Is Hoke Dierdorfing the DL?

This is ridiculous, honestly.  Hoke says the DL isn't up to where he wants it, which is OK because a) we still have a week and a half until we play a game and two and a half until we play a tough one, and b) it's likely Hoke's expectations are extremely high for these guys. 

It's not like he came out and said our DL sucks and we have no one worth playing.  He's just said that some guys we thought were amazing still have work to do (shocker) and a guy we didn't know about is exceeding initial expectations.  Why exactly is this cause for concern?

on in this thread.

I think maybe I overestimated the age of everyone on here.

When Dierdorf came back for his senior season Bo sat him down and told him he was going to make his life miserable and Dierdorf was going to take it for the good of the team.  Since he was the star he was going to use Dierdorf as an example whenever he could.  He was never going to do anything right the whole year in the eyes of Bo.   This would show the rest of the team that no one is above criticism and everyone has room to improve.

Considering the lack of praise for Martin and RVB(2 probable captains)  I think Hoke is borrowing a page from Bo's book.   

Coach Hoke wants to win a big ten championship. The last time we won one outright we gave up just over 16 points per game. So it'll be a while before these coaches are even just ok with where the defense is. 

Why dont we fire Hoke now?

"Dierdorf'd" is going to enter the blog lexicon someday regardless of the D-Line's performance. 

I'd like to see a game myself before starting any meaningful critique. 

I'm more worried that Hoke will try "Brandstattering"  the  kickers.

this thread managed 60+ replies*.  I +1'd him back to even at 5/5. 

*Many of the replies had nothing to do with the OP, but whatever. 

Never gave the D any credit and always took the side of the O, he said it made the D united in hatred and made them meaner. Sound logic for football players especially players you want showing up to the ball in a bad mood.

Lloyds mantra was you either get better or worse every day, you never stay the same. Where I'm I going with this?...I have no idea...my mantra is "the only easy day was yesterday"...back to sleep.

or doesn't say. It's training camp. Relax. Take a walk. Have a piece of pie. Watch some videos on Wolverine Historian's site.

HOW DARE YOU SIR!  How dare you.

"...and this DL is going to look like the Lions when they get unveiled in 10 days."

Some of us here still love the Wolverines, and would more than appreciate if you withheld your morbid analogies to the Lions.

On my blog yesterday I made the prediction that Martin and VanBergen will both be All Big-Ten with Roh right on the cusp. How many times do we hear players get over hyped during fall camp and do nothing in the games?

I tend to lean toward agreeing with you that Hoke and the staff are just riding this group and are maybe down playing everything to make this group work that much harder. I think this unit will be good/verygood as long as we can find a serviceable interior guy to take double teams off of Martin.

As much as I enjoyed the section of this thread where people answered jg2112's probably hypothetical question (WolvinLA won that section of the thread, IME), the lack of intellectual flexibility on this board troubles me. It's like people can't allow for arguments more complex than "Pop-tarts and Denard good; fire and GERG bad."

Example 1

Claim:

• "The offense was good under RR last year."

Counterclaims:

• "We didn't score a million touchdowns against Wisconsin."
• "RR sucked at anything related to the defense."
• "Why do you hate Hoke so much, you asshole?"

Example 2

Claim:

• "Hoke isn't glowing about the DL as much as I thought would be merited; I wonder if he's using a motivational tactic like Bo used with Dierdorf?"

Counterclaims:

• "Dude, why are you panicking?"
• "Stop throwing our brave young DL men under the bus."
• "Why do you hate Hoke so much, you asshole?"

I think we can do better.

What about our defensive line's prior performance made you think they would terrorize other teams.

I have to admit I'm a little surprised that BWC isn't an average starter by now, cmon he was 5-star top 20ish to every recruiting service save ESPN. RVB will be his usually solid self, Jibreel is a pass rush specialist and has issues playing the run, Martin will be his usual beastly self, not even worried about his production. The only person I'm really hoping bucks what we have been hearing about him so far in camp is Roh. I really hope that Hoke has been Dierdorfing Roh with what I've heard because he expects so much of him. I think withs Roh's hand in the dirt all year we will see him play better all around; last year he didn't want to play linebacker and I think the mental facet of playing a position he's not comfortable with negatively affected his game more than people think. Hopefully he puts good weight on and tears 'em up this season. Walk ons are part of college football and championship teams have fielded walk ons. If Clay Matthews was starting on our defense would you be complaining that there are scholarship players that didn't pan out behind him? I see the point you're making OP, stating more about the players that haven't panned out than about Brink actually seeing the field, but sometimes kids physically develop later than others and coaches, recruiting services, ect. have no way of predicting that thus we have the walk on. Brink might be a late bloomer and turn out to be a hell of a football player.

Not that I expect anyone will care, but I have some experience with this. Back when I played football, the DL coach was constantly yelling at me. It was well known throughout the team that I was the DL coach's "whipping boy". It started to wear on me a lot, so one day I confronted him. He explained that it's because he saw the most potential in me of any of the DLs, and I imagine he didn't like that he had to explain it to me. Nevertheless, his strategy worked and I was able to see how much I had improved under his tutelage.

I never became great or anything, but I did win "D-lineman of the year" and "most improved" at the postseason awards banquet, which I found very gratifying.

I find it very plausible that Hoke and co. are being very hard on the DL and that they'll actually turn out to be really good this year. Mattison in particular has been explicit about how much he hates to say anything positive about his players.