have begun it, "Dear Jabrill..."
November 27th, 2013 at 10:45 PM ^
U know what? How u like the timing of peppers tweeting his other visits? Pretty rotten, no? I mean, if he loves michigan so much then u wait until season over
November 27th, 2013 at 10:04 PM ^
But I agree with section1 on this. Social media has changed all the rules, and you really have no choice but to respond.
November 27th, 2013 at 10:20 PM ^
Name me one athletic director in America who does all of the following:
1. Chestbumps players and waits to get an on-camera handshake with the head coach after wins.
2. Watches game film with coaches on Sunday morning, even if they don't want him there or find the exercise useful or convenient.
3. Takes to his blog to essentially personally respond to a recruit's tweet, in turn further insulting a former coach AND pretty much broadcasting he's going to fire the offensive coordinator three days before the Ohio State game. Not to mention coming off as someone who doesn't really understand football, yet really wants to make us believe he knows what he's doing.
I could go on. Yet the fact is Brandon is trying really hard to do all the things he thinks a manager needs to do, but he doesn't realize that these kind of Mickey Mouse tactics come off as cartoonish and amateur when you're working for one of America's most prestigious universities with an athletic tradition to match. This isn't pizza and junk mail. It's Michigan.
Yes, we live in a different world of social media. But you're telling me if someone with the integrity, class, and experience of Don Canham, Fritz Crisler, or Bo were dumped in this situation with Twitter and Facebook and Youtube, they'd come up with what Brandon put out there today? Would those guys hit send on a bizarre, half-baked MGoDiary post about Bama and Stanford?
We're Michigan. It's time our Athletic Director acted like it.
November 27th, 2013 at 10:31 PM ^
I'm pretty sure Mary Sue Coleman does all of those things - or at least No. 1 and No. 2.
It's possible that I've been misinformed, though.
November 27th, 2013 at 10:35 PM ^
Agree with all of this. No way to spin any of this a positive.
November 27th, 2013 at 10:48 PM ^
He's a strange, petty dude. This has been my very limited experience with him, anyway.
"A bizarre, half-baked MGoDiary post about Bama and Stanford" -- that's a perfect description.
November 28th, 2013 at 12:25 AM ^
To be fair, the NW AD looked pretty stupid at the end of regulation waving his arms underneath the goal post.
November 28th, 2013 at 2:26 AM ^
I guess I fail to see your point. Its a bad thing that the man in charge of funding our football and all non revenue sports is involved? I hate to break up a good anti DB circlejerk but really?
Oh my gawd this isn't Michigan, 1973 rabble rabble. Bullshit. Its bullshit.
November 28th, 2013 at 5:39 AM ^
In what sense do you mean Brandon doesn't understand football? He did play at a collegiate level, so it seems likely he has some knowledge base.
November 28th, 2013 at 8:53 AM ^
On Off the Field this week, Bacon recounted that he specifically talked to RR about Brandon watching game tape on Sundays. When asked how much Brandon actually knew about football, RR kind of just looked at him and said "about as much as the average fan." And left it at that.
Brandon was a benchwarmer on a series of Michigan football teams that pretty much didn't throw the ball (even less than most other Bo teams did, actually). He played three different positions over those years (including kicker) and played two actual snaps of game competition. He may have played football, but the football he played was a different universe than what we're looking at today. He never continued on in the game after 1973, either as a player or a coach. His "knowledge base" is pretty much relevant to running up the middle, in which case a 2013 Borges offense might be up his alley.
Plainly, Brandon watching game film is not being involved, it's being overbearing. Just because he played a pretty different form of football 40 years ago doesn't mean he automatically understands the far more complex offensive and defensive systems employed today, especially since he hasn't played or coached since. Him sitting there on Sunday mornings benefits pretty much no one. He would get just as much firing up his DVR.
November 28th, 2013 at 12:00 PM ^
So maybe he attends those film sessions to educate himself? Sure, he may be a total douche, but the reality is that nobody on this blog knows exactly why he's there or what he does when he's there.
November 28th, 2013 at 12:27 PM ^
With all of the coaches in the back row...
November 28th, 2013 at 12:47 PM ^
Good goddamn that's an incredible mental image.
November 28th, 2013 at 8:59 AM ^
That's another. Maybe he can multi task for Michigan as well.
November 27th, 2013 at 9:28 PM ^
". . . individuals who are spreading inaccurate rumors and saying inappropriate things about coachs, players and recruits don't know what's going on inside Schembechler Hall or on the practice field."
While I applaud Beandon for making a public statement of support for that beleaguered team, at the same Brandon does himself, nor the unversity, no favor with that Fort Schembechler bunker mentality. If he wants to head off inaccurate inofrmation or stop rumor mongering in today's world of unfiltered commnications he needs to loosen it up a little and provide some type of access to what is going besides pressors that are at best filled with platitudes and generalities.
If there are lingering hard feelings toward the Freep's flawed reporting, set up a pool reporter system, e.g. MLive, to have a semblance of control without a bunker mentality. It helps prevent media speculation while retain some semblance of information control without a bunker mentality. A bunker mentality is counter productive given today's democratized unfiltered communications tools.
All of people, Brandon should know that with a bunker mentality you allow people to say whatever they want and you lose the very control of the communications you seek, resulting in the scrambling to put out a statement like this evening's - either you tell your story and deliver your information or someone else will fill that void.
November 27th, 2013 at 9:33 PM ^
Because while losing 5 games is typically not the end of the world however, doing that while being dead last in all of college football in negative offensive plays is what has people up in arms. The higher ups have got to understand that.
November 27th, 2013 at 9:34 PM ^
We also know how to hold people accountable for the roles and responsibilities they have as part of the privilege for being a part of Michigan Football -- and we will.
November 27th, 2013 at 9:36 PM ^
Pretty please!
November 27th, 2013 at 9:56 PM ^
Yeah, that statement was not just an arbitrary choice of words. The rest of the statement was written like a Federal Reserve press release with everything parsed just so. That statement is no exception.
November 27th, 2013 at 10:02 PM ^
Did our AD just come out and make a statement about our coach in response to a tweet from one single recruit? Bo is rolling over in his grave for sure.
November 27th, 2013 at 10:05 PM ^
^^^^^^
This
November 28th, 2013 at 12:55 AM ^
is the next Woodson? In that case, I think his comments are extremely worthwhile.
November 28th, 2013 at 11:26 AM ^
didn't live in an era with twitter.
But let's pretend like that's irrelevant. Right.
November 27th, 2013 at 10:02 PM ^
What a clown. Never throw your own people under the bus, even those you had to let go. It just makes everyone else ready for the axe to fall on them.
Secondly, bluster is a sign of weakness. Demonstrate results and exhibit confidence.
Who exactly is supposed to be the audience of this sweat flop?