Is there such thing as an ''Ohio State'' man?

Submitted by UMxWolverines on

It was brought to my attention in the ''Don't overlook the cradle of coaches thread'' that Tressel was actually an assistant under Earle Bruce which I did not realize.

So, since that is true and since Urban was also on Earle's staff, is there such thing as an Ohio State man?

Look how Cooper was received in Columbus. He was sort of accepted becasue he could recruit better than they had in a long time and was doing better than Earle had, but blew the Michigan game every year. He referred to the Michigan game as just another game like a certain someone did here and that did not go over well. 

My uncle moved down there a few years into the Cooper era (what a great time for him then, what a shitty 10 years it has been for him since) and he has said that they never really fully accepted him down there. He was from Tennessee and had played at Iowa State and had no connections to the state of Ohio.

This article on 11 warriors also seems to say the same thing:

http://www.elevenwarriors.com/2013/06/22916/ohio-state-football-the-com…

So is it a real thing that certain places have to hire coaches with connections? Maybe it's not just a thing here.

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Erik_in_Dayton

September 30th, 2014 at 12:06 AM ^

For starters, OSU's former players and former coaches are a more hetergeneous lot than their counterparts at Michigan. And while Michigan can claim to be elite academically, OSU has a pluralistic quality that Michigan doesn't match. OSU people like it if a coach has a prior connection to the school - and a great many do - but they mostly just want to win. The biggest reason they liked Tressel more than Cooper - by far - was the fact that Tressel beat Michigan.

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Reader71

September 30th, 2014 at 12:16 AM ^

This happens at almost every big program. The old players have a lot of pull because they won the games. They think the system/culture they were in is THE way to win. So the schools bring in alums or guys that have previously been on staff. Woody led to Bruce. They went outside for Cooper, but brought Tressel back. Then Fickell. Now Meyer, who was previously on staff. USC with Sark. Gibbs at Oklahoma before Stoops. Shula at Bama. Pretty much all big programs try their alums as head coach. Our case is only extraordinary because we went so damn long and were so damn good without going outside the program.

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UMxWolverines

September 30th, 2014 at 12:52 AM ^

We're not the only one though. Nebraska pretty much did the same thing witih Devany, Osborne, and Solich. 

Then they went outside after Solich with Callahan and that was a massive failure. Pelini was an assitant and he really hasn't gotten them to be elite in the 6 years he's been there. 

Maybe I will go to the Nebraska site tomorrow and ask them about it. 

Alabama went pretty damn long with guys connected to Bear Bryant. Who knows what would have happened if Saban hadn't been available to them. 

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BornSinner

September 30th, 2014 at 12:21 AM ^

Highly doubt it because no other program in the country, exception maybe Texas and USC (Carroll tree I guess with Kiffin and Sark), is as absurdly judgmental and elitist when it comes to football. Unlike Texas, who just wants winners, Michigan has this even bigger delusion that the moral fibers of this program sprouted from the moral tree itself when in reality it's just maybe slightly above average especially after the Gibbons incident. Oh and we sometimes reach JoePa worship levels of reverence for Bo. It sounds bad, but it is true and has led to a stigma about Michigan since 2007 unfortunately... 

It is time to sit down and think about where this program will go. Where has all this Michigan Man Bo worship gotten us? 1 AP national title and 4 coaching changes later onto our 5th now (2 being disasters), it's time to move on and find a new identity and culture all together and redefine the Michigan Man. 

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GoBLUinTX

September 30th, 2014 at 12:20 AM ^

Which is ironic considering Bruce was fired the Monday following their loss to Iowa, which also happened to be the Monday before OSU went on to beat Michigan....with Earl Bruce still coaching on the side line.  Of course the regents didn't know that was going to happen but they did know that John Cooper's Sun Devils of ASU had beat Michigan in the Rose Bowl less than a year previous.

You have got to hand it to OSU, even when things looked their bleakest, major suspensions, a fired coach in national disgrace (but not local), and NCAA sanctions the OSU faithful never gave up on the program.  They all hunkered down together and weathered the storm losing little in national esteem and certainly weren't losing recruits hand over fist.  Of course they weren't busy eating their own and telling everyone that would listen just how high and mighty they were even as they spoke about how much they and their program sucked.  Nope, no cannibalism in Columbus.

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moredamnsound

September 30th, 2014 at 12:25 AM ^

Yeah. Certain people don't fit places. We just have an easy alliterative name for it here. I'm so tired of the term "Michigan Man". I enjoy it in its well-known uses by Yost and Schembechler, but in almost no other circumstances.

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groovyJABRONI

September 30th, 2014 at 12:42 AM ^

I mean hell, Coach Beilein went to a private nonprofit university from New York and he is more of a "Michigan Man" than Brady Hoke. I think the term should represent who the person has become and how much they mean to the program, not who they used to be and the ties they have to the university. Otherwise don't use the term at all.

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phork

September 30th, 2014 at 1:40 PM ^

No, I get it. I do, but only because I am I understand the sport and the context by what was meant.  However, someone not that in tune with the situation regards it as arrogance at its finest. At surface level "A Michigan Man Will Coach Michigan" looks arrogant.  The underlying definition is the important aspect here.  Someone with values, morals, who values institutional allegiance etc etc.

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Mpfnfu Ford

September 30th, 2014 at 3:22 AM ^

of the Elite College Football Program Club gives preference to coaches who have come through over outsiders. The danger comes when you overvalue a person from inside far beyond what their actual ability to coach is.

Ohio State's guilty of doing that with Fickell. I mean I'm glad they keep employing him as a co-DC, because he's an incompetent whose complete inability to teach concepts outweighs whatever recruiting ability he has. And I hope Ohio State continues having a terribly coached defense. But that guy is getting paid a lot of money for no reason other than that he's a Buckeye Bro.

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Cold War

September 30th, 2014 at 5:35 AM ^

The question posed in the OP shows zero understanding of Michigan's history and the origins of the phrase "Michigan Man".

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UMgradMSUdad

September 30th, 2014 at 5:45 AM ^

Woody Hayes, Jim Tressel. Win at any cost. Lies, tatoos, punches, and apparently mullets, given a previous post.  Those are the most important attributes of an Ohio State man.

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Perkis-Size Me

September 30th, 2014 at 9:33 AM ^

Well said. When it comes to OSU, all a coach needs to do in order to "get it" is to beat Michigan.

For Michigan, its a whole damn process. They had to have gone here, coached here, and they HAVE to have Schembechler ties. Oh, and beat OSU I guess.

Our Michigan man crap is just one more example of why we're a program stuck in the past and can't seem to come to terms with the fact that Bo has been gone for the better part of a decade, and he's not coming back.


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chatster

September 30th, 2014 at 9:59 AM ^

When it comes to getting a new college coaching job, who you know often matters.  So, when Michigan looked to replace the man who’d come from outside the Michigan family and led Michigan football to its worst three-season record since the 1965-67 seasons, it was no surprise that it would be looking inside the Michigan family to regain respectability. Sometimes you win; sometimes you lose.
 
I’m old enough to remember watching Walt Hazzard and Gail Goodrich leading UCLA to the 1964 men’s national basketball championship while coached by a three-time Purdue All-American player who’d only had two seasons of prior coaching experience at Indiana State before becoming UCLA’s head coach in 1948.  And that’s a reminder that “The Wizard of Westwood,” John Wooden, was not the immediate coaching genius that most remember him to be.
 
Consider UCLA’s head basketball coaches after John Wooden led the school to ten national championships between 1963-64 and 1974-75:
 
Gene Bartow - No connections to UCLA before hiring; left after two years to start the athletic department at Alabama-Birmingham; second-best winning percentage in UCLA hoops history with 52-9 record (better than Wooden)
 
Garry Cunningham - Played at UCLA; assistant to Wooden for ten years; best winning percentage in UCLA hoops history with 50-8 record 
 
Larry Brown - Played and was an assistant at UNC; became UCLA head coach after seven seasons coaching in the ABA and NBA; left UCLA after two seasons to coach the New Jersey Nets; 42-17 in two seasons, including NCAA runner up in 1980
 
Larry Farmer - Only player who participated in all the games for UCLA teams that went 89–1 (.989), the best winning percentage in NCAA men’s basketball history; UCLA assistant for eight seasons before becoming head coach; left after three seasons
 
Walt Hazzard - UCLA All-American on Wooden's first national championship team; fired after four years with 77-47 record and .621 winning percentage
 
Jim Harrick - Assistant at UCLA for two seasons before becoming head coach at Pepperdine; led UCLA to national championship in 1995 and 192-62 record in eight seasons; fired due to a minor recruiting violations cover-up
 
Steve Lavin - Assistant for six seasons at UCLA, including the 1995 national championship; hired after Harrick was fired; left after 145-78 record and six consecutive NCAA tournaments in seven seasons; fired after 10-19 record in 2002-2003; became a broadcaster before returning to become head coach at St. John’s in 2010
 
Ben Howland - No connections to UCLA before becoming head coach; second most wins in UCLA history; fired after ten seasons and 233-107 record with seven NCAA tournament appearances, but no national championships
 
Steve Alford - Three-time All Big-Ten point guard at Indiana (Wooden’s home state), including the 1987 nationnal championship team; no connections to UCLA before becoming head coach after Howland was fired; led UCLA to PAC-12 tournament title last season
 
It's no surprise that Michigan fans now should be nostalgic for the era when Brady Hoke was only an assistant coach for the Wolverines. I think I can hear some Michigan fans singing outside The Big House.

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