SI's Mandel on Hoke
Article here
Brady Hoke has yet to coach his first game at Michigan, but so far he can seemingly do no wrong. Over the past several months, the Wolverines' maize-and-blue-bleeding coach has won over a whole bunch of initial skeptics by hiring an acclaimed coaching staff and dominating the recruiting trail.
But Mandel is an idiot, as discussed here:
http://mgoblog.com/mgoboard/sis-stewart-mandel-tsios-sanctions-are-enough
not gonna lie, when i first saw the news of hoke getting hired, i was upset at BD. we could have hired Harbough or Miles away from two of the nations great football programs. Look what they have done past few years. A coach from SDSU? really?
BUT i was wrong. Hoke does "no wrong" starting from his attitude, recruiting to his love for the game and for Michigan. this guy makes me excited for the season more and more everyday.
gotta love this guy.
I was a little upset, but only because Brian was so negative about him. Had Brian said he was a great hire, I would have been delighted.
Opinions. Try forming them yourself sometimes.
the sarcasm was too thick for you to detect, there.
Upon further review, I think you're absolutely right. I've been had.
I think we tried and he ditched us at the altar.
Or he just wanted to coach in the NFL or not deal with the often infuriating politics of Michigan.
Courting Harbaugh was just so DB could say he tried! He was never going to be the Coach!
I agree you gotta love him, BUT it is still slappy to say "I was wrong" when he hasn't coached a game yet. It just is.
All vibes are good, nay, great right now. But they usually are at this point. Rich Rod was the exception because he had the pyschobillies from West Virginia AND the snobs from Michigan taking target practice at him this time three years ago.
Hoke has a career losing record, but hopefully that changes this season.
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<br>As I've said before, my judgement is reserved until after the season
Bavid Drandon?
Bizzaro Dave Brandon, who slaps fans of canned stadium music.
This is the guy who said OSU's self imposed ticklefest sanctions were sufficient. So, grain of salt.
They are really ticklish.
I was taking Mandel's comments with a 40 lb. bag of Morton's water softener tablets.
in the following mailbag that while the response was appropriate for the charges, it was also an insult to our collective intelligence to suggest that it was just JT.
Other ineptness from Mandel aside, I this article was a very accurate descprition of the state of the program, other ineptness from Mandel aside.
Kind of a good dig on us at the end:
It's kind of flattering that someone is paying such close attention to us this off-season.
I like using "The Summer of Hoke" as in "Michigan's return to dominance was spurred by The Summer of Hoke."
Great article depicting the differing directions in the two rival programs this offseason.
The first three paragraphs of this column are so depressing.
Ya, I can imagine his intitial scenario quite clearly. Aw. Because that was my four years at UofM. Horror to Miss St dismembering. Huh....still remember consoling my buddy at the Wisco game telling him it's okay things will get better and we always cheered the loudest. Then a couple of the frat guys walked by, one on his Ipad exclaiming, "This is great for football games. I can watch all the other games on it." It was depressing.
I'm upset with Mandel a fair amount, particularly after his OSU self-sanctions article, but he did clear up his position in the mailbag article he posted afterwards. He said that personally he wasn't satisfied with the sanctions and that most college football fans wouldn't be and shouldn't be, but that for what the NCAA has actually put in its NOI for OSU that the sanctions fit right now (assuming the NOI isn't revised due to new information). I don't know why he didn't put that in the original article, but it helped his position make a bit more sense. That being said, it's still infuriating. Link below (scroll down for the OSU stuff):
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/stewart_mandel/07/13/russ…
It sounds like he's hedging his bets. By originally saying "These self-imposed punishments are appropriate" but then adding that they could and should change, he makes himself right no matter what the outcome. It's like saying "I hope they get more sanctions, but I don't think they will," you're a winner either way.
I'm just glad we got Hoke instead of that piece of shit Miles. Signing players then cutting members of that same recruiting class in August is terrible.
recruiting like a Biatch is what ...wait for it...Lane Kiffin did (at Tenn) before he actually coached a game.
So as optismistic as I am, let us wait at least till this Nov before mailing in the mea culpa's. I just hope Brian is man enough to put his own front and center on the site just like he did with his derision of the hire.
Recruiting like a biatch is also what Meyer and Mattison did before winning multiple national championships and not oversigning any classes.
Hoke is using prostitutes to get recruits or that he's going to quit after this season to coach at a heavily sanctioned program?
Yeah, Hoke and Kiffin are in NO WAY related. Hoke is here and he doesn't want to go anywhere else.
You have to take into account the fact that he stepped into programs that were in a god awful state. Look at Harbaugh and what he did at Stanford. After his third year at stanford, he still had a sub-500 record, but nobody would make the argument that he wasn't doing an outstanding job.
If Hoke got SDSU to play at a national level within 2 years of them losing to New Mexico 70-7, you know this guy can coach and his below .500 record is not even close to indicative of the great coaching jobs he has done elsewhere.
Wow I never even thought about that. With all the wailing about Hoke's career record being bad, Harbaugh's career record as an FBS coach is... 20-17. That's not very good without context.
Ball State has been to five bowl games EVER. Two of these were under Hoke, who also led them to a perfect regular season. That's neat. Also, he went from DT coach to head coach with only a year of assistant HC under his belt. That's a hell fo a learning curve for someone who was never even a coordinator.
Yes. It seems like you're insinuating something, so I'll just say yes.
you did there. The difference is, this is Michigan. That was Ball State.
At Michigan, you're in a world of hurt.
It did take him awhile to get Ball State rolling. There may be something to be said though for growing and becoming better as a coach. Look at his last 4-5 seasons and the improvement of all of his teams is impressive.
Exactly this. He went from being a D-line coach to being a head coach. That's a helluva jump which probably has a bit of a learning curve.
And if you're loving the Hoke hire, like we all are now, you've got to give it up for David Brandon. While it's way to soon to say if DB's going to be a great athletic director, he's looking great so far. And I particularly like the fact that as someone who many would consider an intellectual, he didn't project that requirement on his football coach.
In other words, Hoke obviously isn't polished after the image of a Dale Carnegie Toastmaster. But his passion, enthusiasm, unpretentiousness and the way he talks about his players, like he genuinely cares about them, is winsome and infectious. Mattison made no bones about admitting that the only reason he initially considered the job was because of BH. So I give Branson high marks for recognizing the qualities in Hoke that have gotten our program headed back in the right direction. As a former hockey coach, the ability to recruit excellent assistants and blue chip talent is one of the most important qualities required to building a successful program.
Carr was an excellent coach but I must admit I felt his offensive play calling was too conservative much of the time. Some years we had some real horses at wide out but didn't get to see what they could do unless we were 2 scores down in the 4th quarter.
With the exception of that last Florida game which was awesome. The only thing I didn't like about that game was it left me wondering why we hadn't opened it up more earlier in the year.
Then, with RR we swung the pendulum way too far to the other extreme and got the high powered offense but totally sucked on D.
If BH and GM can bring M back to our glory days of stifling defense and implement an offense that can use the weapons we have to create mismatches and long sustained drives...
and if we can find someone who can kick a field goal under pressure...
we should have some good years ahead.
Brady Hoke is playing the political game very well. He's saying all the right things (MANBALL!) and mollifying the fanbase, while Borges and Mattison seem to be running the team at the player level. It seems a bit saccharine to me, and we'll see what happens once the players take the field. Recruiting seems to be better, but I'm skeptical to see if he can actually coach up the talent he's getting. Time will tell.
I'm cautiously optimistic over all, and I'm glad that the fanbase has unified around our coach.