Hoke and the future
I've seen several articles where people have stated that Coach Hoke and this staff are "building something special". My question to members of the board is what aspect of Coach Hoke and his staff's efforts are do you think is attributing to this? Is it the level of talent, the character of the kids, the staff's being completely honest with recruits, etc....
Good luck with the annual national championship expectations.
You sound like a fan of every SEC team except Vanderbilt.
I think recruits are also impressed by what Mattison was able to do with the spare parts RichRod left him on defense, and salivate at what the D will be like with a full cupboard.
My only concern is reverting back to the latter Carr years where we had dominating teams but our immobile QB (Henne) would get outplayed by the mobile Ohio QB (Smith) simply because Smith's legs would buy him the extra 2 seconds needed to find a wide open receiver and turn what Henne would make a 10 yard sack, into a 20 yard reception for a net 30.
That in and of itself defined what separated Ohio from us the last few Carr years, and we will see a similar trend with Borges' pro style statues going up against Urb's run option QBs.
Please God no. Anything but that. Hopefully Mattison is recruiting enough speed to do to Braxton and Urb's future gazelle QBs what Florida's D did to Troy Smith way back when.
You can't really judge his coaching in only two years The only questionable call that he's made in his two years was to put DG at WR and Hoke is a high risk high reward type of guy who was banking on Denard not getting injured and Bellomy being ready. Sparty fans and Buckeye fans will point to him going 8-5 but we had a very tough schedule and had to rework our defensive line and deal with a DR ulnar nerve injury.
Alot of the 8-5 record can be attributed to less than stellar play by our O-line in year two. We couldn't move the ball effectively on the ground against above average defenses.
I want to win the national title too. I'm not satisfied with the big ten title but I haven't seen him blow any game besides the Nebraska game last year. The rest of them were just getting overmatched because the level of athlete we were left from RR was not as good as the opposition.
Hoke did not blow the Nebraska game.
I like winning the big ten title but I don't understand why people are so fascinated with going to the rose Bowl now that we have a 4 team national playoff. The Rose bowl was the best out there when Bo was coach but now it no longer is the best for better or worse.
still one of the highest if not the highest isn't it? I don't know anymore.
I like the rose Bowl but I'd rather shoot for the national championship and if we don't make it go to the Rose bowl. We now recruit on the same level as the LSUs and Bamas of the world. There's no reason why we can't make noise nationally in the playoff.
Apparently there are a lot of armchair social psychologists and organizational studies professionals on this board.
Lots of college coaches are personable. There are a lot of great universities out there. There are a lot of tremendous football schools out there.
Sometimes, the chips just fall your way. Is there truly any way for a fan of this football team to identify why a given outcome occurs for a particular situation?
Very good points. We are Michigan homers here by definition. I do get a kick out of the 'character' thing both in coaches and players as if only the kids we get have character and the ones we lose or go to other schools don't. This of course forgets the fact that we offer 100 kids to get 20 so obviously those 80 had character too. ;) And not every coach on earth at an opponent's school is a bad man who only thinks about dollars and "using" kids and discarding them.
Last I'd say the bar is low here due to recent anguish. Yes we got that very good record in year 1 but went to 8-5 last year (behind a very tough schedule) but in a way you had wished year 1 was 8-5 and last year was 11-2 with a BCS win. But all this was done with a scheme that was not his pure scheme with a QB that was not his type of QB with a talent level on interior of OL, WR, RB, and defense in general below par. Mattison has amazed me because the first time through with Michigan and ND he was a good assistant but not the second coming. what he did with RR's players the first year here was nothing short of a miracle. I cannot wait to see him with this 4 star talent at every position (with a 5 star sprinkled here and there).
As for the offense we don't know anything yet really. What happened in the 2nd half of OSU game really frustrated me and I hope it is not a precursor of things to come.
As for Hoke I think there are a litany of things. Having coached travel sports at the youth level I can tell you there is a lot of talent coaching "mid tier" programs who can elevate their teams above the talent level versus the guy coaching in the top tier programs that are showered with talent. But people only looking at records only see the record and not focus on the talent in relation to said record. You can have a far superior coach at a mid level team who through player development has added 1-2 extra wins in a season versus the guy loaded with talent at the top tier. The equivalent of that top tier program lviing on talent but not developing it right now is Texas at the CFB level. I would argue Michigan did that at times in the late stages of Carr's era - he almost always had top 5-10 recruiting classes but 9-3 teams a lot of the time. You'd see players who looked the same as juniors as seniors - i.e. weren't developing; and/or go to the NFL and blow up to be great and you wondered why didnt it happen when they were in college. So we hope Hoke is one of those guys - we shall see!
It IS a crapshoot but you can see what Urban did (whatever you think of him) at Utah, and Saban at MSU (some of their best years). Hoke did make Ball State and SDSU decent programs from the shambles they were in. So we hope Hoke is one of those guys who was able to take talent and make it into a better sum of its parts team. Now he has a brand name behind him so with those development skills that seemed to work at lesser schools he can start with a much higher base of talent at UM.
Further Hoke has charisma, has that "down home aww shucks" attitude, but he is geniune. Parents are drawn to genuine as are kids. But they are also drawn to results which is why the Saban's and Meyer's get top echelon kids and I think Mattison has really helped there on defense. Hoke also relates to the kids - he is old enough to have some old school but not so old he can't relate - same with Mattison who kids have described as a 25 year old attitude. Last he does focus on character which I think is the New England Patriots structure as well - they seem to be the blueprint for this. (But again it is annoying when we hold ourselves up as some school that only brings in saints and only has saints coaching- be real)
I am very excited by the recruiting classes but will hold off on making him "the next Bo" or even "next Lloyd" until I see a series of four or five 10+ win seasons and Michigan an annual top 5-10 program. Our last decade against Ohio is shameful - we need to get back to par there as well. Again I think people's bar has been dropped very low with the RR era. We have become content with top 20-25 due to everything say post 2002ish (2006 being the exception). With the combination of what they did with "above average but not great" talent in the past 2 years, if the coaching is on par with a much better talent base to work with we should be very happy campers over the next 4-5 years. To be something "special" a program like Michigan should be part of the four team playoff 3-4x every decade. And 10 wins needs to be a baseline, not something to 'celebrate'. This is Michigan fergodsakes.
Regarding personable, or 'un-personable' coaches, it seems that Hoke and company have some magic 'sincerity' aura that they project when a prospect visits that clicks with the recruit in just the right way. On the other hand, I was reading some of the comments re Peppers recruitment on the free Bucknuts board and found a comment that fits with my imprssion of the great Urban at tOhio. Some are starting to question 'what is wrong?' that they can't seal the deal in Columbus. Example: "The only good thing about it is that he atleast went to a B1G school instead of any of the SEC schools and he will be taught how to lose at the very least 1 game a year. I would love to find out why he was such a heavy lean towards tOSU all the way until he visited c-bus. There is a trend that has been developing with kids who have shown a lot of interest but then completely change their mind after their visit. Someone is not doing something right because it should be the opposite outcome from a visit." I look at Urban Meyer and see an arrogant, pompous person (maybe unfairly, in my bias), but someone that I would have trouble trusting, unless I was an Ohio fan.
Or, maybe Peppers didn't think he would fit in because he doesn't have a big butt. But seriously, I do think Meyer is a good recruiter, but the media went so far overboard last year, raving about how he was a superstar recruiter. The equipment manager at schools like Florida and Ohio should be able to recruit a top ten team. I agree with your notion of trust, too. Meyer reminds me of a slick used car salesman who will say almost anything to seal the deal.
I have one issue with Hoke. Fergodsakes eat healthier. Cut out processed foods. Cut out high sucrose foods. Cut out anything made with flour. Including pasta. Cut out rice and potatoes (or drastically reduce their intake). You will lose a pound a day. I want you around a long time, damn it.
Read HTTV 2013. We answer this in depth.