Informal poll: did this game change your opinion of Hoke?
I think it's fair to say that the vast majority of this board would have answered "yes" to the question is Brady Hoke the best coach for Michigan before this game, with various caveats and quibbles (Funk, Borges) aside.
I am interested to hear how the board would respond to that question now. I'll offer some options:
A- Yes he is, that game sucked and game management was poor, but we can move on.
B- He is provided he makes changes to offensive coaching after the season
C- My faith in Hoke was seriously shaken and I am no longer sure he is the best coach for M.
D- He is not the best coach for M. This game confirmed my fears.
So, if you want to play, please answer both with the letter that best captures your thought, and also is that a change from what you would have answered before?
To start, I will say B. And yes last night changed my mind.
October 13th, 2013 at 5:16 PM ^
A. Hoke is the major reason why we have Green, Morris, Dymonte, Damien, Campbell, Peppers, Kalis, Magnuson and god knows how many others who I am too lazy to call out here. Hell, Hoke is probably why we are starting Devin right now and not Russell Bellomy or a walk on.
Borges may have finally swayed me to join the "Fire Borges!" crowd, but the rest of this staff deserves more credit than they've been getting from the community in the last few weeks. Without Hoke and Mattison, who knows just how painful the last two and a half years could have been and how bleak the future would be in the post Rich Rod debacle.
October 13th, 2013 at 5:29 PM ^
October 13th, 2013 at 5:34 PM ^
That being said, I wish he would get mad about something though. Heck, my wife even made the comment last night during the overtime sessions that she can't believe how calm he is. He never yells at anybody. I think he needs to yell at Borges and Mattison. The play calling on both sides were horrific. How does our defense let a true freshman QB drive down the field in less than 30 seconds to tie the game???
I like and respect Hoke, but I feel our players are not progressing fast enough or are strong enough to compete in the Big10 , much less nationally.
October 13th, 2013 at 5:36 PM ^
I have watched our offensive line get manhandled by inferior talent at too consistent of a rate not to attribute some of the blame on Funk. Some people try the inexperience/ walk on excuse, but when you have two bookend tackles and a 5 star guard alongside a Walk on that has been one of our best graded out linemen this year.
The talent we do have on the line Funk and Borges have yet to properly adhere a game plan to their positive attributes. Like it or not were still a hybrid team that has more spread pieces then pro style. The first year this staff adjusted to the players it had. The second year, same thing. Now that Devin took over at QB it was like they were dead set on the full transition this year. It's obvious we cannot consistently execute AL's pro style offense. Also you see how successful most of our spread plays are yet Al doesn't care it's back to what He wants not what's best.
That is inept coaching. We have no identity. Al has called several passes this year with Lewan away from the blind side, almost all of these passes has resulted in a terrible play (sack, sack fumble, always pressured from blind side).
Also our offense doesn't have sight adjustments. The bubble and Rambo screens were open all night long yet we ran only one to gallon which goes for 10+ yards. The tendencies and predictability of the play calling through the personnel packages is a serious problem. Teams pretty much can call our plays for us when we bring out certain personnel groupings.
It's not as if we don't have talent. We have speed and skill at several positions but we refuse to get them in space with a chance to break the big one.
Hoke needs to put on the headset and be active in time management situations and he needs to institute a better communication system on the road.
I still believe in Brady and that he's the right man for the job but he needs to address the offensive struggles with an iron fist.
October 13th, 2013 at 5:38 PM ^
That's missing from first paragraph. Stupid me.
October 13th, 2013 at 5:49 PM ^
I've thought about this a lot. Hear me out.
In practice, the staff tries to find out what the team does well, and then the scheme around that. No matter what people in here say about Borge, he is calling plays that he has seen the team execute properly and effectively. He's got to be seeing something in practice, right? Then, when they get into a game, they simply cannot get anything going on the ground. What to do then? I am not being snarky, I am being serious. What does a OC do when the thing that his OL does well in practice isn't working? Go to the things that they don't do well? Obviously, this OL blocks the QB run better (again) than power. But, Devin was getting his ass kicked last night, and it was obvious to me that he wasn't going to take many more hits, and running him had to be curtailed.
October 13th, 2013 at 6:43 PM ^
Sten, I think there is one MAJOR consideration you are not taking into account. That being, of course, in practice, even when going against our no. 1 defense, we will gain yardage on the ground because our DL has demonstrated throughout the year they are almost as weak against the run as our offense is when attempting to run it. So what he sees in practice cannot be translated onto the field come Saturday. The other team, even with much weaker personnel, is able to stop us because they are not as stubborn as our damn coaches. This goes for both sides of the ball.
The entire coaching staff takes a failing grade on this one, and Brady has failed since game two to have this team prepared for the opening whistle. In our past four contests we haven't even begun to play ball until the second half and have seen too many melt downs there as well.
Devin has not been forced into many of his turnovers, i.e., the costly interception when Gallon and Funchess were behind the sole defender and all that was necessary was a pump action fake to move the defender then clear sailing for six. But he is the best we have right now and has proven, cases in point games one and two that he is capable of putting points on the board. Hell he has even done so in all games following but has also put almost as many points under the opposing teams' name as ours. It is the option of the head coach to pull any player at any time, and in fact is generally a real good learning tool, especially when all you are asking of him is to hand the ball off so your RB can run into a wall and not to throw it away on the inevitable third and long, something these offensive game plans have placed us into on far too many occasions. You have to look at football like a boxing match. Blind the son a bitch with a fist to the nose to set the tone then when he is expecting head shots, pulverize the body. They eventually fall. If your defense is up to the task, you can just as easily change the rotation of the above plan, but not until then. Both work.
Greg, for some reason, will not attack opposing team's inexperience at qb and despite the logic of this, we still experience breakdowns when playing 7 or 8 against 4 or and the qb has, on far too many occasions, been able to find an inexplicably open receiver. By now, he should be aware its time to change his strategy just as much as it is for Al to change his on the other side of the ball.
This loss was inevitable. If it would not have happened yesterday, it would have happened soon because since the ND game the team has come out ill prepared for game time. Half-time adjustments, except for a Carr like stubbornness to run the ball, have been effective but the lack of preparation was eventually going to come back to bite us, and it happened yesterday.
Simple truth is by now the coaches know who to use, who not to use and should game plan accordingly. This all goes back to the head man, and so in keeping with the subject of the question, yes my mind has changed re Brady Hoke. Motivation is one of the key aspects in preparing a team for battle, perhaps no. 1 on the list of requisites for a HC. In his other stops, it is quite possible he has, after a period of years, through his great recruiting, been able to simply out talent teams at the lower levels. Well he is going to be squaring off against equally gifted coaches in the BIG on almost every Saturday, and O'Brien in his very first year proves this point. Things won't get easier. Worse than that, he should already know teams with inferior talent can beat him in this league if he's not up to task. We don't have to abandon the running game, but we certainly have to adjust it. We are not going to run power, at least for another year or two and there is no sense in continually trying the knob on a firmly secured door. It's just not going to open, and we have proven we don't have the strength to force it open through a combination of strength and will power. We must look at alternative means in moving the ball, one that doesn't place our qb in such perilous situations.
This loss, in retrospect, will prove invaluable to us. It's the make or break point of the season and perhaps Brady's tenure here. To be more polite, it will determine whether we're actually going forward since he took over or merely threading water, waiting for the cavalry. I am certain he never thought it were possible to sleep walk through the first half of every game and still win, but somehow this is what the team has done continuously since game 2. They should ask themselves what the hell has changed so drastically in that time and how do we correct it. The answer is obvious already and that is the team actually had showm a modicum of urgency beginning with the opening whistle and they were chomping at the bit for the opening half whistle, not asking for an extra 30 minutes of practice time before beginning to play ball.
We have to be aggressive, and as dangerous as that sounds for a qb that has been as good a friend to our foes as he has to his teammates, we have to come out in attack mode, and Greg has to do the same damn thing on defense in regard to allowing the qb time to throw and the RBs open holes to run through. This particular aspect wasn't terrible yesterday, but damn the talent on that team was lacking and their 7 yard gains should have been 2 max.
There is one man who holds the key and it isn't Devin Gardner. Let's be honest, this team(our's) has sucked. If we can't admit that, and want to say Hey, but we've only lost one game, then you will always be happy with wins instead of righting the ship. I did state that ugly wins are better than ugly losses, but when the ugliness remains a major part of your execution the ugly losses are going to begin to outnumber the ugly wins. The jury is still out on Brady imo. It has been since he's been here. He used the talent on board effectively during season one and we had a double digit win season. Last season it took an injury to our best player to effectively usher in the Borges era. And our hc cannot use the excuse that, "Hey we're now playing with my players" and that's why we look so bad. That just doesn't present a good argument. The above, albeit it lengthy is what has been wrong with this team, and it has to be said. It can't be summed up in three sentences, not to any detail any way. It's time for Brady to get his poop in a group, and if he's capable, it will show. If not, we will have the answer to your question, one that has been on our minds since the bowl game in 2012. Our talent is better than it's shown. That is the good thing. The bad things is by now we should have already had the answer to this question. And sadly, in the words of Gerard Butler, "This is the Ugly Truth."
October 13th, 2013 at 5:42 PM ^
Same opinion: still like Hoke; still want Borges replaced
October 13th, 2013 at 5:47 PM ^
October 13th, 2013 at 5:58 PM ^
I was in favor (barely) of keeping RR for a 4th year, until the bowl game disaster. After that game and the realization that, with the current staff and problems at DC, there was little chance that the prolific offense would ever make up for the shortcoming on the defense and special teams. RR had to go.
But I thought Hoke's hire was uninspiring at the time (despite many people being convince he was the second coming due to "this is Michigan, fergodsake"), and my attitude changed very little after his first season. Hoke had a solid team at his disposal and he was given the resources to hire Greg Mattison and other assistant coaches. Resources that were denied to RR for his entire tenure.
The difference between RR's last season and Hoke's first was a reflection of the difference between Greg Robinson and Greg Mattison. This has to be kept in mind.
The thought of firing Hoke at this time (or even after the season, despite how poorly it might play out) is ridiculous. And only Hoke should decide who his coordinators and assistants are.
But this team, as it becomes further and further removed from RR's team, has become more of a reflection of Hoke. And right now, that is uninspiring.
October 13th, 2013 at 6:26 PM ^
Particularly the use of the word "uninspiring"
October 13th, 2013 at 6:29 PM ^
The difference between RR's last season and Hoke's first was a reflection of the difference between Greg Robinson and Greg Mattison. This has to be kept in mind.We've got to stop piling on GERG. He was forced to run a defensive scheme that was not his specialty. GERG may not have been the solution but he wasn't the problem. The problem was that our head coach insisted on an exotic defense that few coordinators like to run (other than as an occasional change-of-pace). I'm not sure Mattison would have agreed to come here under those conditions.
October 13th, 2013 at 9:27 PM ^
but when the pay of the predecessor gets tripled the pool of available defensive coordinators increases substantially, including Casteel. Casteel may not have been the answer either, but no one was happy about seeing GERG get hired here after his time in Syracuse.
October 13th, 2013 at 6:23 PM ^
Now: B.
Used to be A or A/B for me.
October 13th, 2013 at 6:32 PM ^
B for Borges.
October 13th, 2013 at 6:55 PM ^
A.
I'd rather lose some uberfrustrating games with Hoke than win them all with some scumbag at the helm. It would take a lot more than half a season to change my mind on that.
October 13th, 2013 at 7:28 PM ^
to replace Borges. He can develop quarterbacks. Hell he even got Navarre to go pro.
I have noticed over the last couple years, Hoke isn't stubborn enough to keep from making the obvious change. How infuriating was that Carr held on to Jim Hermann all those years???
I believe he'll make the changes necessary. But also, the coaching community loves him enough that they would love to coach for him. Witness Greg Mattison. I just fear he has the loyalty to a fault thing that will ultimately cost the program like Carr and the lost decade. . .
October 13th, 2013 at 7:58 PM ^
October 13th, 2013 at 8:06 PM ^
I don't know crap about football, but to my untrained eye it seems like QB and OL progression is not where it needs to be. Gardner was about on-par with an 18-year-old kid that didn't even EE. It doesn't matter how many starts Devin has or how talented Hackenberg is -- that just shouldn't happen. I realize the OL's pass pro is not doing him any favors, but his decision making is just slow and he needs to get rid of the ball a lot faster; there should never be any of this looping and spinning around crap, the ball should already be out of his hands. I realize he's terrified of throwing a pick and playing scared, but they should give him some easy 3-step drop type throws to build his confidence. I can't make a paragraph break for some reason (enter does nothing). The OL, now this is a complete tire fire and it's completely inexcusable how terrible they are. The team hasn't even played a good defense yet and they still can't get a damn yard up the middle (I shudder at what's going to happen against MSU). The talent is there, I don't care how inexperienced they are, there's no reason for them to be this bad. The best RB rushing we saw was in 2011, and it has gotten worse every year despite having better talent. Our great hope with Kalis looks weak out there, and he's better than that. Funk's not getting the job done.
October 13th, 2013 at 8:09 PM ^
October 13th, 2013 at 8:00 PM ^
depending on how the season finishes. Obviously Funk and Borges being the 2 on the hot seat.
October 13th, 2013 at 9:02 PM ^
October 13th, 2013 at 9:29 PM ^
No grade. I am still stunned that Devin was not prepared to take over for Denard when he was injured in the Nebraska game last year. That was 100% coaching incompetency.
October 13th, 2013 at 10:01 PM ^
...about the RR years was the utter lack of support he got from most of the "Michigan Men" (very un-Michigan Man behavior; yeah, you, Braylon, Aaron Shea, etc.) and the sabotage job by the Detroit Free Poop, but--most importantly--the lack of time given by the AD. You give a guy 5 legit years, not 3 internal obstacle-filled ones.
Which is exactly why polls like this are garbage. Sorry, OP, I don't see how this adds any value whatsoever to the fanbase and what Michigan is trying to accomplish. All it serves is to divide.
My answer is the same now as it was before the game, and will be until after the 2015 season: I'll tell you after five years. Until then, Hoke is our coach, and with that he gets my 100% support, including the fact that it is HIS decision who to coach the OL, call the offense, and bring the god damned water into the huddle during timeouts.
Seriously, putting out polls like this 3 years into a guy's tenure, even if he didn't have to build an OL almost entirely from scratch, is the height of douchery. Go worry about your NFL fantasy team, please.
So, to officially answer your poll: E. Get lost.
October 13th, 2013 at 10:02 PM ^
I believe this thread should be deleted.
October 13th, 2013 at 10:12 PM ^
This is when Hoke's recruits will be upper class-men and he will continue to add depth at every position. I think Hoke will be a good coach. He may not be a great coach, much in the same mode as Carr minus the '97 season, where he will be out coached at times by Urban and in bowl games. But I think we will have a good team in 2015 and will have talent to compete with OSU and run rough shot in the B1G. I cannot rule out one National Championship and many BCS bowls by and beyond 2015. May be by the time Hoke decides to retire in 10 to 15 years, Jim H. will be sick of the NFL and will want to finish out his 60s as HC for Michigan?
October 13th, 2013 at 10:32 PM ^
October 13th, 2013 at 10:20 PM ^
I'm a bit PO at Mattison. How could his defense ever let a freshmen QB conduct a 75 yard TD drive in 26 seconds. That should never had happened and we should have won that game by 7!
October 13th, 2013 at 11:44 PM ^
D. Hoke is a great recruiter, a wonderful guy, and his players love him; moreover, his AD loves him, and his subordinates love him. But whether he's the "best" choice in the long run is clear: No. In his defense, was there a better choice in 2010? I will leave that answer to others.
Michigan has had a history of a few great, innovative coaches for long stretches, and some decent-but- not-so-great coaches during the in-between years. For all his wonderful qualities, it's pretty clear that Hoke isn't one of the great coaches. He is a good coach, maybe even an excellent coach.
But he isn't a Yost, Crisler, or Schembechler. Finding a coach of that caliber is kind of a crapshoot, unless you are willing to go with an Urbz, a Saban, or some other proven commodity and attract him with a richer contract.
One more thing: with a coach like that, the AD isn't going to be the star. The coach is. You'd need an AD who can take a back seat to his coach. Ask yourself if you think Dave Brandon is that guy, with that ego?
Your question, "Is Hoke the best choice for Michigan?" simply raises another question. Because if the answer is no, you have to ask, "Was there a better choice that could have been made for Michigan in late 2010 among the available coaches?"
The answer to that may have been no. You can give a coach a Superman cape, but if he isn't Superman, you just have a guy in a cape who still can't fly.
It's my belief that Hoke inherited some good offensive players from RR in 2011, and put them to use decently. Mattison certainly raised the level of play of the defense - perhaps the defense had some talented guys from the RR and Lloyd years who responded to his training, but who were undervalued because of GERG. It's speculation at this point.
Anyway, Hoke had a good 2011 with RR's players.
What has happened since has been far from disaster, but it's certainly been merely OK. 8-5 wasn't a great season in 2012. We will be lucky to see that this year. We wil be very lucky indeed to get 9 wins. We have the equivalent of a Pelini situation: A good steady coach, but probably not a championship coach.
It's my belief that Hoke should get his 5 years, and maybe more, unless a truly great, proven coach becomes available sooner who expresses interest in the job. That is what should have been the plan with RR; and when Urbz became available, we might have competed for his services by ponying up the cash.
As long as we're hiring and firing, could someone please fire Brandon? I think he's a publicity hound and a horrible AD for Michigan.
I'll ask a question here, too:
Would we as an alumni and fan base want a guy like Urbz or Saban representing the school? Maybe we're the type of fan base that would rather have someone not quite as successful, but far more honest, nicer, and whose personality is preferable coaching our guys to good, but not great, seasons? I'm not advocating one way or the other, just asking the question.
October 17th, 2013 at 10:31 AM ^
I don't like the associated definitions. However I can answer the question. I think that Hoke is by far the best coach to be head coach of Michigan of any available coaches. No one would have been nor would be better.
I had some reservations when he was hired, but across the board he has performed admirably in every aspect of his job. Period. That does not mean that I agree with every decision, nor does it mean he does not make mistakes. No one is perfect, he is not. There is simply no other coach out there who would do a better overall job at Michigan. This evaluation includes his selection of a coaching staff.