Jason Whitlock and Jonathan Chait Discussion on Brady Hoke, Gardner, Program
Here is a radio interview between the 2 men that I found interesting, specifically as Whitlock dominated the conversation and has ties to Hoke. The interview re: Hoke starts around 30:45.
For TL;DTR - Chait is of the view this is a make or break year for Hoke. He believes Hoke runs an antiquated system and is stuck in the early 90s. Big Gardner supporter, thought he was stuck on an island behind awful OL and no running game.
Whitlock has too many views to be concise but he has been confused by the lack of development of UM players that he saw from Hoke at Ball State and SDSU. He also said last year's MSU game was a punch to the face to Brady Hoke, and that perhaps Hoke got comfortable once he got to UM and thought with the talent he got other things would be easier. He disagrees with Chait on Hoke's viewpoints of stuck in old school football. Raises questions of leadership re: Gardner.
Longer version:
- Whitlock - Hoke's strength at Ball State/SDSU was player development - physically and mentally. Would take 2 stars and make them 2.5-3s, would take 3s, make them 4s. Lauds strength coach/program he had at those schools.
- Whitlock - I have not seen any of that Brady Hoke at UM.
- Whitlock - Fears Brady subconsciously lost focus on development due to talent he has been able to get to Michigan.
- Whitlock - Not a big Devin Gardner fan - doesn't handle adversity well. Small throw of Shane under the bus in throwaway comment.
- Chait - Disagree on Gardner.
- Whitlock - Due to QB situation / schedule not sure if work off the field this offseason will be reflected in increased wins but they are now doing the work necessary.
- Whitlock - After ND game last year, I texted Wojo and said they'd be lucky to win 3-4 more games next year due to both the OL and DL being horrible.
- Chait - Hoke has antiquated ideas i.e. spread vs non spread; spread makes you soft, etc. Says OSU game proved otherwise. Hoke wants to go back to early 90s.
- Whitlock - Disagree on those points, but can understand the view.
- Whitlock - Mentioned last year Lewan was not a leader. Did not get that from inside information, just from watching the team. I was proven right despite the hate at the time I received.
- Whitlock - I've surrendered my relationship with Brady Hoke to give him distance so I can do my job.
- Whitlock - Green came in very soft last year. Someone should have seen that and rectified it. I saw this kid dive at a LBs feet rather than block.
- Chait - makes negative comment on Fred Jackson as RB coach in terms of development of RBs.
- Whitlock - doesn't disagree on Jackson without explicitly saying it.
- Chait - defends Gardner more due to summer camps where gurus say he would be a star.
- Whitlock - some truth in that but cites a play vs MSU where Gardner fell 1 yard short vs MSU as a signal of things you can't do. Leaders don't do that.
- Chait - disagrees, and cites Gardner sacrificing body all year.
- Whitlock - agrees to a degree but still thinks Gardner is lacking in key areas. Whitlock compares Devin to Denard, and says he loved Denard's heart ... but had decision making issues.
- Rest of call is fluff and worshiping Beilein.
ESPN radio.
Interesting take on the viewpoint that Hoke's gotten too comfortable at Michigan. You can definitely make the argument that this type of mindset would sprinkle down to some of the staff as well as players. Hopefully after last year's debacle, this is something that everyone has rectifying. Having Coach Nuss around from a winning program with a different viewpoint on things looks like it might be enough to shake things up.
Massive tool. A persona non grata around here.
May be a tool/hack, but must be a big Michigan fan and/or still has a bromance crush on Brady Hoke, as he knows a ton about us!
I believe Whitlock and Hoke used to be friends. And back when we were looking for a coach post RR, he campaigned for Hoke over Harbuagh. So its not just a passing man crush. They were aquainted enough that Whitlock was familiar with entire Hoke family down to the nieces and nephews.
Whitlock was an scholarship OL for a couple years around or when Hoke first arrived at BSU as a player. He then started covering Michigan football for the Michigan daily when Hoke first arrived as an assistant at Michigan.
I generally enjoy Whilock more than most on this site, but listening to him talk to Chait...It sounded like there was an IQ disparity of about 50 points in play.
I agree with Whitlock's first point, which is that it's confusing that although Hoke's strength used to be player development - even as recently as 2011 - we haven't seen that so much this year or last.
RE: Gardner and his leadership - I always used to wonder about his not being elected captain and his habit of sitting alone on the bench when the defense was out on the field, and if there was more to that.
I seem to recall seeing the majority of QBs sitting along on the bench. They're generally there with headphones on, talking to the OC up the in the booth. Not sure how that impacts leadership.
Gardner was a redshirt junior in his first year of starting, so I'm not sure we should take too much away from him not being a captain. However, he is a very confident individual, and I don't really see him as the type of QB who's tight with everyone from top to bottom.
I didn't think of it too much at the time, but only as the season wore on.
I'm not questioning his toughness and I don't think anyone should. Being a leader is a different thing, though. The program needs one. We'll have to wait and see if that's Devin.
Just because you're the best player (Lewan) or QB (Gardner) doesn't mean you're the best leader. And you don't have to look any further than our own bball team for that. With guys like Novak and Morgan being outstanding leaders on the team.
The dude was essentially a 2pt conversion away from beating Ohio State on a broken foot he'd had for over a quarter. Maybe you can question decision making, but any thoughts of questioning his 'toughness' or willingness to 'sacrific his body' should be thrown out the door in a rude fashion
I feel like Denard had more of a "put the team on my back" mentality, but I may be wrong. This season is Devin's last chance to prove the doubters wrong, let's hope he does!
corporate staffs, etc.--at all. There are a lot of different leadership styles. Gardner is cool, quirky, even somewhat intellectual in his makeup. Not a glad-hander. He sure had chemistry with Gallon, though--let's not forget.
I see him as immensely gifted. . . and looking at a wild number of changes over his years in the program. He could have had NCs at some schools. He'll be like Hardaway and a helluva a lot of other players who M fans didn't quite get, kill it in the pros.
There's no "right" way to be a leader. You can't judge leadership without being constantly present, you just can't. You can't present limited observations as a basis for judging leadership. The only people qualified to judge a player as a leader are the coaches and players around him every day, and they almost never share their true opinion.
which is why my wonderings remain only wonderings.
Captains aren't elected until August. Typically, only seniors in their final year of eligibility are elected captains (that might even be a rule, not sure). Last year, Gardner was a redshirt junior so not being elected captain shouldn't raise any eyebrows. I would be shocked if he's not elected captain this year.
I'm not disagreeing with anything you said, but I just want to mention that Jake Ryan was a captain as a redshirt junior. So it is possible. Sometimes, though, there's a void of leadership that requires a younger guy to be a captain. And kind of on a side note, for all the bad things fans want to say about Taylor Lewan, the fact is that he was voted a team captain.
He uses the race card every chance he gets. I would love to meet him in person.
internet tough-guy-him
HE'D KICK HIS ASS!!!!!!!
don't forget the Sea Bass
I remember when I cared about what Jason Whitlock had to say. Oh, wait, no I don't.
Also, it's not like Michigan doesn't spread the field on offense, the problem was it just didn't work.
Agreed. As did Stanford and Alabama.
System is a bit overrated esp if you are a team that gets 4 star talent all over the place. System helps those teams that have 2-3 stars and you need to find a way to fight superior firepower. For all the fireworks Oregon has, they usually have been beaten down when it faced an old school team with high end coaching. And UCF beat Baylor last year, etc.
Exception to the rule, along with Stanford. This is the problem with pro-style offense. The pool of top-notch teams you are trying to emulate is shrinking year-by-year. Of course it CAN be done, but it's obviously the more difficult route nowadays because of how much harder it is to play good defense.
Meh
Oklahoma, Texas, USC, Stanford, Bama, MSU, LSU, FSU, Notre Dame, South Carolina, Georgia, Wisconsin off top of my head. Plenty of teams are playing old school offense and have had success the past 10 years.
How many gadget offenses are in the top 20? Oregon, OSU, Auburn (now but not 5 years ago), Baylor, Florida (by the way horrific offense last year)... who are the next 5 great spread teams?
Spreads generally allow Northwestern or Indiana type talent to steal a few games their normal talent would not due to physical limitations on type of players they recruit.
If you have top 20 talent you can run either system with the right coaching. And far more are still mostly pro style than spread.
MSU and Stanford - already covered. These are Michigan's models.
Oklahoma, Notre Dame, South Carolina, Florida State - signficantly more progressive offenses than Michigan. They aren't as high-tempo as OSU, Oregon, Texas A&M, etc. but all feature far more shotgun/4-receiver sets than Hoke would seemingly like to see.
Texas, USC and Georgia - All have performed below their talent level in recent years, hugely in the cases of Texas and USC. In fact, Brown's only big successes at UT were when he spread it out with VY and McCoy.
Bama & LSU - Simply not on Michigan's elemental chart. There's no way I can say this without it sounding an excuse, but I'm going to. These teams both appear to have "enhanced" talent on the lines, year in and year out. Read into that what you will.
Wisconsin - pretty much the poster boy for a "regional power." Yeah, that's more than Michigan has been recently, but our ceiling is higher. I'd also give Anderson another year or two. I think he'll slowly modernize Wisky's approach.
Finally, calling them "gadget" offenses is just foolish. Spread/no-huddle offenses are getting closer to the norm, not further away. The idea that this is going to be some passing fad like the wishbone is already being disproved, especially since it's being adopted by the pros more and more.
Question - are you comparing them to UM or comparing them to pro style sets. I am comparing to pro style sets. There are a lot of 3-4 wide pro style sets out there with single back out there. The Lions play out of shotgun almost the entire game with Stafford. A lot of these 'progressive teams' play that way.
Basically your exceptions were: Oklahoma, Notre Dame, South Carolina, Florida State
Every other team is either a "regional power" or "UM cannot compete with them for prospects". As for Texas and Georgia I'd say they have overinflated coaches, Brown has done more with less than anyone in the country and Georgia is the perennial kissing sister. Maybe having to play Bama, UF, LSU for the right to the NC game clouds their chances for supreme success. As for USC obviously they have larger issues than their scheme right now and in the past 5 years.
Again I listed a significant list of colleges - 4 of them you wrote are not spread but maybe more progresive than UM. I can live with that. I don't see any of those teams killing it nationally the past 5-6 years without a ridiculous player at QB (see FSU this year). If UM was just playing like normal UM rather than EMO UM they'd have the same success as Georgia, Oklahoma, Notre Dame, or South Carolina.
The pure spread teams have not won anything at the national level outside of UF.... with one of the top 3 coaches in the country and a Heisman winner. Or Texas if you want to call them a spread with a transformational QB in Vince Young. The rest have been the USCs, Bama's, Oklahoma's, Ohio State (2002), LSU, Miami.
I think the scheme is an excuse. Maybe if OSU wins a NC with it I'll change my view but what I saw last year was MSU's defense kick that scheme in its mouth. And Stanford did the same thing to Oregon and its fancy spread.
Comparing them to UM. Not just what UM has shown the last few years or what Nussmeier might bring, but mostly on what Hoke constantly says UM is working toward. Two-back, smashmouth, etc. This is where the heard gets very thin these days from what I have observed. You need a level of defense that is very hard to achieve these days with all the different looks you have to prepare for. I simply don't think it's a wise idea.
And yeah, "pro sets" can be a misnomer with some people since it's not our daddy's NFL anymore in terms of offensive identities.
As for national champions, you forgot Auburn with Cam Newton. I simply don't think NCs is a good way to judge this as you are talking about something so exclusive and so given to the way the ball bounces. Auburn had the game won this year if they could have stopped an FSU TD with less than a minute to go on the clock. That they failed in that has nothing to do with the superiority/inferiority of the spread/no-huddle to under-center/slower-tempo schemes.
due to their recruiting perhaps surpassed Bama's current success. I recall the Bush freshman year and yes, they captured the top two rbs in the country that season, but Carroll was so good at keeping the kids in S. Cal that Lendale was the first player from outside the state that year and he was like the 25th kid. It was obvious Kiffen could not handle job. Even w/"supposed" lack of depth, he still had incredible talent on both sides of the ball and was forced to fire one of the best DCs in the game, being his father, because as he has proven at three stops he is not HC material. You wi ll never be a better than average HC if you are not among the best in motivation. Carroll was as great as this as he was at defensive scheming. In Jake Long's words, "they threw stuff at us we just had never seen before. ^And, of course, we have first hand knowledge of such importance displayed during the Bo years. There can really be no disagreement that Lloyd enjoyed greater talent (if there had been a star system when Bo was here), but with Bo seldom were we out of NC contention until the end of Nov. With LC, unless he was fortunate enough to have tremendous leadershp, i.e., 97 when he had it in spades on both sides of the ball and again in '06 when he enjoyed the same type, it normally took him to a loss or two very early until he started bringing the team together. Had some of his teams played the way they did at the beginning of the year as they did at season's end, Hell he might have managed one, possibly two more NCs. But this is true in any sport, but cfb, as we are all too aware, does not forgive those early "finding the team" excuses . And this, too, is my main concern with Brady. I believe he fought like a tiger at his other two stops from the opening game, whereas here he just hasn't displayed that ability. His offense, as you pointed out, is fine. But it has to be perfected early and the players must be motivated from game one for us to rise again to the upper echelon of this sport.
This could be what Hoke is going for but we haven't yet seen it on the field due to our brand of QBs. Until we get a true OL that is functional and we enter the Morris/Speight/whoever is next era - I guess we won't see what Hoke's true vision is for offense but yes he did sound like Carr in his early pressers... but people adapt. He also seems to lay out a general vision but seems to give the OC a lot of leeway.
If Hoke is retained long enough it will be interesting to see what his end goal is.
this fascination is highly overrated. If you have talent you can run either system and with the current players we have on the roster, we are a pro style team and if we want to switch we would have to go through another 3-4 years of hell which I'm sure no one wants. Hoke's offensive philosphy is not the problem. The points they made I thought were valid were that Fred Jackson might need to retire and Derrick Green might be a little soft. Vincent Smith is the only running back I can remember in a while that has been able to pass protect and that's on Jackson and the only top quality running backs we've brought in for the past decade have been Grady (bust) and Green (potential bust). I was ecstatic we brought in Green, until I watched his film and didn't see one broken ankle tackle or pile moved or big hit. This kid just doesn't have much balance and his yards after contact leaves a lot to be desired. I'm not ready to give up on him but he really needs to imporve to live up his 1 RB ranking and I'll still never understand how people watch his tape and then Derrick Henry's and said Green was better.
beat some of those more talented old school type teams. but i am of the opinion that scheme is overrated. get talent and coach them up and you will do well.
Some thoughts.
We have seen some player development, QWash comes to mind, but nothing like taking a 4 stars and turning them into 5/6 star like we expected. Could be youth because I'm sure at Ball State and SDSU Hoke didn't have to play a bunch of freshmen but I'm not totally sure of the specifics. Green was totally soft last year. 240 lbs was unacceptable and he is down to a good weight this spring. Lewan was not a leader. Dave Molk was a leader. This is known Khaleesi.
As far the the QB situation I'm not going to pretend to know more than the coaches. They work with these guys everyday and I trust them to make the decision that is best for the team be it Gardner or Morris or Speight. The ties go to the seniors (except if that senior is Tom Brady) but if an underclassman is better you have to go with him.
Spread vs Pro style is a red herring because today's pro style is a 3 WR 1 TE and 1 RB set. To me that looks like a spread formation but you can still run the football out of it. I think Hoke's philosophy is to run the football to control the clock and line of scrimmage vs some people who think you should try to score on every play. Which philosophy is best? Whichever one wins the game. You have to be able to execute your scheme which is it is up to the coaches to put the players in the best position to execute.
was a 4*. if he were successfully coached up, he should have made all big ten. that said, i think he played fairly well at nose tackle, but if he were great, he wouldn't have seen his playing time dwindle as his senior year wore on.
nothing wrong with some beilein worship. we can all agree there.
You can look back to Hoke's quotes when he first got here about toughness and physical practices. And, nobody's spot is gauranteed. Compare those to last year's qoutes about resting Lewan and other ones. Just a general feeling I had, at the time, while reading last year's reports.
new coach and new coaches always do that to gain control of the team. Look at Charlie Strong at Texas, you think he was always that tough at Louisville? No, he had his rules but seniors get the benifit of the doubt and gain certain privileges because they have been there and the coaches trust them. Same with Hoke, Lewan was a returning All-American who had spent years with Hoke, he had earned the cache to take a few reps off and let the young guys have some more reps. A couple more reps for Lewan isn't going to make much of any difference for him on the field but it would risk injurying him which would effectively kill our chances at any protection for DG at all (though thanks to the guards and RB's even his presence didn't help much). Literally every coach in America that has been at a place long enough does this, it's not specific to Hoke.
I do realize they rotate players with the ones to give experience, etc. But, that wasn't the impression I got from reading the quotes last year.
I don't think he's fair to DG. The MSU play was disappointing, but he obviously immediately realized his mistake and ran really hard on his final runs. He also finished the season playing on a bum foot against OSU.
It's also my sense that the team is moving in a good direction but that the schedule this year likely won't allow for a great record.
I wonder if 2011, which was great but also pretty flukey, created a false sense of security in the program.
Whitlock is frustrating, because he can be calm and thoughtful but also resort to Skip Bayless-style flaming.