Level headed thoughts on a lop - sided result.

Well, a long plane ride from Tampa with a kamikaze connector flight from Detroit to South Bend...... $250 in game tix and one shit hotel in Elkhart, Indiana later....here we go. We are still not ready for big time football here at Michigan. Our program is still behind th. Onation's elite. A few years ago in the Bama game I envisioned us being ready by 2014. That vision was dashed tonight. We are at somewhat of a fork in the road here now. Do we ride this out with Hoke and maybe demand a few staff changes? Or do we start again from scratch and lose our footing in recruiting? Neither option is ideal to be honest but we must figure out which one helps our program achieve our goal of being a national power quicker. Let's look at a few takeaways from tonight. The Good Funchess is a boss and could be a force all year long. We actually played decent on defense when you look at the yardage. We gave up under 300 yards. We could not get ND off of the field in key situations and the 2 scores in the last 5 minutes of the 1st half killed us. I thought the Dline held their own and we only gave up 55 yards or so on the ground. If our offense could finish drives....this would have been a defensive performance that we could have competed with. The Bad. Devin Gardner with the bone head turnovers again. At some point it simply has to stop and he has to be accountable. He held onto the football in several occasions that resulted into sacks. His reads are not where they need to be and he plays the postion too dangerously to be reliable. His ceiling is high...but his floor is low. He skirts the floor too often. Our run game was predictable and vanilla along with our play calling in general. Coach Hoke electing to attempt those 1st quarter field goals killed momentum and sent the mmessage that we were here to "hang in there" and not to "Win the game". Coach Kelly went for his 4th and short and got it...which in turn swung the momentum. We still do not have a decided #2 receiver. Somebody needs to step up. We also need a change of pace back more infused into the offense. Our backs are not elite athletically and that hurts us especially with an average Oline. Coach Kelly blew Coach Hoke out of the water tonight and it's beginning to feel like 201 may be as good as it gets under Hoke. I hope that I'm wrong but it's hard to fight that feeling. Solutions. We need to give Shane more playing time. He needs to be ready for 2015 simple and plain. We also need to officially address our OLine. If Funk cannot get kids ready to go in 2 years. ..he is not the man for this job. Other Oline coaches can get kids ready....especially kids as talented as ours. Coach Hoke is now 4-7 against rivals in 3 and 1/3 seasons. We have to ask ourselves if this is good enough. To me it is not. I don't think that now is the time to call for Brady ' s head and there is a chance that we turn it around and challenge in the B1G, as it is seemingly the undisputed worst conference of the power 5. We need to play our best talent and stop accepting this mediocrity of the past 7/8 seasons. No powerhouse should be down as long as we have....so what gives? Thoughts?