In support of Brady Hoke - three years and a positive direction

this has nothing to do with talent.  There were too many games this year we shouldve won.  plus you throw in Uconn and Akron.   This was the easiest schedule i can remeber.

Two years ago, we heard how good the 2014 D would be once guys like Ross, Bolden, Morgan, etc. had time in the system. I haven't lost faith in Mattison that he can't fix what was screwed up at times this year. 

Really, the D cost us the Ohio game and perhaps last night (not sure if we'd win anyway) and maybe PSU game (though Gardner handed them two easy TDs). The Indy game was a shootout.

But our D kept us in the MSU game and was the main reason we were in the game at Iowa. Same thing at UConn. 

INCONSISTENT play

Develop a Top 10 O-Line and this D could be decent enough to win 10 games.

All hail the pizza man!

Thank you for the summary of the last few years, but I completely disagree.  Other coaches at big time programs take over fractured programs and succeed.  Hoke has not succeeded.  In my opnion, this shows that he will NOT succeed.

The problems on this team go farther than just youth and depth. Ross said himself the team wasn't ''totally into the game''. Who's responsible for that? 

It has been the same ALL SEASON. Hoke and co do not get the players properly motivated for games. Period. We will see the same thing next year. 

If Hoke wants MANBALL, he can start by having some more real hitting next Spring and not pretend walkthroughs, using the "depth" excuse for limiting it to a glorified flag football contest.

Tackling last night and much of the season was AWFUL - guys have from April to August to heal. 

What the hell would Hoke be doing then? I want him more involved in all 3 phases so he can do more than just clap on the sideline.

Now that the season has been put to bed, we'll see how the coaching staff reacts. The powers that be (e.g. the AD) clearly didn't like what he saw with RR.  Next year's schedule isn't that attractive for fans but it may be critical for this staff. They need a good result.

Must have a lot of noon kickoffs next year. I love Tim Horton's glazed donuts.  MMMMMMM!

Messing up is normal and part of the game, BUT messing up at the magnitude this team has..now that comes down on coaching..when the players themselves admit to not being "in" the game, then something is wrong big time..as much as this sucks i dont mind giving Hoke another year but the staff needs to be moved around..
In the mean time if I was DB i would start looking and keep my options opened and start talking to some agents, because Hoke is not the HC we are looking for..he can be part of the staff but thats it...IMO

on the coaching staff yet, Borges included (though I am closest to losing faith in his ability). Hoke and company deserve two more years - many of the losses this year could be turned into wins next year. That said, fans really need to quit with the excuses that involve the schedule, planning for ideal years where everyone is an upperclassman, and the "we are young at X position". Every single team in the country plays young guys at key positions and every year we will have young or inexperienced players at QB, WR, RB, or whatever.

I think calling Hoke's first three years "a success" is a stretch.  He himself said he wants Michigan to compete for Big Ten championships, and so far we haven't even been in that game, Even worse, the trend so far has been away from rather than toward it.  So Hoke has been a failure by his definition, not so?

I want Hoke to succeed because I want Michigan to succeed, and he's our coach.  But I'm having a hard time seeing a big change of direction at the moment, especially if he keeps the staff as is.  I certainly hope another year of experience enbles the players to be coached up so they can execute.  But at the moment I'm still in the depression stage.

I would agree that Hoke should be given a full 5 years, but after this season if we have another implosion like this year, then some heads need to roll.  If Hoke isn't willing to let underperforming coordinators go, then DB needs to end it after 4 years.  And for the next coaching search we need to get out of the whole "Michigan Man" mindset for hiring a coach.  Get the best man for the job, not the guy that everyone loves initially.  If he wins, no one will care if he's a from the family tree.

I completely agree with this post. Hoke has been sending out competitive squads with teams full of mostly first and second year players.  RichRod was was getting blown out on a semi-consistent basis, yet some are mentioning he wasn't given enough time, while at the same time saying Hoke and company need to go. Quite a counterintuitive line of thinking. 

 

The fact that Al Borges still has a job today tells you that our head coach isn't very smart. Unless he's waiting til tomorrow to pull the trigger. I'm on the fence about firing Hoke right now. We have a solid class coming in, and I don't know who's available for us ATM. Either way I know he's not the guy. Hey, everyone has a breaking point. Maybe next year when Hoke's 1-3 on msu and osu, people like OP will wake the fuck up.

I support Hoke. He is still getting his players into the program and we are young. Maybe I'm more patient than most people. Look at his time at Ball State. His first four years were pretty bad then he went 7-6 and 12-1. It takes time to build a program. 

This thread will be fun to read. I think

about "derailing" the progress we've made. First off, what progress? We have gotten worse every year since Hoke got here. Second, why is everyone acting like difficult transitions are some immutable law of nature? We had a rough time with RR because of the system, and allegedly we're having a rough time with Hoke because RR didn't recruit O-linemen. This does not mean that a potential new head coach be destined to have trouble. Michigan has had two awful transitions because the administration decided to play fast and loose with their coaching hires.

The sure bet was hiring Les Miles. That's what a top-tier program like Alabama or OSU would have done. But either because Bill Martin is worthless piece of crap or because Carr has some mysterious vendetta against Miles, we whiffed on that one and headed to the slot machines.

Hiring RR in 2007 was a gamble; he was a young coach from a crappy conference operating a system that required a completely different set of personel than we had. On top of that, we balked when it came to paying for the DC he was used to - that more than anything is the reason RR is no longer here.

Then Brandon decided to follow in Martin's footsteps of incompetence and went ahead with the inane decision to fire RR after the freaking bowl game (because seriously that blowout loss to the cowbells told us so much more than our blowout losses to MSU, Iowa, Penn State, Wisconsin, and OSU).

Another elite coach, Harbaugh, was well within our grasp, but we balked yet again for unclear reasons. So Brandon goes out and gets a MAC coach with a below .500 career record with only one season of double-digit wins. A  guy who cares so little about offensive strategy that he doesn't see any need to wear a headset, and has bet his entire career on a journeyman OC who can apparently only run a decent offense when his entire backfield is future NFLers. And not only that, but the system the staff wants to run is another complete 180 from RR and requires an entirely different set of personel.

It doesn't need to be this way. But if you hire second-rate coaches there's a chance you'll end up with a second-rate program. Michigan didn't need to play the lotto on their last two picks for HC, but they did anyway.

I will forever support whomever is the head coach at UM. However my concerns about Brady and staff at this point are rather plentiful and important in the ressurrection of this great university : - continued bad clock management - continued poor game management - on the road or neutral site we look like a high school team and are constantly unprepared and look flat - failure to adjust on the fly - player development The issues noted are several of my concerns that Brady has yet to Alieviate in any way, shape, or form. My hope is that Brady makes some serious changes to this staff because we lack energy and exuberance seemingly week to week. I want Hoke to be successful, but each game that passes with no visa blue change in the direction of this football team I find myself yearning for him to make the proper changes to alter the trajectory of this team toward a myriad of success. Should no changes be made I think baring a 10 win season with marked improvement in the areas above, then Brady needs to be relieved of his duties as the Head coach of the University of Michigan. I hope he takes a hard look at Borges, funk, Jackson, and hecklinski. I hope he takes a look at Mattison's scheme and determines it to be much too passive in today's era of uptempo spread offense. Next year we have a very easy schedule and our first real opportunity to compete for the big ten title. We should easily be in that discussion with the players we have coming back another year older and wiser. 2014 should be the year of no excuses because in my opinion, excuses is all we keep hearing. Happy festivus