Michigan players that progressed under Hoke

I think it's totally reasonable to question Hoke's player development. Not sure why you're so indignant. To play along, though, I'd argue that the only guys on your list that showed significant gains under Hoke's tutelage are (1) Heininger (whoo walk-on!), (2) Campbell (still not good), (3) Gallon, (4) Gibbons (eh...), (5) Funchess, (6) Henry, (7) Butt (Whoo, natural ability!), and (8) Glasgow (whoo walk-on!). Eight guys. Wow. 

You cannot give Hoke credit for the "progress" of Omameh or Molk. Kovacs, Martin, Roh, and Van Bergen were what they were when he came in, and they played better as a unit in 2011, sure. You're really desperate for examples if you want to hold up Countess, Taylor, Washington, Black, Gardner, Gordon, Beyer, Lewan, Schofield, Ross, Bolden, and Chesson as the shining examples of Hoke's player development. These guys were/have been all in neutral for the past few years. Lewis only counts if we're weighing success on spring practices now. Not sure what Clark is.

Hoke has been a big disappointment the last couple of years. It's okay to admit it to yourself. It's not your fault.

Hoke wins or he probably goes. Showing "progress" in year one against the easiest schedule in decades isn't going to save him if we go 7-5, 8-4 again. Some of the guys you listed are borderline silly. Campbell? He progressed so much he was drafted as an offensive lineman. Mike Martin was a senior when Hoke got him and one of the best players. Same with Kovacs. Jake Butt's entire career consists of 20 catches in 8 games. You're arguing that 22-year-olds getting naturally better than when they were 18 is some kind of example of coaching, or at least something that every coach doesn't see happen. The same "progress" of individual players happened with Tommy Amaker in basketball and his supporters kept saying wait till next year. Hoke has this year. His excuses have run out. I hope he succeeds and Nussmeier is the answer.

There was lots of progression in 2011.  The team was markedly better at the end of the year than at the beginning, defense most of all.

There was still that progression, although less so, in 2012. 

2013 was a clusterfuck and the team was the same or worse than it was at the beginning of the year. 

Not that hard to understand.

Funchess, Van Bergen, Will Campbell, Gallon, Jake Ryan for sure.

Who's a blind homer? Somebody who says we should easily go 15-0? No one has the faintest idea what our season will hold at this point.

Regardless of the team's record, I wished we'd support the team better and let our petty grudges against Carr, RR, and Hoke go away.

If you're gonna claim his player development at those schools was so good, then go ahead and list those players. Otherwise it's an empty claim.

Its OK to question player development.  The idea that Hoke "forgot" that he had to develop players is sort of a new offseason revelation that's getting a lot of buzz, and it seems to fit with the current state of the team.

What's not really being examined, however, is that apparently he knows how to do this, evidence Ball State and SDSU.  So if that former, now rusty, skill, can be turned back on, polished into its former shine, I think we're in for quite a ride. 

I'd say objectively looking at it, I'm happy Hoke's also not the DL coach any more.  Just to state I feel like he's probably an excellent, top-notch DL coach otherwise he wouldn't have lasted as such earlier in his career.  However I feel like the entire team needs more of his attention to progress this season.  So good realignment there.

I feel like the biggest single gain in development we need to see is OL.  I'm willing to pick the best 5 in August, and let them go for as long as they can stay injury free without complaining.  No revolving doors, no experimentation thru the season, just let them learn as a unit.  I do reserve the right to allow a fresh 5 players off the bench in the 4th quarter when the clock needs to be burned up, as if the depth is there on the "2s" we could pound some tired defenses all the way to the locker room this way.

Hoke, in my view, deserves huge praise for his willingness to "go for it" and not play the safe probability game.  That has not been seen in this city for quite awhile.  I think the team needs the mindset that its up to them to make plays in critical situations as time goes forward.

The last thing I have to offer is the "change the head coach" is always out there.  I don't like it as it brings Michigan closer and closer to being a "stepping stone" program, that's going to be in play for any up-and-coming HC as soon as adversity strikes.  If you look at the HC history from Bo going forward, all have basically ended their careers here.  I know Moeller couldn't get to stay as long as I wanted, and I wish Rod had left sooner, so you know my personal biases, but the other guys never wanted to leave to go somewhere else.  When the door gets opened to someone intending to stay 2-5 years until success is temporarily restored and use the momentum to go to [insert next job] we are doomed to these hateful years of rebuilding over and over.

 

2006 Michigan would easily beat MSU. We played a much harder schedule and Ohio and USC were much better than Stanford or 2013 Ohio. Plus we smoked Wisconsin who lost one game all year and it was to us.

General question to the board - if a player steps in from day 1 and is very good was he developed by a staff?  Not that he cannot get better but my prime example is Mike Hart.  I have no idea if Hart was EE or not.  But if he wasn't, dude was just good from day 1.  Even if he was EE were the 15 practices from Lloyd Carr the thing that made him Mike Hart? 

Now did he develop more over time ?  Was he better as a junior than a freshman?  I assume so but my memory of him was he was a bad a$$ right out of the gate.  Not sure how much of that goes to a staff.

So if Mike Hart came in under Hoke and this was year 3 was he developed by Hoke and staff or was it just a special player from the start that would have exploded anywhere by any staff?  I ask that in Freddy Canteen style - now in his case he is EE but if he shows up next fall and explodes for say 45 catches and 400 yards, was that due to coaching or just being Freddy Canteen?  I ask that because a this point he seems like our 2nd best WR and was so in practice 3, 5, 10 of his career.  That is not a lot of coaching.  And reminds me of Mike Hart *IF* he follows it up on the field next year.  I also this of James Ross III - guy came in year 1 and played quite well.  He looked like the same guy last year as freshman year.  Is that "development" or just a pretty good guy right out of the gate?  Some of these cases are hard to tell.

To the OP - I think we can all find 5-6 players a year who 'developed'.  The problem is the basketball program is generating almost as many guys "who develop" on a 12 man roster as the football program develops on a 85 man roster.  If we did it proportionately if Hoke was matching Beilein we'd see 20+ guys explode each year, not 5.  

Let's use Funchess as an example - he was a very good receiver as a TE prospect as we saw in the first few games as a UM player.  He never developed any real blocking skill.  So he was moved out to WR where he does what he was good at when he showed up on campus.  Is that development?  I don't know - guys either can catch or they don't.  He was catching in HS.  He was catching early in his first year in games.  He is doing the same now.  

So some of these are just hard for me to give to a staff.   Versus say if Joe Bolden exploded into a 1st team All Big 10 next year - that would be development.  Or if Wilson becomes 1st team Big 10 in 2 years. Etc.

I don't consider that better. They had a better season but if we played head to head we would win. Same thing would happen if they played Troy Smith's team. The Big ten was just better then and neither Michigan nor Ohio would've lost to Notre Dame.

You honestly think that they would've beat us or the Buckeyes from 2006? We beat Wisconsin 27-13 and they ended the season ranked 5th. We played against a much better Big ten. We did make the Rose bowl but we didn't win the Big ten because we were playing the # 1 team in the nation on the road.

We also didn't lose to a 9-4 team. Homer alert lol.

I didn't say it was good. I said it was way better than this past year which it was. Wisconsin beat a # 12 ranked SEC team in their bowl game. Who did that this year? Ohio was in the NC game. Which Big ten team played in that this year? How many top ten big ten teams were there in the top 10 this year compared to 2006? 3 in 2006 and 1 in 2013

A lot of people here don't seem to be quite aware of what hoke faced when rebuilding his teams at SDSU and Ball State. These weren't football programs that were down. These were the types of teams where players DIDNT practice or do anything outside of the actual coached football practices.

These teams were perpetual losers, I believe I read that at Ball State he didn't even have an office when he arrived.

 

Brady Hoke inherited a team of mediocre players that had hardly been coached any sort of defense or football intensity (not opinion, read some of the players comments on practice and what it was like under RR, look at the recruiting etc.) On top of this he had Al Borges just crapping the bed in any way that an OC can (again, not an opinion, i mean, look at the game plans, plays etc.) In year one he turned the D around, set the O on fire, beat Ohio State and Notre Dame, won the Sugar Bowl and 11 games.

In his second year he had 1) starting QB go down half way through the season with no real backup due to being left with no recievers 2) A defense missing most of it's best players that was then full of MAC level players playing not in the MAC 3) starting RB broken ankle. They still had a winning season, beat michigan state, and took ohio state and SC to the wire, again... with the backup QB, no recievers, broken RB, al borges, etc.

In year 3 michigan had some of the youngest players that can play college football playing in the position that is reliant the most on being older (the OL), 1 reciever, and generally a team full of MAC players and children. On top of this he was still dealing with AL borges (and lets face it, most of the losses were on the offense.) And he still beat notre dame, and took Ohio state down to 1 point despite not having a developed backup QB, having a broken starting QB, and a young undeveloped team full of undeveloped players and older mac players.

 

Now sure, there are accomplishments that havent been made that now need to start being made. But the thing that is getting really old is the concept that someone can't have a reason for failure "WINNERS WIN", what a dumb sentiment, sometimes there are obstacles in life that slow you down. I don't care what you think, you can't MAKE players better than their ceiling, you cant insta-repair injuries to bone, you cant undone recruiting form years that you didn't even work for the uni, etc. The Man has a history of being a good coach, and he DID turn those schools around, AND plenty of players have developed AT Michigan UNDER Hoke. Just because were not 12-0 and winning it all every year doesn't mean that it isn't happening, it just means it isn't happening at the pace YOU want it to happen at.

Every single one of them. Not a single player in the program has done anything but progress under Hoke. Has it been enough? To date, no, as last year shows. But this insistance by people that each player hasn't individually improved is completely fabricated. Every player improved. Some got injured and slowed their improvement, but the mental part has improved leaps and bounds even with them. Even the players that never "grasp the mental part of the game" have improved leaps and bounds in that aspect. Each player has improved a ton in technique that has participated in practices.

Sometimes other teams learn players weaknesses and the Michigan players/coaches haven't been up to getting them past those weaknesses quick enough. Sometimes players haven't been able to take their progressions, combine them, and show them in a comprehensive way on the field consistently enough. At times other teams have had their players appear to improve quicker than Michigan's. But again, every single player has improved in his time at Michigan, just like they have at every other D1 school across the nation. That's not to say sometimes players don't play better the previous year, but many other things go into that, including: surrounding teammates, confidence, distractions, etc.

People often like to bring up MSU's offense as an example of improving over the course of a year. Did they? Certainly. It just took their offense 1.5 years and tons of experience to turn from a shit-show into something that was pretty good eventually. Their OL couldn't figure out who was taking on second level blockers and who was taking on first level blockers in 2012, and outside of Bell being a really damn good RB, their OL was awful. They got a bunch of experience, threw some guys together, and suddenly the schemes clicked. Their WRs, which were getting open the year before, realized after 1.5 years that they were allowed to actually catch the ball. It's amazing what marginal improvement from a few players can do for an entire side of the ball. Yet people around here forget that it took them 1.5 years of awful play to make that leap, they simply act like MSU cherned out player after player that made drastic improvement instantly and constantly, and act like Michigan is in a tailspin of doom in which only outliers have developed at all. It's stupid. MSU players did improve, I'm not denying that. But the progression was slow, at times too slow, and gradual, until it finally "clicked."

The question isn't if players have improved under Hoke. The question is if player will improve enough and fast enough relative to their counterparts under Hoke. Last year the answer was no. But in 2011? They did. In 2012? Many of them did. No let's see about this year, but many around these parts have been far too "what have you done for me lately" and have had selective memories combined with an observer-expectancy effect.

And just to repeat, so it's clear, every single player under Hoke has progressed.

is a nice bit of exaggeration that has a zombie-like life around here.

Bill Lynch's final three seasons at Ball State:

5-6, 5-6, 6-6

Brady Hoke's seasons at Ball State:

4-8, 2-9, 4-7, 5-7, 7-6, 12-1

Given that it took Hoke five years to exceed the win total—by one whole game—that BSU had the year before he took over, it's more accurate to say that he turned around his own Ball State program.

 

that become All-Americans, it's all about wins and losses and championships. Different styles can get it done but Hoke,like RichRod was, will be judged on bottom line results. We can argue till the cows come home about the effectiveness of the assistant coaches (the guys who really develop the players) but unless you have honest access to the players you probably are just guessing. If Hoke beats MSU, OSU or ND and gets a minimum of nine wins based on this weak schedule, he'll get more years. If not, the $ donors will turn up the heat on DB. This is how it works at any school that has the facilities/expectations and donors that UM has, not some sort of unscientific barometer of player development.

This post certainly hits a nerve.  Thought because of some of this tone I'd join and try to add some very broad but perhaps hopefully more relative insight..

I do not ask my son to divulge goings on, but I do learn through conversations a bit more than what any of the press would know or "experts" on various blogs.

There does seem to be a desire to find the dark lining in many things about this team lately and besides what can actually be used as fact (real games)... everything else is opinion based on what a beat writer may say, or someone saw in a highlight, or a spring game/practice. 

So, so much more going on behind the scenes and you would be really impressed with the players. There are also significantly more positional status, player performances, and development going on then you would ever know. 

The season was a challenge last year, sometimes variables converge to mess up what we would all like to see happen.  Players are energized, Nuss has been a big addition, so many things are moving in the right direction and I can say that not only with a biased perspective but someone who (really) knows this game and has played at a high level. 

Be a fan, have an opinion, but support these kids.  They do see this stuff.  Also know that you don't know anything that is actually going on behind the walls but have some faith that these are good coaches and this team is progressing very, very well.

The less HOMERism and Michigan unconditional love the better. I think player development falls somewhat on the players. I personally believe a lot of players don't put in as much work as others. I'm not saying the players for work hard or want to get into a pay players argument. But look what happens when players like Nik and Caris bust their hump in the offseason. I understand basketball is a different animal but I have to imagine Jordan Kovavs worked harder than other guys to see the field. It seemed to me guys on MSU played with a chip last year and maybe that chip was there in the offseason. Perhaps that falls partially on the S & C coach? I just don't think Hoke is 100% to blame. Other coaches and personal accountability on players is a factor.

You'll never know the real answer to this.  Some kids step in Day 1 and are just ready to play.  Others are hard workers that will make themselves better no matter who is coaching.  And likewise there are always going to be the 'bad apples' that will likely fail under any type of program.

The only things we can say DEFINITIVELY, in my opinion about Hoke's tenure at Michigan:

- 2011 was magical because of our seniors on the defensive line, the upgrade to Mattison from GERG, MOLK, and the ability of Borges to NOT fuck with the offense so bad

- 2013 was a literal tire fire and Borges was fired

We'll see where 2014 goes.  Will Nuss right the ship ala Mattison back in 2011?  Will we have another magical season?  I hope so.  

9-10 games this year and this all goes away.  I just dont know what to think about this team.  Come out and beat the shit out of App State and thats a good start. 

 

is that people are really using "player development" as a way to talk about something else-- mainly, that Michigan was 7-6 last year. 

Of course, "player development" is going to be a factor in the performance of any team, sure. The problem is that every mediocre team is going to have, almost by definition, mediocre players. 

Last season, there were some legitimate concerns about the ability of the coaching staff to develop certain positions (O-Line, Running Back, NT, Saftey come to mind). There were perhaps bigger concerns about the coaching staffs ability to game plan and, more specifically, to scheme around their deficiencies. All of these things are undoubtedly true.

For people to go around pretending that the team must be either completely horrible at player development or blame other factors while pretending that evey completent player must be "improved" is assanine. "Player Development" is a term that is handy to throw around like a legitimate measure of the general ability of the coaching staff, but its something that can only be applied to groups or, for maximum accuracy, individual players. "Player Development," used as a general term, is simply a vague assesment of what you think the team has done and, likely, where you think it is headed. Most people seem to ignore the fact that specifc players can develop while the team generally perfoms worse. It doesn't even take that many. 

In conclusion: I can't wait for the season to start.