If Michigan loses to Michigan State does your confidence in the direction that the program is heading change?
I was thinking about how important this game is for Michigan this Saturday against MSU. Not only is this game important in regards to Michigan winning the Legends division, but also a measuring stick in the progress that Hoke has made since being hired. This is Hoke's third season at Michigan and historically a good coach at a school like Michigan that has tradition, great facilities, and deep pockets is enough time to build a super power. That being said it is not like Hoke walked into a perfect scenario. The team he inherited lacked depth up front and was built to run a system that didn't match what coach Hoke wanted to implement. It looks like Hoke has finally been able to build some depth up front, but the players are young and raw. Personally, I think the program is heading in the right direction. Dave Brandon should allow Hoke to coach for the duration of his contract as long as Michigan wins 9 games and is competitive with MSU and OSU. Now in year five if Michigan has not won a Big Ten championship then it will be time to look for another coach. The team will be loaded with talent and experience in 2016 for a new coach to step in and succeed immediately.
October 29th, 2013 at 2:59 PM ^
Were Countess, Fitz and Ryan included as returning starters? If not, that means UM now has the same amount of returning starters as MSU playing this Saturday. If you take Maxwell out as a returning starter for MSU, UM would actually have more returning starters playing this Saturday if Dileo is a go.
October 29th, 2013 at 8:58 AM ^
October 29th, 2013 at 9:29 AM ^
October 29th, 2013 at 9:36 AM ^
Exactly. Wisconsin and MSU have been competititve in the B1G with far less talented rosters. If you're not winning and developing then who hares?
October 29th, 2013 at 9:48 AM ^
Hoke's big recruiting classes are freshmen and sophomores right now (and high school seniors). Despite that, a lot of those players are already big contributors. I don't think there is much evidence that Hoke has failed to develop young players.
October 29th, 2013 at 11:35 AM ^
PD maybe wasn't the best choice of words to describe what I meant. I guess what I mean is that NCs aren't won in Feb. I'm more worried about our coaches putting our players in the best position to succeed than missing out on Player X.
I mean if you're losing players to rivals, sure. If you're losing Da'Shawn Hand to Alabama well I mean I'm not going to get too upset at Hoke.
October 29th, 2013 at 3:57 PM ^
I don't agree with the above statement. Here's why. After RR's last game, Hoke and his staff recruited and signed 11 players* in the class of 2011. That means those 11 have been "coached up" for 2.5 years. Not one of them has really been developed - e.g. an all BIG candidate
* Frank Clark, Thomas Rawls, Chris Bryant, Russell Bellomy, Antonio Poole, Blake Countess, Tony Posada, Keith Heitzman, Raymon Taylor, Matt Wile, Tamani Carter
October 29th, 2013 at 4:44 PM ^
Developed means all B1G? Really?
Blake Countess, Frank Clark, Raymon Taylor, Keith Heitzman and Chris Bryant are all contributors / starters.
Furthermore, that was the "last grasp for anyone remotely talented to come to Michigan" part of the recruiting class. I'd say they did an alright job.
October 29th, 2013 at 6:39 PM ^
He had a month to recruit those guys and most if not all of the were guys RR had brought 90% of the way. If you think you can just go out in a month and recruit and land an all Big Ten player you must be smoking something, especially to a program in major rebuilding mode. Besides Countess could definitely be All-Big Ten this year and of the rest 2 quit the team, another 3 have been ravanged by injuries and the rest not named Rawls are starting on this football team. That is pretty good for a months worth of recruiting, and as for development, Frank Clark is leaps and bounds above where he came in as, Keith Heitzman was never going to be more than serviceable and Raymon Taylor while inconsistent is getting better. The only guy not developed is Thomas Rawls and he was a power back without the ability to run with power, not a whole lot you can do there when you have 4 or 5 other guys on the roster who are clearly better than him
October 29th, 2013 at 10:02 PM ^
October 30th, 2013 at 4:52 PM ^
He didn't pull it together in a few weeks. He hired and recruiting all through the bowl season with nothing else to do because the previous staff hadn't left yet. The NCAA gave a team that had to change their coach because they were cheating a break to have two coaching staffs at once. They should have recruited great, they had twice as many guys to do it in the home stretch.
October 29th, 2013 at 4:37 PM ^
with the exception of 2011 possibly.
Otherwise, it's not been close.
I swear this year, 2013, has to officially be the last year where Michigan fans offer up the "past attrition", "injuries", "youth" and "inexperience" excuses. It might be correct, but it sounds really lame man. As if MSU and other opponents are immune from these same things.
October 29th, 2013 at 4:47 PM ^
Dantonio has been at MSU for 7 years, a period we've gone through 3 coaches.
October 29th, 2013 at 8:58 AM ^
October 29th, 2013 at 9:00 AM ^
When the future becomes the present, something about expectations drastically change. Many people on this board were thinking 6-1 or 7-0 going into the MSU game. But because of the way 6-1 happened, that's no longer acceptable. At the same time, many here believed that the game at MSU would only slightly be in Michigan's favor. So even if the prediction has slightly changed to slightly in MSU's favor, I don't see how a loss changes the direction of the program drastically.
I guess, the fact of the matter is, in the present, no one accepts losing any game ever. In the future it's fine, it's realistic to a degree, but in the present it's never something that should happen. Likely, it's because in the present we get too caught up in the finite (down to a play here or a play there, but also game to game) and often lose sight of the big picture.
So, my answer, no, it wouldn't.
October 29th, 2013 at 9:21 AM ^
I guess, the fact of the matter is, in the present, no one accepts losing any game ever. In the future it's fine, it's realistic to a degree, but in the present it's never something that should happen. Likely, it's because in the present we get too caught up in the finite (down to a play here or a play there, but also game to game) and often lose sight of the big picture.
...that is goddamn brilliant. I'm stealing the hell outta this when I talk sports with my buddies. Well done.
October 29th, 2013 at 9:29 AM ^
I think that was like Red's narrative on his way to meet Andy at the end of Shawshank Redemption or something. I have goosebumps. To one of the points, one of the things that I am surprised at right now is the amount of credibility that State has built up beating by beating conference bottom feeders the last few weeks. I am not saying their defense is not impressive, but you would think we were playing a top five team right now the way people are talking. There are a lot of unknowns about State. They have been in one close game and they shit the bed when it came down to it. We may not be the team that we thought we were after the ND game but what I am hearing right now about this game is hysteria. I expect Michigan to win this game. That is the expectation.
October 29th, 2013 at 10:17 AM ^
You're right about expectations -- they are lower now because of the way 6-1 happened.
The shift in the direction of the program this year has already happened. It's not a big deal. Indeed, it's a good thing, a reality check.
October 29th, 2013 at 9:22 AM ^
October 29th, 2013 at 12:45 PM ^
October 29th, 2013 at 10:24 AM ^
The question posed is about my confidence in the direction this program is headed based on a loss on the road to a good defensive team. Space Coyote summed it up pretty perfectly, and in the end I agree with him, no it would not.
October 29th, 2013 at 11:34 AM ^
is one of the smarter comments I've seen posted on a sports blog in quite a while. It's completely true. It's easy to talk about 1-2 losses conceptually, but when you see/experience it, it's much less acceptable. I'm sure it has a lot to do with actually seeing the flaws of your team, breaking down the bad execution/play calls, etc. It's pretty intuitive, but still a strange sort of phenomenon
October 29th, 2013 at 12:58 PM ^
So even if the prediction has slightly changed to slightly in MSU's favor, I don't see how a loss changes the direction of the program drastically.It doesn't. The program is going to build the way Hoke, Borge, and Mattison want it to build. I think the question is do you have confidence that Hoke's plan is going to take us to where we want to go, which is atop our conference and being a consistent player in the future college playoff. I mean it's frustrating to look at Michigan 3 years ago as an 11-2 team and Ohio State as a 6-7 team and fast forward 2 years, and Ohio hasn't lost in 20 game and we're still hoping to push past the MSU tier. There's definately a sense of Michigan running in place a bit and at some point you have to stop pointing at recruiting advantages and see it on the field.
October 29th, 2013 at 1:15 PM ^
Except that recruiting advantages take more than a year to take hold. Hoke's first real class just got to campus a year ago. His recruiting classes appear to be getting better each year, but it still takes some time for those guys to get here, let alone make an impact.
In terms of recruiting advantage, we're still comparing classes from 2009 and 2010 for the most part.
October 29th, 2013 at 3:35 PM ^
catch 22 - he won't be able to recruit unless he starts winning consistently. He needs to prove we are on the rise and that the problems of the RR years are long gone or we will start to see recruiting suffer.
Had we not gone 8-5 last year I think he would have a better grace period.
October 29th, 2013 at 1:23 PM ^
That OSU team that went 6-7 was a mirage of the real thing. That team was very talented, but there was a coach that wasn't comfortable in his situation, a team that quit, and a whole lot of other factors. Meyer walked into a very talented situation from day 1.
That's not to say Meyer isn't a very good coach. But the situation he walked into and the situation Hoke walked into are completely different. Regardless of player developement, the 2012 OSU team was going to be more talented than the 2012 Michigan team, which covered up a lot of flaws. And yet, Michigan had a great chance to win that game in Columbus.
I do agree that Hoke has a lot to prove still, but I really don't think you can compare Meyer's situation to Hoke's. Two very different cases.
October 29th, 2013 at 10:08 PM ^
October 29th, 2013 at 7:03 PM ^
in the 3 years prior to that 2011 team Michigan was 15-22 and Ohio was 33-6 without sanctions. That 2011 team had a lot of talent on it and that talent was spread out over every class unlike Michigan who had the majority of its talent graduate after that year and then not replaced by juniors stepping up because most of them were no longer on the football team for one reason or another. You can't compare us to the best team in the Big Ten in the last decade because we haven't even been in the top 3
October 29th, 2013 at 3:31 PM ^
I can't speak for others but that is not true for me at all. How I feel about a loss depends on a lot of different factors but mainly comes down to expectations and who the opponent is.
For example, if we lose to OSU but give tremendous effort, use every trick we can, and maximize our potential in the loss, so be it. We got beat by a better team.
However, if we lose to a team decimated by scholarship losses, starting a Freshman QB, after running a terrible offensive game plan, messing up basic game management principles and after having a pretty solid lead, I certainly start to question the coaches and the direction of the program.
The PSU game did very little to inspire confidence in the areas where coaching can win or lose a game for you. We need the coaches to be consistently great to overcome the inexperience we have on the team and they haven't proven to be that as of yet.
October 29th, 2013 at 3:41 PM ^
But I don't think that's true of others at all. They may SAY the same thing, but that's not how they react.
We could lose to OSU in a game the pundits call "the greatest game in football history" and that's not going to stop the majority for screaming for people's heads for losing.
I mean we lost to 4 top 10 teams last year all but 1 of which were close and it doesn't really change how people react to 8-5.
October 29th, 2013 at 4:44 PM ^
I think context reigns here, too, when talking about 8-5 because it seems out losses were precipated by terrible coaching/game management/strategic thinking.
We lost to Nebraska because we moved our only competent back up QB to wide receiver and had to suffer the FR QB experiment....and then watched Devin perform really well as QB the rest of the way.
Maybe, and I stress maybe, the same could be said for our loss at ND - Denard threw 4 picks!! Maybe a change at QB was warranted at that time but we couldn't do it because Devin was a WR. What in the world did they see in Bellomy to decide that was a worthwhile tradeoff given Denard's history of mid game injury? Hindisight is 20-20 but man, he must have really been impressive in practice.
We lost to OSU, in my opinon, because of bad strategy - playing around with Devin and Denard at QB instead of sticking with Devin and moving Denard to full time RB seemed to destroy our momentum time and time again.
I think it is ok to gripe about those losses.
[EDIT] - we also narrowly defeated MSU and Northwestern. Our record could have been much worse. We were a little lucky to be 8-5.
October 30th, 2013 at 4:57 PM ^
It wasn't one I was that fond of, but before Denard got hurt the majority were behind it. And really, Devin not being the back up didn't cost us the game, because Devin wasn't really very good his first game out. He needed a couple of games to get his sea legs. So throwing him at Nebraska might have made us better, but probably doesn't win the game for us.
And the record is the record. We narrowly lost to ND, OSU, and South Carolina, and could just as easily been 11-2. But we weren't. (Heck, we were about to take the lead vs. Nebraska before Denard went down, and if we just hadn't scheduled Alabama we'd have been undefeated till we play them in the National Championship game! Fun stuff.)
October 29th, 2013 at 9:01 AM ^
yes because it's a big game and no because this coaching staff has shown they can't win on the road. Maybe will start winning on the road sometime in the near future. I will be mad IF will lose this game BUT fire Brady Hoke no,FIRE BIG AL YES!!!
October 29th, 2013 at 9:04 AM ^
October 29th, 2013 at 9:06 AM ^
I think most of us feel the same as you do, Borges (and Hoke to a certain extant) have not even come close to maximizing the offensive potential week-in and week-out that this team can achieve
October 29th, 2013 at 9:22 AM ^
October 29th, 2013 at 2:20 PM ^
I cant remember where it was posted but there was an analysis of Michigan's youth compared to its peers and we weren't really that much younger than other than teams, but for some reason it seems to be more of an issue for us. Next year people will complain that we lost 2 senior tackles, then the year after that it will be because we have a new starting qb.
The point is, turnover and attrition happen at every school and at some point it is just not a valid excuse anymore.
October 29th, 2013 at 10:09 PM ^
October 29th, 2013 at 9:19 AM ^
That some of the kids get it, and some are not there yet. Hoke is trying to build a culture where all the players have the same mentality. Usually the newer kids take a little bit to get there. Those that say Coach is too soft on the players seem misinformed. I truly believe he is working toward a tougher team.
For instance, toward the end of the PSU game, MI was in the red zone, and the camera went to Hoke. He was shaking his head and telling someone "You're fine, let's go." I couldn't figure out who he was directing that comment, but it shows, to me anyway, that he is trying to get these guys used to playing banged up, tired, and under pressure.
The term "when the bullets fly" applies to this in a way. To be a championship team, the players have to be taught to play through all types of adversity. Whether it's injuries, fatigue, high pressure situations, or just frustration. That is where the Senior Leadership on the field helps greatly.
October 29th, 2013 at 9:31 AM ^
I wouldn't worry about qualifying your remarks with the fact that you're a girl, so you may not know much about football. Trust me when I say most of the people on this blog have no idea what it's like to coach or play organized football. If you're a fan, if you watch some games, if you have a basic understanding, and you're not simply a loose cannon filled with nothing but emotional prejudice, you have every right to state your opinion, ask your questions, so on and so forth. I want to state that first off because there are a group of people that are extremely loud and vocal that don't know much about football, and there is anotehr group that doesn't know much but is fairly passive about joining discussion because of where they stand from an experience stand-point. Neither of these types learn about football as well as they should, the first group because it's very difficult to listen when your mouth is moving and sounds are coming out, the second because they aren't fully involved in the conversation, or getting their questions answered, or even thinking to ask questions. So, don't worry about being a girl when it comes to talking sports, you may and likely know more than a lot of the guys here, and asking questions or stating your opinion while being able to listen and discuss will only further your knowledge more beyond others that fail to do so.
That said, I'm one of the biggest proponents that execution has been the major issue with this team, not scheme or style or other things. That still is on the coaches. But the main thing that helps execution is experience. And experience isn't some binary concept, where "you have 1 year so now you will get it". Experience checks in at different times for different people. Better coaches will help it come along sooner, having more experienced players around you will also help. The difference so far, between the teams that take their 2 and 3 star players and make them good, is that those players have been able to develop within their systems to reach that point, and the ones that are still young are sprinkled in, placed next to players with experience. Michigan isn't at that point yet. You have 3 young guys playing side-by-side on the interior line. You have a bunch of young guys seeing significant time along the defensive line, and in the defensive backfield. Youth is extremely abundant right now on this team, not just in the starters, but in the vast majority of the two-deep. So, while I agree that I'd like to see this team further along, you do see the flashes. But, as most know, individual flashes mean fairly little in the grand scheme. Good teams have consistent units that work together. A single inconsistency on a play here or play there will make a whole unit look worse.
I don't think this year is the year to judge where this staff stands as far as being able to develop players. I know it sounds like we say this every year, but that's part fo the deal when you have drastic coaching changes in a successful program.
October 29th, 2013 at 9:38 AM ^
Your first paragraph should be posted to the front page, top of every thread, and emailed to every reader. If everybody understood your point there, this board would be a much better place.
October 29th, 2013 at 9:53 AM ^
that there is no reason to judge Hoke after this year (as I posted earlier), there is no way you cannot blame the terrible offensive game-plans against the coaches (eg: UConn, Akron and PSU)...I don't think anyone is doubting the fact that Hoke and Mattison will make our young defense elite over the next couple of years...but at the same time there is no excuse for the incredible play-makers (with experience) we have on the offensive side of the ball to not be blowing out teams like UConn, Akron and Penn St....the great coaches adapt to the talent they have, plain and simple
October 29th, 2013 at 10:07 AM ^
Gallon and Fitz and Fitz is running behind a unit with 2 FR and a former walk-on that is essentially a RS FR with where his ability was coming into the program. Gardner has some limited experience, but was extremely raw fundamentally until some point last year. Dileo has some experience but is far from a playmaker and has a much more limited role he fits than people are willing to give credit.
So you have a very, very young OL unit, which works as a unit probably more so than any other position group, you have a bunch of extremely young TEs at a position where learning how to do all the things TEs are asked to do play in and play out takes a lot of experience, you have young guys at the WR position trying to step in, and your two-deep is filled top to bottom at every single position with guys that aren't even upper-classmen. Even FB has two Soph playing.
If you think the offense has play-makers with experienced all over, you're seeing what you want to see. The fact that the most important unit is an extremely young unit (OL) is extremely critical. This is an inexperienced team all over the place, I don't see how that can be debated.
October 29th, 2013 at 10:22 AM ^
the fact that we have youth on both sides of the ball and especially on offense...but i am saying that we have a great deal of experience with Funchess, Gallon, Dileo, Fitz and DG that have all proven that they are very capable of making plays....you pointed out (rightfully so) that the interior o-line is incredibly young, so why does Borges call so many plays up the middle that get Fitz destroyed when the pass plays are working out wonderfully out of the gun???...this falls on Borges (and Hoke) to adjust to the talent they have, not call the plays they want to work with the players that are clearly not ready....the reason posters like myself have cause for concern is that Borges' arrogance to not adjust his play-calling and talk smack to reporters (with very valid questions/suggestions, eg: screens) in the pressers is very telling that nothing with change with him when change is very much so needed...like i said, I'm not judging this staff after this game or after this year...but to say that the problems are stemming mainly from a "lack of execution" is flat-out bullshit when the exact opposite has been proven with a different set of plays and the record-setting ability to "execute"
October 29th, 2013 at 10:39 AM ^
Experience: Funchess is a Sophomore, and Gardner has less than 15 games as a starter, so as SC pointed out, we have a LACK of experience other than Gallon and Fitz (Dileo being hurt). Sure we have shown some flashes of great play, against awful defenses, and shown flashes of terrible play against awful defenses. Which makes sense when young players are involved. Does some of that fall on the coaches, and some of it fall on the lack of execution, absolutely. To make a claim other than that is as you said in your post bullshit.
October 29th, 2013 at 11:02 AM ^
dropping a wide-open pass was lack of excution on his part and he still put up record numbers....Borges running up the middle and getting stuffed is bad coaching...all the other excuses are just that: excuses
October 29th, 2013 at 11:09 AM ^
I'm not going to sit here and explain for the n-th time how simplified your POV is with regards to coaching, play calling, execution, etc. Frankly because I'm tired of it and people that want to listen have listened, and people that want to scream and shout their POV are still screaming and shouting it almost two weeks later.
But needless to say, some excuses are valid. Execution problems are still on the coaches. Execution problems are also on the receivers. This idea that it's bad execution when it's obvious (like dropping the ball) and simply bad coaching when something doesn't work is beyond simplified, and not exactly anything near true.
October 29th, 2013 at 11:24 AM ^
with a lot of your points SC, you do a great job of explaining your reasoning in detail and usually give both sides of the story...you and I simply have a very different perspective on this issue with Borges' play-calling/schemes...in theory they can and might very well work when the pieces of the puzzle/experience are gained and in place...i am simply pointing out the fact that he refuses to adjust against the good teams...and at what point are we trying to make the game of football as complicated as theoretical physics??? I am going to watch Neil DeGrasse Tyson speak at GVSU is a couple of weeks and watching and learning from him about the future of our species survival and evolution is fascinating....the x' and o's of football is often times very simple, and Borges failing to adapt is in plain sight compared to things in life that are incredibly hard to understand and execute
October 29th, 2013 at 11:46 AM ^
The X's and O's aren't very difficult. If Borges could muster correctly understanding the X's and O's and the adjustments to the opponents X's and O's, he wouldn't have this job, or his previous one, or the one before that. One of the thousands of other people that tried to get into coaching but now rent cars at Enterprise or sell insurance for All State would have his job. It's not like his job isn't desired by a huge number of people. If he didn't understand the simplist of things, as you state, he wouldn't have what he has, or be in charge of what he's in charge of.
The same can be said for pretty much every OC that has actually made it. Rich Rod may have had imperfect game plans at times, but I'll tell you that the play calls within his game plans from game to game were perfectly fine. He made the adjustments his teams were capable of making within his game plan for that week. Sometimes the results didn't show it, as sometimes for even the best the results don't show up, but I wouldn't critisize a poor performance from a Rich Rod offense as him stubbornly not adjusting because he couldn't. I would say that players didn't execute, he had a partially flawed game plan, but the game plan still could have been successful and most likely each play and adjustment was the correct play call within that game plan to take advantage of the things the defense presented and to ultimately help his team move the ball.
It's one thing to say "27 for 27". It's another thing to ignore the huge faults that a bad interior OL are going to have on any play call. It's another thing to ignore all the things those plays set up. It's another thing to ignore the obvious adjustments he made to his play calls and his X's and O's within his game plan and within his system to adjust to the defense. Was it the best game plan in the world against PSU? No, I don't think it was. I don' t think Borges thinks it was either. But you have a game plan and you have a set of plays and you can't just abandon all prep within a game because your team isn't prepared to abandon it. And, at the end of the day, the game plan was still good enough that it should have worked and the plays were called that should have been successful and did adjust to things and did set up the defense, etc.
The point is and has been that it isn't as simple as an X's and O's problem that people want to make it. Do physicists sometimes make simple math mistakes? Yes. But they don't do it often and on top of that they understand much more fully the intricacies of the rest of it. But no one understands it fully, they can't necessarily understand that that isn't simple or predictable.
The same can be said for an offensive coordinator. Sometimes he doesn't call the best play, sometimes he can't predict how the defense will react, but at the end of the day that's very rare and he knows perfectly well how to do the simple things. He also understands the more complex things to a much higher degree, but that doesn't mean he can predict it all. So the mistakes, the flaws, are much deeper than the predictable and relatively repeatable X's and O's.