Harsh but true: The Week That Was
The o-zone doesn't mince words trying to depict reality from the other side of delusion, but two of their main points are worth considering.
http://www.the-ozone.net/football/2011/weekthatwas_11_01_26.html
First:
Basically, Hoke is getting the treatment that they wish Rodriguez had gotten and now they're super-mad that their new coach is finally getting the one thing that they wish their old coach had gotten. Does that make any sense to you?
There's been an awful lot of pessimism in Brian's posts of late, even when the rest of us are pretty happy with the way things have been going. The man's entitled to his grief, but it'd be nice to see him not still chained to the tree stump.
Second:
The other thing I've noticed with the new hire is that Michigan fans have become better talent evaluators since Rich Rodriguez left. They used to love his middling recruiting commitments. Now that Hoke has come to power, a three-star kid just doesn't get them as fluttery as it used to.
This is a bigger issue. Tim's recent Hello posts have been served with a lot of salt. Some of the posts call our new recruits mediocre, in more or less words. Even if they aren't the flashiest recruits, it's a harsh attitude to take toward kids whose commitments are saving this year's recruiting class. I only hope they don't end up reading past years' posts and wonder why their "ball skills" aren't being described with the same gusto.
January 29th, 2011 at 9:17 AM ^
Christallmighty, Tim's posts have been very fair and describe the recruits beased on the available data: offeres and rankings. They are what they are and descirbing them WITHOUT blowing smoke and WITH objectivity are what makes this a reasonable outlet in an unreasonable medium.
I'm done reading Beaver fellate the latest Cass Tech superstar. Give me objective analysis.
January 29th, 2011 at 9:22 AM ^
Which Michigan fans is he talking about? I don't remember going bonkers over a 3* recruit just because RR was our coach. Maybe those folks on MLive or something.
January 29th, 2011 at 10:00 AM ^
He meant it the other way around, that we were happy with what we got under RR, but now that Hoke is in town we're not happy, oh no precious, not happy at all with 3 star sorts.
I don't agree with it, but I think that's what the OP meant.
Edit: unless by "bonkers" you mean giddy or whatever, in that case disregard my reply.
January 29th, 2011 at 12:56 PM ^
was a signifcant and loud presence for a while under Rich whereas we're just happy to be filling out a class now. a lot of that is pretty reasonable given the terrible position Brandon put Hoke in.
January 29th, 2011 at 3:07 PM ^
And now I'll slink back to mom's basement! :)
January 29th, 2011 at 11:25 AM ^
Agreed. Maybe some people were loving the three stars and claiming they were perfect for the system and thus undervalued in the rankings, but I haven't noticed much of a change. If anything, I think most people I've talked to have just been happy we're filling out this class.
January 29th, 2011 at 11:56 AM ^
That was a classic case of creating a strawman to support the author's argument. Yeah, there are a couple of sleepers in every class that fans might overrate, but I distinctly remember the 3* mafia under RR bursting anyone's bubble who might be high on a ninja slot kid.
January 29th, 2011 at 4:30 PM ^
...a good number of people on here treated RR's two and three stars and guys not yet evaluated (Carvin Johnson comes to mind) like sleepers and that RR was finding diamonds in the rough. I think people thought because he was successful without monster recruiting classes at WVU that he had a knack for seeing things in guys that others didn't see.
While I think the beauty of his offense is that it puts guys in position to maximize their talents, it's hard to conclude that RR could find sleepers better than other coaches, especially on defense.
January 29th, 2011 at 9:23 AM ^
+1, sir.
January 29th, 2011 at 9:31 AM ^
I'm sure there are plenty of fair and balanced sources of Michigan information for OZone and their followers to view.
January 29th, 2011 at 9:33 AM ^
Please, stop worrying about how people are reacting to people's reactions about their reactions. Can we just talk about football now?
January 29th, 2011 at 2:31 PM ^
+ 1 for you sir, my sentiments exaactly.
January 29th, 2011 at 9:36 AM ^
January 29th, 2011 at 10:13 AM ^
will be a very good player. hope he makes it back to a2.
January 29th, 2011 at 11:23 AM ^
January 29th, 2011 at 1:01 PM ^
The board went into complete meltdown mode over Carvin. And Vinopal and his alleged "stumpy" legs.
January 29th, 2011 at 1:11 PM ^
But for the sake of the discussion, I think people should make a distinction between the opinion of the board and the editorial tone of Tim and Brian on the front page (hell, people should be aware of potential differences between Brian and Tim, too.)
That is all. Proceed.
January 29th, 2011 at 9:48 AM ^
This is the lamest thing in the world. If you don't like it here, don't want to read what's written, have a problem with the level of whatever. Then please, for the love of GOD,
GET.
THE.
FUCK.
OUT.
Let's talk Michigan athletics again.
January 29th, 2011 at 9:58 AM ^
Believe me, I've tried. I try every day. But there's a thing called addiction that comes in the form of "refresh."
January 29th, 2011 at 9:55 AM ^
Coach Rod recruited his 3 star guys with the whole recruiting season to go; it's easier to think time was spent looking at a guy before he was offered. Coach Hoke is up against it time wise; he just got here, he's just getting his staff together, and he's just starting on the recruiting trail as Michigan's HC. How much time could the staff possibly spend looking at guys? Some of the guys being recruited we haven't heard of in these parts; it's like they are coming out of the woodwork. We're getting guys who were on board elsewhere. It feels rushed and desperate and we're getting whomever we can get.
I'm not complaining, actually I think the staff has done a bang up job getting who they've gotten, but it's easy to feel the staff is just getting guys who other big time programs weren't interested in, or middling guys who are happy to jump ship from a lesser program to us. Considering the situation, I give the staff high marks; there is no way you could assemble a solid class given the circumstances.
January 29th, 2011 at 10:14 AM ^
Exactly...a couple of weeks ago, many of us wondered if we would field a recruiting class with a dozen members. Now, we may fill all of our slots and have a top 25 class. While that may not sit well with how we do historically, it is a hell of a lot better than many of us anticipated.
While we are on the subject, check this Adam Rittenberg piece about recruiting and the all-Big Ten selections.
http://espn.go.com/blog/
January 29th, 2011 at 10:03 AM ^
The article is mostly right. The surest way to get bombarded on here was to criticize a Rodriguez recruit or generally Coach Rodriguez. The site was also often using numbers in a way that was too nerdy considering the obviousness of what was happening competitively against good teams. Worst of all the site was unfairly attacking people who started to look at the necessity of changing coaches openly, as being disloyal or less intelligent.
That was a bad environment. Still this is the best resource for following Michigan sports on the internet. With content of such high quality, people can say what they want and it is fine.
Atthrall is even more right that ultimately it doesn't matter. We are all interested in the teams and seeing them improve. That binds us.
Rodriguez can have all the credit anyone wants to bestow on him if we are winning and I'll go along with it. Winning irons out all the arguments.
January 29th, 2011 at 10:23 AM ^
A lot of that hostility came from when people bailed on Rodriguez as soon as he was hired just because they didn't like him.
People got used to cutting down the naysayers early in his tenure, and it never stopped even when there were legitimate complaints.
January 29th, 2011 at 11:42 AM ^
Bullshit. I've posted plenty of comments over the last year criticizing RR's handling of his staff, certain aspects of in-game decision making, personnel decisions, and I can't think of a single comment that has drawn any amount of negging. Not that I would give a damn if it happened, but I read the responses, if any, to my comments.
What I haven't done is dredge up the same old bullshit about driving Boren or Mallett off, shredding documents, being "bad with the media," recruiting "bad kids," or not caring about the welfare of the players, or not being "a Michigan Man." It's that asinine stuff that has drawn the "bombardment" you refer to. If people would simply keep their criticisms to issues that have a basis in fact, very little bombardment would ensue.
That doesn't mean that I agree with all of Brian's comments about Hoke; I think he's been unnecessarily harsh or dismissive in many of them. I don't think there is a single concrete thing that Hoke can be criticized for thus far in his tenure, and I don't share Brian's pessimism about Hoke's basic abilities as a football coach. I would argue strongly that Hoke's first major staffing decision—hiring Greg Mattison—was not just a home run, but a bottom-of-the-ninth grand slam when you're down by 3 runs, and was exactly the kind of hire RR should have made either in 2008 or in 2009 after he fired Shafer, and that his failure to discern the true nature of Robinson's abilities, or lack thereof, doomed him.
RR was the victim of a huge amount of dishonest reporting and unfair treatment, but ultimately that's not what led to his firing. It was the record of his teams that did him in, and that's on him.The collective tongue-bathing administered by the local media to Hoke is in sharp, stark contrast to what RR received before he'd coached a single game, but that's not Hoke's fault, and RR supporters have to let it go, or become horribly bitter. I've opted for the former.
January 29th, 2011 at 12:23 PM ^
Harbaugh, I really thought firing Rodriguez was the wrong decision. But over these past fews weeks I've come around. And not just because of the Mattison hire plus our surprising success in recruiting down the stretch. The main reason I've come around is because I think RR had reached a point where he simply likely wasn't going to succeed. He dug himself a hole with the Greg Robinson hire and the media and fanbase all but ensured that hole was too deep for him to climb out. The man was fighting upstream from the day he got here and I don't think that was going to change next year. There's no way he would have convinced a Mattison type hire to come here for potentially one year, and then the whole offseason/2011 season would be the same "will this be Rodriguez's last year?".
So, in contrast to the incredible negativity surrounding RR, the Hoke hire has been completely refreshing. Maybe it wasn't the splash Harbaugh would have been but it frankly just feels good to be starting anew.
January 29th, 2011 at 1:56 PM ^
+1, very well said.
One thing I will say whas that the "bad with the media" thing was really compounded by the way he carries himself and a lot of the media being "after" him. I think he just has a different way of interacting with the media and a lot of people didn't understand that. Instead of using "coach speak" he'd say something that we all were thinking. The problem is the media would jump all over it.
All in all, it's really frustarting RichRod never got this treatment, but it's over.
January 29th, 2011 at 10:08 AM ^
January 29th, 2011 at 12:04 PM ^
I agree completely. In 3 weeks we know little of what he and this staff are capable of doing. Time will tell and I am still of the opinion that it takes 4 years for a coach to take total ownership of a program. RR didn't get this opportunity, I hope for Hoke's sake as well as all of our's, that he is given a fair chance.
January 29th, 2011 at 11:45 AM ^
In my support for RR. As far as criticizing a recruit, I just don't see the logic in it. Many of the best players are three or less stars and they are all still kids. However, I believe that Tim is very objective and fair in his assessments and gives the points of view of various outlets. Is this Mr. Carter or Mr. Heitzman?
I also support Hoke, and I'm impressed with what he has done so far. It is just hard for me to ever not support Michigan. The closest I think I ever was were the Brian Ellerbe years and maybe the last few years of Lloyd...
January 29th, 2011 at 11:20 AM ^
O-zone comes across as someone that is looking from the outside and doesn't really know all the details of what he is talking about---probably because that is exactly what he is. Really comparing the start of Hoke's tenure to the start of RR? Night and day difference. Let's move on. Next?
January 29th, 2011 at 11:26 AM ^
has always come with a healthy dose of acerbity and a good dollop of healthy skepticism. Rodriguez was looking for a different kind of kid at times, and that's what made it fun. Hoke's recruits will be measured on tried and true--even staid--principles; that's how it is. You wanted man-ball, now live by the man-ball measuring stick (ick!).
If Brians's comments include a dash of vitriol now, I am with him. The process sucked.
What your post boils down to: get on the homer train, Bri (or else). Instead, I say: hold steady, Bri. And let's see whether Hoke measures up. He's here and he cares about the kids, like Rod did, so that's one great sign, even if we're back to boring football.
January 29th, 2011 at 1:18 PM ^
January 29th, 2011 at 3:55 PM ^
Or making FGs instead of attempting to convert on 4th and 6's from the opponent's 25-yard line.
January 29th, 2011 at 11:29 AM ^
We are all Michigan fans.
I like Rich Rodriguez and wish him the best. He is a great coach.
I like Brady Hoke and believe he can build on the team Rich built.
I'm going to leave it there.
January 29th, 2011 at 11:54 AM ^
Oh noes, an OSU blog with little knowledge of the program beyond what they read on ESPN thinks honest questioning about the HC choice is tantamount to zealotry for RR! Thank goodness they are around to point out reality.
While the entire post is poorly argued, I do take specific issue with the notion that "well, the whole UM AD staff loves it, as do the casual fans and media, so you must be a hater if you disagree" is somehow a valid argument. The AD has a huge incentive to, you know, crow about the guy he just hired, and the media, after running out one guy, pretty much got what they always wanted in Hoke and are always going to pump up the new guy for at least a bit. Sure, Brian and others might have been a bit harsh at times with Hoke, but that does not mean the complains lacked all merit just because a loud herd of people thought it was a good move for the past, oh, 3 weeks.
Frankly, I still think RR got the raw end of the deal with his coaching situation, and I am still not sold on Hoke as a coach and recruiter. I am DEFINITELY sold on Mattison as a DC/recruiter and would have loved in RR had him instead of GERG these past two years. I fully support Hoke as the HC and want him to succeed, but there is a difference between being negative and being pragmatic, and if Hoke goes 7-6 this year with some embarrassing losses, I expect that he'll receive the same vitriol people directed at RR. I don't think he'll struggle nearly as much because this team is light-years ahead of 2008, but as the year progresses I think people will forget the foundation laid by RR and how Brandon's mishandling of this situation put both coaching staffs in tough spots, and I for one think that is a disservice to the efforts put in by RR and how badly this whole transition was handled.
January 29th, 2011 at 12:00 PM ^
Dumb : Dumber :: Detroit Free Press : Ozone
January 29th, 2011 at 12:25 PM ^
Posts that are well reasoned, thoughtful, funny, informative, and challenge stereotypical thinking are the reason that I check out mgoblue every day. Brian's posts clearly meet all of the above satndards as do many of those of you who post here regularly. We should hold ourselves and those who post here to those standards and gently educate those who fail. I post little, read much and personally neg bang only the serial offenders. Go Blue and MGo Blue.
January 29th, 2011 at 3:58 PM ^
It's tough to neg when you have <100 points.
Also this is MGoBlog. MGoBlue is the official athletic site.
January 29th, 2011 at 12:40 PM ^
It's funny that RR's biggest complaint about this is still the order of the day-- too much drama. We've got diiferent factions with powerful voices acting as if it's their opinion that is what's important in all of this.
Is it the team, the team, the team or the the talk, the talk, the talk (i.e. the blog, talk radio, scout, rivals... and on and on). I'm no better than anyone, I'm drinking it all in because I'm obsessed with Michigan Football.
RR worked his tail off, he made some great choices and some poor one's. The team faltered. We're looking for the best shot at team success. We move on.
Hoke has got support that RR never had-- good for the TEAM. (I feel bad for RR, he seemed to me to be a good guy and a good coach-- but my feelings don't mean shit in this.) We're talking about student athletes, the University of Michigan, and the pursuit of excellence.
I look at this blog as an outlet for my passion. I think Brian has it difficult, when you make your hobby your job, you tend to compromise in ways that you don't expect. He's a fan that is trying to be objective, that can be hard. I don't have that problem, I'm just a fan. I look for all the positives I can, I expect Michigan to win every game, and I am completely untrustworthy in terms of objectivity about the team.
The drama can be fun for some in a soap opera kind of way, but I agree that the real fun is in talking about the sports-- the S & C coach building mental toughness, Hoke realing in last minute recuits, NFL winners coming to coach Michigan because it's Michigan.
We've got a lot of good things going on that are going to help the young men on this team succeed, and I can have a small chunk of my brain live vicariously through them. And we just beat Sprty in hoops. Life is good. Drama is a sideshow.
January 29th, 2011 at 12:44 PM ^
Reading the Hello posts, I got no sense that Tim was being harsh. This might be a case of self fulfilling prophecy for the OP.
January 29th, 2011 at 12:50 PM ^
I think that in several cases the Hello Posts were drafted before the CC. (Granted that is likely not the case for some of the "new" prospects.)
Hard to say he's not being objective, it's a pretty straight forward outline.
January 29th, 2011 at 1:27 PM ^
You posting this is the biggest problem I noticed during the RR era. Rather than support the coach, you decided it would be better to listen to MSU and OSU fans opinions that "DICK rod SUX". Every time anything went wrong, half of the UM fans might as well have thrown on Green and White or Scarlet and Grey.
I'm happy with Hoke so far. He's done a very good job. But it raises an eyebrow to see people gushing over him because he gave a good press conference, as if this garaunteed 10-0 in the coming decades against OSU. Seriously? I think that got even more attention than his best move so far, which was the Mattison hire.
People's problems with Brian's posts is that he is being fair in evaluating the record of a lifetime 47-50 coach whose biggest accomplishment from what I can glean from DB is being a Michigan Man.
To sum up the last 3+ years:
Rich Rodriguez walked into a terrible situation - on a sheer personnel standpoint at a major program, the lack of talent was unheard of - and didn't handle it perfectly. He basically got to play with a JV squad on offense - his specialty - his first season. He made bad defensive hires. He never got a chance to play with a squad of his guys as upperclassmen. He never got a chance to coachwith a 2nd year starter at quarterback. He never had the luxury of stability. He probably had to go due to the fact that unless we went 14-0 next year, he was never going to have that stability. You could argue either way that his teams were progressing or regressing and whether this was the right choice or not.
Brady Hoke is now the coach. He gave a good press conference. He made a great DC hire in Greg Mattison. He has done a good job recruiting some solid players, while keeping some others that were on the fence. If he can bring in Cooper and get Fisher to recommit, that will raise my thinking of him even higher. He is walking into a team that will return 19-20 starters. He has a top ten offense at his disposal. His expectations next year, if he really was the best candidate, should be in line with RR's, which for me was a 9 win season.
What the idiot over at the OZONE failed to recognize - because as an OSU fan he doesnt have to - is that their circumstance, just in personnel upon take over, are vastly different. Therefore the bar is higher for Hoke. 6-6, 7-5 will not cut it with this team next year.
January 29th, 2011 at 2:54 PM ^
for posting this! You must be joking right? Really?
January 29th, 2011 at 3:12 PM ^
I liked RR but he didn't say the right things. As for recruiting Hoke came into a situation behind and has made the best of it, it's a unfair comparison.
January 29th, 2011 at 3:21 PM ^
This is frustating. Brian is not "super-mad" about this and saying he is is just a gross misrepresentation of the truth. He's pointing out the stark difference of the media and he's also frustrated as he has been for the last 3 years of pseudo-support from this institutions football powers that be. I'm sure he'll get over it.
The second point is not quite equally stupid. The man insinuates that we should have just been trusting the god damn star rankings (yes they are statistically significant) rather than looking at a 3-star prospect and thinking to ourselves if that's the kind of kid who can work in our offense. Now we are relatively neutral on the star rankings since we're running a pro-style where frankly the system considerations just don't need to come into play. Wow is that rocket science; let's thank Hoke for it.
It's hard to have words for some of the stuff you see sometimes.
January 29th, 2011 at 3:31 PM ^
Except that there isn't a stark difference between the way the media has treated Hoke and the way it treated RR in his first two months on the job. RR was hired in December 2007. If you go back through the archives of various local media outlets, you can't find a negative story on the guy until February 2008, when Boren announced his transfer. And even then the media coverage was generally very favorable to him for the rest of that offseason. It was the 3-9 campaign that got the wolves out.
January 29th, 2011 at 3:38 PM ^
January 29th, 2011 at 3:43 PM ^
Only in West Virginia. The Michigan press couldn't stop singing his praises. Michael Rosenberg (yes, that Michael Rosenberg) wrote this in his first column after the hiring: "Michigan didn't hire a good coach. Michigan hired a GREAT coach."
The idea that our local press was taking shots at the guy from the day he arrived is pure fantasy.
January 29th, 2011 at 3:52 PM ^
All three leaving were announced at once and there were definitely some rolling eyes articles about RR, as in, does he know what he's doing kind of stuff. And that was early Jan, 2008.
January 29th, 2011 at 7:34 PM ^
It's a fucking Buckeye blog. Why on earth would the OP or anyone with a shred of common sense expect to find any "truth" about Michigan there?
OSU fans are quicker than anyone to turn on their own coaches and players, and they expect Michigan fans to do the same. And of course, they project their wishful thinking onto Michigan, because they know that the current imbalance in the rivalry can't last forever, or even long enough for them to break even in football.
As for his insults to the "mgocommunity," he is jealous because his piece of shit blog is a fetid dishrag compared to Mgoblog. If anyone finds any "truth" in that blog, maybe he or she is better-suited to be a part of the OSU "community."