Marley Nowell

June 23rd, 2011 at 5:07 PM ^

Very fair and balanced report of what we should expect in the upcoming season.  I think too much has been made of Hoke's overall losing recored (Chizik was 5-19 at ISU) and he will benefit from RR's rebuiliding effort.

jmblue

June 23rd, 2011 at 5:15 PM ^

I agree that too much is being made of Hoke's record, but I don't think Chizik is the best analogy.  Chizik hadn't done anything to suggest that he'd make a good HC at Auburn.  Hoke's 2008 and 2010 seasons, OTOH, suggest that he can succeed here.   He has a losing career  record because his first few seasons as a head coach were poor, not because of what he's done recently.  Hoke was probably not ready for a head job when BSU offered him in 2003, given that he'd never been a coordinator, and his early record reflects this.  But he has since grown in stature as a coach.  

jmblue

June 23rd, 2011 at 5:43 PM ^

That's definitely true in the case of SDSU, where his initial 4-8 record was an improvement over the previous season.  But at BSU his first two seasons were actually worse than his predecessor's final two.  At that point his career record was 6-17, and his long-term outlook as a coach seemed grim.  But he seems to have learned from those two years, because the program improved each season thereafter.

 

yoopergoblue

June 23rd, 2011 at 8:18 PM ^

He took big shots at the Michigan fanbase for giving a shit about how the team performs.  Did he think that it would be taken lightly that we won five conference games in 3 years?  He seemed to imply that Rich Rod left the roster "stocked"  for Hoke which is far from true.  We may have more depth on the offensive side of the ball but on the defensive side of the ball he drove off a lot of players or seriously misjudged talent in recruiting.  He also only makes a small remark about how we are on probation for the first time in school history (football) currently.  Sure, it may have been blown way out of proportion but you don't have 12(!) grad assistants working for you and one lying for you to the NCAA. (same thing at WVU). It seems to me that this article could have been secretly sent to Doc Sat. from Brian about 3 months ago and finally posted today.  

gbdub

June 23rd, 2011 at 7:51 PM ^

The Florida win is irrelevant to the point Dr. Saturday is making, which is that for the most part fans were ready (not happy, per se, but ready) to see Carr go and the idea of a new-model coach was appealing to many. Basically, Rich Rod looked like a good hire in 2007-8.

The exact level of bareness of the cupboard in 2008 has been debated ad nauseum, but again you miss the point, which is this: the 2008 team had significantly less talent than the 2007 team and was probably not going to win as many games, regardless of the coach. Which, duh. The fanbase was more or less ready for this, but 3-9 was unbearably bad. Which, also duh.

Elmer

June 23rd, 2011 at 5:42 PM ^

That article is pretty much how I felt....5 months ago.  Dr. Saturday hasn't been paying close attention to the great start Hoke and staff have made. 

gbdub

June 23rd, 2011 at 7:43 PM ^

You're being unfair here. Hoke's great start has consisted primarily of 1) getting former players on board 2) hiring Mattison and 3) getting a great looking 2012 class started (definitely not in that order).

1 and 2 were mentioned by Doc Sat, and 3 is irrelevant to how Hoke will perform this year vis a vis Rich Rod, which was the main thrust of the article.

bluebyyou

June 23rd, 2011 at 6:14 PM ^

Most of the optimism I see regarding our D is predicated on better coaching, not the personnel which I feel to be at least a year removed from being close to where they need to be. He thought otherwise.

Section 1

June 23rd, 2011 at 8:26 PM ^

Just a rehash, really, of things we've all heard before.  I don't have any strong negative feelings toward Doc Saturday.  He does a pretty good job for the most part.

But his first line might have been the most interesting thing in the whole article, at least to me.  Matt writes:

There's not much left to write about Rich Rodriguez that hasn't been written many, many times over the last three years, and then written again.  

Someone might think that.  But in fact, I suspect that we are going to find out, fairly soon, that there is a whole book about Rich Rodriguez's three seasons with Michigan, that hadn't been written.  And that might be a very big meta-story when it is released this fall.

http://www.amazon.com/Three-Out-Rodriguez-Michigan-Wolverines/dp/0809094665/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1308875057&sr=1-1 

El Jeffe

June 24th, 2011 at 9:26 AM ^

To the people complaining about the redundancy of the article: you know Matt doesn't write for a Michigan sports blog, right? He writes for a national audience, and, hard as it may be to believe, there are one or two people in the nation who don't read MGoBlog religiously.

As to the substance of the article, I thought he made the same mistake that a lot of people have made on this here blog: namely, the 2008 OFFENSE was depleted and the 2005-2007 DEFENSIVE recruiting classes didn't have much in the way of people who panned out. So the problem with Carr wasn't leaving an empty defensive cupboard, because of Graham, Warren, etc., but that there were few 4th and 5th year players around when they naturally would have stepped in. Combine that with the absolutely disastrous defensive results in all facets under RR, and you have the recipe for some truly awful defenses, which, clearly spelled RR's doom.

The thing to remember always is that Oregon and Auburn did not have killer defenses last year (Oregon (34 in total defense) better than Auburn (60)). But even a marginally effective defense, combined with dilithium, would have led to more than a 7-6 season. The hope for this year, obviously, is that Mattison will coach the kids up to be marginally successful (say, between 50-70 nationally) and that Borges will be smart with Denard.