Hoke: "In the Notre Dame game the cornerbacks were a little bit embarrassed"

Submitted by massblue on

Apparently, during a radio interview Hoke has indicated that Lewis and Peppers were going to stick at CB position partly because our CBs were embarrassed during the ND game.  I, for one, have not seen much from Peppers so far, but Lewis was really aggressive during the last game and a half and seems to have the speed and the quickness to recover from his mistakes.  Peppers, by all accounts, is supposed to be faster so this looks very promising.

 

Link

LordGrantham

September 17th, 2014 at 10:52 PM ^

Come on man.  He's not singling out particular players. He's simply saying an entire position group was embarassed, which they were, and I really doubt his intention here was to deflect blame.  If there is one thing Hoke has purposely avoided, it's putting responsibility for failure on others. This is no big deal.

LordGrantham

September 18th, 2014 at 12:03 AM ^

If you ignore his first recruiting class and the upperclassmen he was left with, then yes, he coached brilliiantly.  Do you believe that the roster he had last season was so poor as to justify a 6-loss season?

MichAero

September 18th, 2014 at 12:29 AM ^

I thought it was agreed upon that the first class was a wash due to when he came in. Those were "his" as much as they were RRs, and as such they weren't as great as they should have been either way.
And you were arguing that he went 7-6 with his guys, which is not accurate. His guys were the youngest on the roster, and they were completely changing offensive and defensive schemes from the previous staff.
That is not to say the coaching was great; it was not. But the 7-6 season shouldn't override the 11-2 season.

aiglick

September 18th, 2014 at 9:37 AM ^

The indisputable fact is that RichRod and Hoke ended up in the same place in Year 3, eerily so. Hoke now has Year 4 and probably Year 5 to show he is the guy.

Next year there are no excuses.

This year he has to show tangible improvement if the W-L record does not say it on its own. There are so many possible scenarios this year. If we go 9-3 and play the other two rivalry games like we did against ND what then?

I'd probably keep Hoke though only if there wasn't a really good option. I'd at least survey the field surreptitiously to cover all contingencies although Brian said there are slim pickings.

CompleteLunacy

September 18th, 2014 at 8:23 AM ^

He took another coaches defense ranked #107 and turned it into the #6 defense. I think the man deserves a little credit.



And the whole "7-6 with his own players" ignores the gaping hole at OL that reared it's ugly head when freshmen were forced to start at interior OL well before they were ready to.



I don't know why people think answers are so black and white. Because they're not. Like, at all.

mgoO

September 18th, 2014 at 1:38 PM ^

And since then the defense has gotten worse not better...

Zero freshman were forced to play on the O-line last year.  The only true freshman that played was Bosch and there were several other options.  That was just a coaching decision and seemingly a mistake considering the results.

I'm not arguing that experience was an issue on the O-Line last year but the coaching staff made a complete clusterfuck of the situation with the constant shuffling of personnel and scheme.

I watched Oregon take out Sparty 2 weeks ago with major offensive line problems.  Coaching matters and it's hard to argue that our coaching is making the most of what we have anywhere on the field.

unWavering

September 17th, 2014 at 11:24 PM ^

I'm confused as to what your argument is. Hoke doesn't get credit for taking a bottom ten defense and turning it into a top 20 defense? Or are you arguing that the players Hoke has recruited since then aren't as good as the ones as were there before?

I can't think of anything that isn't incredibly stupid. Could you clear it up for me?

LordGrantham

September 17th, 2014 at 11:53 PM ^

His argument is obvious: Hoke won 11 games with players that he played almost no part in developing, and he's won far fewer games with players that he has developed from the start (for the most part). You may not agree with the man, but how is it that difficult to understand? 

unWavering

September 18th, 2014 at 7:32 AM ^

So hold on, Hoke had no part in developing Rich Rod's defensive players into a top 15 type unit from the bottom 10 unit they were before?  

He gets no credit for the improvement along the offensive line this year?  None for making Gallon one of the best reeceivers in school history?  Rich Rod must have developed all of that from Arizona!

I think the overall point you both are trying to make is that the record got worse after his first year, and that is due to lack of player development,  However, we all know that the main reason for 2013's mess was the offensive line, and to a much lesser extent, the running backs.

Last year's offensive line was not bad because of a lack of player development, it was bad because of a lack of viable options.  Which certainly wasn't caused by Hoke, given that he's had one of the best offensive line recruiting classes multiple years since he got here.  The fact that they are looking decent this year is also a credit to player development.

I don't really think you have much of an argument, outside of maybe Gardner.

aiglick

September 18th, 2014 at 9:54 AM ^

I'd wait on the offensive line. They certainly look better. Huge caveats of competition though. We have played App State (horrible), Notre Dame (not sure but wouldn't be surprised at 8-4 with the schedule they have so decent to good), and Miami (NTM so terrible).

Now you're going to say that the OLine could do nothing last year even against crappy competition. I agree with that but I think it's early to say the OLine is completely in the clear. I do hope they are but the keyword as Nuss has said is consistency: can they keep getting push and protection week after week?

The coaches get credit for the defensive turnaround but don't forget that the defense as a whole was young under RR. I believe we returned the entire defense in Hoke's first year so they were all a year older which is what people keep arguing for the offensive line.

Five years should be plenty of time for a coach to show his capability and yes I believe RichRod should have gotten his Year 4 with his players just like Hoke rightfully got this year and will probably get next year.

unWavering

September 18th, 2014 at 10:30 AM ^

Youth was a problem for Rich Rod's defense, sure, but it's not like they were getting better each year. They were on a downward trend with no signs of recovery.

Youth was also a problem for the offensive line last year. And I'm not claiming that the offensive line is in the clear or even good right now, but they are demonstratively better this year.

My only point is that the player development argument holds little water. We clearly saw defensive improvement, and we are clearly seeing offensive improvement this year. QB play is the only area where I could possibly see an argument for lack of development, but now that we have Nussmeier we will have to wait and see how that is affected.

The original argument was that Hoke wasn't successful with "his own players," implying that he did not develop them at all. Never mind that he was more successful with them than RR ever was.

GoBLUinTX

September 18th, 2014 at 11:02 AM ^

He is what his record says he is.  Right now he's a coach that allowed his team to be utterly embarassed in South Bend.  Right now he's a coach that has the worst turn over ratio in the B1G.  Right now he's the guy who's team cannot beat rivals on the road.  Right now he's the coach who came in promising a rebirth of physicalness and toughness, especially in the trenches, four years later that promise remains unfulfilled, especially in the trenches.

jwfsouthpaw

September 18th, 2014 at 12:32 AM ^

If you consider the traditional stance against doing radio interviews during games.  But it should theoretically be possible with the right equipment and headset.  

Hey, speaking of headsets, have you heard this thing about Michigan's head coach?  There's a rumor going around, I guess...

Blue in Yarmouth

September 18th, 2014 at 8:20 AM ^

But this seems silly. If this is a direct qoute and in context I take it to mean the CB's felt embarrased by the way they played not "they got embarrassed out there". There is a difference between someone being embarrased by something and someone being an embarrassment. to a team (or any other entity). I think in this case Hoke was just saying the guys felt bad about the way they played, and they should have.

eth2

September 17th, 2014 at 10:49 PM ^

Apparently something that sounds inflammatory was allegedly said by our coach maybe. But yet you fail to provide a link or the full context of the comment. OP, generally these types of posts don't fare too well without a solid reference.

Qmatic

September 17th, 2014 at 10:52 PM ^

Peppers and Lewis have been our best corners so far. Aside from the two PI calls I thought Lewis played fine vs ND. Countess and Hollowell were torched. I honestly think Taylor steps in and is head of Blake once he's healthy.

alum96

September 17th, 2014 at 11:18 PM ^

I think Peppers was thrown at 6x and only 2 were complete and only 1 was of any decent distance.  Yes it is Miami of OH but Peppers is all of 18 years old, I'll take it for his first real game.  He will have passes completed against him his year but he seems like the type who will grow - he is already physically the heaviest CB we have.

Lewis it seemed the staff got down on after the 2nd PI vs ND which I thought was a bad call.  The first PI was fine - sh&& happens in CFB and we said we'd give up PIs in return for not playing 15 yards off people.  I have yet to see a play where Lewis was not in the same TV screen as his receiver this year on a completion like we saw all last year.  Lewis is a scrapper from what I have seen.

These 2 will make the errors that underclassmen make but they are young enough to learn from the errors and help us this year and next 2 years (assuming Pep is gone in 3).  We've seen the other older CBs make those errors and continue making them so I am happy with this arrangement. 

Outside of MSU and OSU I dont see another team on the schedule with the WRs Utah has (at least the top 2) so if they can survive here it's going to be mostly easier from here on out for them.  In fact it is likely Dres Anderson is the best WR UM will face this season.

I'm looking forward to a Peppers/Lewis duo for 2015 and 2016; will be some growing pains this year but let's roll.  Glad to see the coaches do this. 

alum96

September 17th, 2014 at 11:38 PM ^

Yes my bad.  Should have been MSU and Maryland really as the other 2 groups of WRs of that ilk.   OSU has a bunch of high star WRs like ours who are still developing/raw. 

Maryland's QB however still strikes me as ... questionable.  So that hurts their WR crew - we'll see, he seems like a rich man's Gary Nova.

alum96

September 17th, 2014 at 11:50 PM ^

For fun here are the WR rankings of dudes in the Big 10/Utah for the 2015 NFL draft (threw in Lockett in there for comparison).  Now as we know Gallon was a man beast but didnt have NFL size so this is not perfect; small dudes get penalized but it should be a fair view.  Funchess is not listed as WR in this ranking - he is listed as the #1 TE.

http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/draft/prospectrankings/2015/WR

  • #12 WR - Stefon Diggs Maryland (2nd-3rd round grade)
  • #16 WR - Tyler Lockett  KSU (3rd-4th round)
  • #19 WR - Dres Anderson Utah (4th round)
  • #25 WR - Tony Lippet MSU (5th-6th round)
  • #28 WR - Kenny Bell Neb (6th round)
  • #33 WR - Deon Long Maryland (7th - FA)
  • #40 WR - Devin Smith OSU (7th - FA)
  • #44 WR - Tony Jones Northwestern (NA)
  • #50 WR -  Kevonte Martin-Manley Iowa (NA)

alum96

September 17th, 2014 at 11:35 PM ^

Here is the quote/context per Nick B.  Don't see any harm in calling out a group for being bad when everyone has said the same thing.  He then couches it with the normal happy happy about improvement.  Not a big deal.

 

Hoke says the DBs were "embarrassed" at Notre Dame, but have made strides. First two CBs he mentioned were Lewis and Peppers.

vertiGoBlue

September 18th, 2014 at 12:48 PM ^

Point of clarification (which may not be clarifiable based on that single word quote): stating that the cornerbacks were "embarrassed" can be interpretted in two ways...

  1. Internally embarrassed - the cornerbacks felt embarrassed by their performance during the ND game (and, this interpretation is not one in which Hoke is calling them out publicly - simply relaying the players own assessments of their in-game performance; and, honestly, this is how I interpretted the OP).
  2. Externally embarrassed - Hoke & coaching staff thought the cornerbacks performance was an embarrassment (this seems to be how most contributing here are interpretting his statement).