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Hoke was interviewed by 10TV Columbus while at the OHFCA Football Clinic today. At first he refuses to get involved in Bielema vs. Meyer but then when asked if there's a gentlemen's agreement, he says "It's always been fair game until they sign."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuF6aD26LW8
I feel like Hoke always wants to be so neutral that whenever down the road he calls someone out, he really really means it.
He's so neutral, the only thing he drinks is Dr. Pepper.
Haha, maybe I'm off my mark but I'm pretty sure you got a good South Park reference in there. Either way I laughed.
"I have no strong feelings one way or the other."
Most certainly a South Park reference. From the most recent season's finale, which parodied the Penn State scandal.
Bingo! I know it was wrong, but I couldn't stop laughing during that episode. That episode was written days after the announcement.
Edit: Before people get all upset I was laughing at a cartoon. I wasn't laughing at the horrible situation at Penn State. Get over it.
LET'S HAVE A TREMENDOUS TIME LET'S HAVE A TREMENDOUS TIME LET'S HAVE A TREMENDOUS TIME LET'S HAVE A TREMENDOUS TIME
Hoke must be agnostic
Someone should tell him that Diet Dr Pepper tastes more like Regular Dr Pepper.
This is Hoke's way of saying, "I'll feel free to take all of your recruits if I choose and you'll thank me for it."
I like his attitude.
Dantonio and Bielema just belong in the same category as Danny Hope. Grow up, its a competition.
I wish that wasn't a good one. :-(
Novack coming for you Sunday.....
The whole concept of this "Gentleman's Agreement" is so phony. Dantonio and Bielema are just being hipocritical and butt-hurt over losing the gems of their classes.
The Spartan propaganda that MSU won't recruit another schools commitment unless they "reach out" to them first is such a load. In the last week of recruiting, they either hosting or attempting to host Johnson-Iowa, Winston-Ark, Coleman-Ind, Washington-OSU, Dodson-Wis, and a kid from Rutgers I believe.
Under the assumption that each of these kids "reached out" to MSU to say that they wanted to be recruited again, don't you think that at least a single one of them would have flipped?
since that kid was considered to be a solid commit. It surprised a lot of these Iowa guys, didn't amount to anything in the end. It just makes both of those coaches look like idiots. Urban is smiling all the way to his top 10 class ranking and will gladly add insult to injury by curb stomping both of those guys for multiple years.
Complaining about a gentleman's agreement is the same as complaining about a team running up the score in a championship game. It's the last refuge of a loser.
Or complaining about not going to a BCS bowl because you lost in your conference championship game and finished with a worse record and lower rank than your in-state rival.
And you weren't even solicited to bring up Michigan State. That was like one of those terrible talk show radio plugs.
And complaining about officiating. That's another loser's habit.
Neither is football recruiting. Get over it BB.
That said, getting kids to play on your team by offering tattoos, cars and <whatever Urban Meyer offers (most likely girls)> is cheating.
If I was a recruit, I think I would visit Columbus to see if Urban was still arranging "sandwiches."
Love Brady Hoke. That is all.
Hoke has been on the job for a year now, and not once has he misspoken. He doesn't get caught in trash, he doesn't babble, and he doesn't get upset. He's not going to say anything to the media, and we most likely won't get to know him unless he is still around in his sixties. I wanted Harbaugh bad, but Harbaugh would have gone off and lost his cool if he were the coach and the same question was posed. Hoke is cool, and knows exactly what he is doing. The more you watch him you realize that every move he makes is calculated, much in the same way that Howard Stern conducts his interviews (buy surius radio, he'll be gone within the next five years and you will have missed one of the greatest, most dedicated entertainers of all time).
The opinion I have of Hoke is the same I hold of Carolyn Hax. When I am bored I will read her advice page, and EVERY TIME I finish I have the same reaction: "whoh, I think I agree with everything she just said." Same thing with Hoke, not once has he made a questionable move. He is rapidly approaching Carolyn Hax status.
I'd say his batting average in that area is well north of .950. I can recall only one instance (Tressel something) where I thought he missed the mark. (Sorry -- can't recall the exact quote. It was something that, IMO, was a bit too lukewarm and supportive of Tressel's actions.)
I'm not entirely sure Bielema is upset about Meyer violating the non-existant "Gentleman's Agreement". Considering Bielema used the words "illegal tactics", it might be something more sinister.
It's still bad form to air the conferences dirty laundry in public. Just take the complaint directly to Delany and STFU.
"There's a few things that happened early on I made people be aware of that I didn't want to see in this league that I had seen take place at other leagues," Bielema said. "Other recruiting tactics, other recruiting practices that are illegal. I was very up front. I actually reached out to Coach Meyer and shared my thoughts and concerns with him and the situation got rectified."
He said Meyer asked him: "You know what the difference between the Big Ten and our conference is? I said, 'No', and he said, 'In the Big Ten, everybody tells on everybody. In our conference nobody tells on anybody.' "
http://www.tampabay.com/sports/meyer-whips-up-a-strong-class-irritates-bielema/1213547
Something else is going on other than a gentleman's agreement, at least according to Bielema.
Ok, BB's interview and quote never says Meyer said that "difference between B1G and SEC" comment. Bret says that he was offered a coaching job several years ago in the SEC and was told that as a reason why he should come down the SEC from the B1G and it turned him off. He says it in an ambiguous way that it was some, possibly even former, SEC coach who offered him a job.
EDIT: http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2012/02/01/wisconsins-bielema-questions-urban-meyers-recruiting/
In the midst of answering the question about Meyer Wednesday, Bielema went off on a tangent about a job offer he received in a different conference when he was an assistant at Wisconsin under Barry Alvarez. He didn’t name the school or the head coach that was trying to hire him, but he said while that coach was trying to recruit him, he told Bielema: “You know what the difference between the Big Ten and this conference is? In the Big Ten everybody tells on everybody, in our conference nobody tells on anybody.”
Bielema didn’t take the job.
“That (was) a huge comment to me,” he said about the unnamed coach. “I’ve been very cognizant of that. I encourage our coaches to play by the books, to do things in a certain way. If you have to lie, cheat and steal to get someone here, it doesn’t make a great point once you get them here about how you need to handle them.
Emphasis added
That Tampa paper needs to retract this. It's borderline libel.
...publicly humiliate OSU and hopefully force the NCAA into starting up a new investigation.
That's how I interpreted it as well.
Nsd is like another game.. God i love this dude!
I just go whatever old Brady says.
This is the correct translation.
all's fair in love and recruiting!
How friggin' lucky are we to have Hoke as our coach, class act and confident like a motha!
Absurd phrase to begin with, note that it is always used as justification for complaining about something someone else did. If you had an actual agreement, then the other party would not have done something else to begin with.
Bunch of whining candy as$$s! Just means that I can do whatever I want but you, why, you have no morals or scruples anytime you do something that I do all the time!
Note who is whining, Hope, Bielema, Dantonio....people not at long term football powerhouses like Michigan, Ohio, et al.......
in recruiting and is looking for someone to blame. But I do agree that Meyer is the slime of humanity and probably is doing some illegal or unethical stuff. He should air his gripes to the Big Ten or NCAA if he has actual proof. Otherwise, keep his mouth shut.
There is no reason for either U-M or OSU to abide by any "Gentleman's agreement" with the other Big Ten teams. It creates an artificial level of equality between the Big 2 and the other teams. If Dantonio, Bielema, etc. could convice a U-M or OSU commit to flip, they would do it, but since they can't they need to rely on this agreement to protect their commits.
Similarly, I believe I should request a gentleman's agreement with Brad Pitt and George Clooney that we will never seduce each others' wife/girlfriend.
We've dealt with this, such a long time ago. JoeTiller'sRoundtreeRodriguezSnakeOil. Brian Cook did it for us; demolishing the myth about no Big Ten recruits being recruited after previous verbal commits.
Now, it is all a lot of testosterone-laced head coach chest puffery.
This is the head-coaching equivalent of Dantonio's outburst at Jeff Hecklinski. Dantonio is pissed. He's pissed, because a couple of years ago, he could cling to his own branch of the storied Jim Tressel coaching tree. Dantonio could pretend that he and Tressel somehow represented the elite of the Conference. And that the two of them could cooperatively rule the league.
And that is all over. It's all over now, baby Green. You're out, Dantonio. Pack your things and get off the island.
Some people theorized that Dantonio would not have tried to intimidate Hoke if he had been there himself in Kalamazoo for the Michigan high school coaching meeting. This makes me wonder about that theory.
How could there be a "gentlemans agreement" amoung coaches????
Name me one you could trust.
I am curious to hear what Alvarez has to say. He has requested a meeting with Delaney about Meyer's recruiting tactics. If it was about this supposed "Gentlemen's Agreement" that would be quite hypocritcal of them. They have poached plenty of players from Iowa in the past.
Rittenberg for espn tweeted that he thinks a lot of ppl are missing the point on bielema-urban. Don't think accusations are about poaching. There is something more to it.
Hoke tells it how it is. Bielema and Dantonio can bitch all they want, but they've got to be asking themselves if those kids were really committed to their respective schools when they decided to de-pledge and come to Ohio State. If they really were committed, they would have blown off Meyer whenever he tried reaching out to them.
Until those recruits ink their names on a L.O.I., anything and everything is fair game. I don't like Meyer, but he's got the right attitude: he's not here to make friends. He's here to win championships.
It's just too bad for him that Hoke will never let it happen.....
