Update thoughts on Hoke - Any people change opinions?

Brady Hoke can get 15 points and 10 boards against Minnesota, he is really of no consequence at this particular moment.

I am actually more opptimistic than I was originally.  It's fine to be concerned, but we really need to wait until the games are played to make a fair assessment. However, I think its realistic to be very hopeful for the next few years.  

To address the OPs points:

1. Ball State and SDSU have been perennial jokes and he made them respectable. You can't discount the fact that he has a proven record in building programs.  He's a good coach, and he's proven it.

2. Denard will be fine. Remember that he has a great arm and he just needs some coaching up to get acquainted to the system. All things considered, he'll still be one of the top QBs in the conference and I think he flourishes in a system with tight ends. 

3. Michigan had several top 10 recruiting classes under Lloyd which focused on the Midwest but plucked the occasional 4 and 5 stars out of the south and west.  UM even had a #1 class in the early 2000s. I'm not worried at all about recruiting. 

4. So what.

Your lack of faith in the Midwest is disturbing as obviously you dont check the recruting links.  The Midwest is loaded with talent next year to the point that OSU has 3 DE's albeit locked up and there are still 2-3 DE's who are SOLID 4* material just in the state of Ohio.

PS recruting the Midwest has worked for Whisky and OSU, they concentrated on a firm solid base at home and (this is more OSU) which allows them to pursue those blue chip game breaker kids from the South.   

Too early to say either way. I'll spare you the laundry list of head coaches who became national championship coaches even immortal, who were .500 or less at a lower prestige program before moving to a big program. Some big names both past and present.

Anyone griping about Hoke's ability as a football coach or making negative assumptions about how conservative the offense will be, hasn't watched any tape from SDSU or Ball State.

Let's be real: The early rush to judgment negativity is all from chafed Rich Rodriguez posse types.   The icing on the cake was Michigan fans jumping on here yesterday ticked off about the positive press Hoke and the program have gotten.   That sour reaction to positive coverage that can only help the program, said volumes about where some people's hearts and heads are at this point. That's a totally different deal than legitimate concerns about his quality as a coach.

Junk like yesterday isn't befitting the quality of fans on here.

no one knows how stupid you are until you open your mouth

Liked the hire then, still like the hire now.

Cool story, Hansel.

1. "Taking a bad a team and putting together one good season before leaving doesn't really prove that he can turn a program around.  "but doing so in the MAC and Mountain West doesn't really give me hope that he can do this in the big ten."

Well, Hoke did the surn around with two separate teams.  I see a pattern.  All you can go on is his most recent jobs and at his last two, he did, in fact, pull off some pretty good turn-arounds.  As to your point about the MAC and MW conferences, did you make the same argument that RR's only head coaching success was in the Big East, therefore he would never succeed in the B10.  Many did, and I bet that you, like I, thought it was a stupid argument.

2. "Denard . . . is a very niche QB  . . . I think Denard will switch positions by time he graduates"

Sad that you so underrate Denard.  Was Mike Vick a niche QB?  The Eagles certainly didn't think so, and put him in a pro-style offense where he had his best pro season by far.  Was Troy Smith a niche QB?  People said so when he came to OSU, but by his senior year, he won the Heisman primarily throwing the ball.  As for Denard switching positions, why would you take a QB with a strong arm and the ability to make defenses pay with his legs and make him a slot or CB?  This makes no sense, especially when Borges has said that he is designing an offense specifically for Denard.

3. "Recruiting - The vast majority of great football players come from the South and West. This is where we need to be."

Um, we were there the past three years.  And what happened, we allowed OSU and MSU and ND to collect all of the midwest talent, making them better than they otherwise should be.  We should be recruiting nationally, not just in the midwest, or the south or the west.  But, when you recruit out of the south, you steal a kid from an SEC team, which who cares.  When you recruit in the midwest, you take a kid away from MSU or another B10 team, which directly impacts us when we play those teams.  Common sense.  Our lack of midwest success these past few years has allowed MSU to stockpile more talent that it usually has.

4. "Hoke's introductory press conference . . . but he was very unpolished and amateur.  I get the feeling he going to say some VERY bone-headed comments when under pressure during a press conference."

Personally, I am more concerned with Hoke's ability to recruit, coach and motivate young men (and maybe even touch them, as he has said he is fond of doing).  I could care less about the pressers.  RR was considered to be savvy with the press.  How did that work out for him?  (Not a shot at RR).

5.  "I predict that the defense will improve, the offense will regress, and we will see what we did for most of the 2000s with LC."

Well, I would take that over what we saw the last three years.  We made the Rose Bowl a multiple times in the 2000s,  won or shared the B10 Title, and were a few plays away from playing in the 2006 NC Game.  We regularly beat MSU, PSU, Wisco and most of the B10.  For the LC part of the 2000s, you could still watch every other college FB game and say "how will this impact our ranking."  I miss being ranked to finish a season.

I agree that our defense will improve - massivly.  As to our offense, our gaudy numbers may come down, but I bet we score more than 7 against OSU, or 14 against teams like MSU (Gator).  Oh, and you didn't mention special teams.  I bet those improve. 

He will beat OSU once and MSU twice in 5 years and out the door after 2016.  I sincerely hope I am wrong, but with Hoke's less than stellar coaching resume, hope is all I got.

I didn’t think the Hoke hire was terrible 2 months ago, and I don’t think it’s brilliant today. If coaching is a course, his grade is incomplete. He’s done a few things that make sense, and none that seem obviously wrong, but his team hasn’t played a game yet. Ultimately, he’ll be judged by the Big Ten championships he wins and his record against Ohio State.

As for your four points:

1) Hoke’s records at Ball State and SDSU are like ink blot tests: you can read them any way you want. At this point, why debate them?

2) Al Borges is taking exactly the right approach with Denard. Although he won’t run for 1,700 yards again, he’ll be a better QB as a result. Denard’s rushing was fun to watch, but he took a ton of hits, and his production tailed off noticeably in the second half of the year. I do believe that he’ll play QB for his two full remaining seasons. In any case, you don’t hire or fire a coaching staff because of one player.

3) You cannot win the recruiting battle if you don’t win your own region. It’s true that the south has the best overall talent, but how many 4* and 5* southern kids has Michigan landed lately that any of the major southern schools really wanted? It’s not a long list. Hoke is still recruiting nationally, but you can’t build a strong team if you get your butt kicked locally.

4) A press conference? Srsly?

Points 2,3,4 I think you are dead wrong. Denard will transfer before he will play another position. Michigan has only fired one coach in it's entire history: Rich Rodriguez. I really don't think there will be two in a row.

As we celebrate & denegrate the previous records of various coaches(Hoke, Tressel, Moeller, R-Rod etc) and we elevate Tressels "winning NC's consistantly albiet at a lower level" vs. Hokes lack of true, consistant winning. I think it would behove us to look honestly at RR's record.

What did he actually WIN?? His success in the big east was ONLY after the 2 traditional powerhouses had fled(Miami, Va tech) and in his signature season when it was all on the line his team lost against a much weaker Pitt team that they were supposed to demolish.

Did he win a NC at any level?? Did he ever coach in an ultra competitive conference against top level talent? even as an assistant??

you know  - when the little leather ball is actually moving around on the field.

Anybody can have press conferences and his high school recruiting success will be an unknown for another 2 years.

1.  A good coach is a good coach, regardless of conference.  RR didn't fail at Michigan because the Big Ten was so much tougher than the Big East.  Urban Meyer never was a head coach at a power conference before going to Florida.  Tressel was able to parlay his success at I-AA into success at Ohio St.  Dantonio (18-17) and Chizik both had mediocre to bad records at their previous stops before moving into the Big 10 and SEC respectively.  The thing that Meyer (ND), Tressel (OSU), Dantonio (MSU, OSU) and Chizik (Aub, Tex) all had was experience working at a big-time program (either as a position coach or coordinator).  Hoke has coached a Michigan before and he has turned around programs.  I don't understand how those programs being in the MAC or Mountain West change anything; the ability to change culture/attitude is universal, regardless of where you coach and in what conference.

2.  Why are people so convinced that the switch to a more balanced offense (balanced as in spread/power/i-form balance not run/pass balance) will spell the doom Denard?  Hoke never said he won't run zone blocking; he said he doesn't like running it all the time.  Borges never said we won't run the spread, he said we won't be a spread team (i.e. we won't run the spread exclusively).  Borges did say that we would be under center 50%; I would assume the 50% of the time we're in shotgun will be out of spread formations.  I would assume out of these spread formations, we will still run the ball a lot.  The coaches still expect to run Denard 15 times a game which is much more manageable than the 20+ last year.  Denard will never be mistaken for Tom Brady but he showed that he can be an effective passer, and I expect him to be even better if they can fix a few things in his throwing motion.  Denard should still rush for close to 1,000+ yards and I expect his passing yardage will skyrocket because we will run a more sophisticated passing attack (or at least we better).

3.  If we can pull the top recruits out of the south and west, then yes, I would prefer recruits from there because they are better.  With the exception of Denard, however, it's not like we were cleaning up in the south and west.  It looks like we were pulling players from those areas that were comparable in talent to those found in the midwest.  If that's going to be the case, then I would prefer players from the midwest; they are easier to reel in and they have less of a weather adjustment.  Talent does trump all though; if we can get to the point where we have our pick of recruits, then I would obviously prefer the best of FL, CA, TX, LA, GA over the best of the midwest.  Let's focus on the low-hanging fruit first (especially since the talent is good in the midwest this year) until we can rebuild towards a national championship level.

4.  He did fine in the press conference I thought.  He won't win speech contests but he said what he needed to say.  RR always got into trouble because he would try to make jokes at his press conference and the media would always turn it around on him (e.g. Vince Lombardi not being able to coach this defense).  Also, RR had a tendency to try to explain what went wrong which came across as making excuses or throwing his players under the bus.  We will see, but I just don't see this happening with Hoke.

Like most of us, I was underwhelmed by the hire but I'm more than willing to give the guy a chance.  He has a lot of things lined up for him (returning talent, support from alums and AD).  If he can start creating some positive momentum (which he has already started with media perception) then maybe this will snowball into great things.  Look at Dantonio at MSU; he's a mediocre coach leading a mediocre program but those guys love him there.  He is providing stability and positive momentum.  Take our program, even after the last 3 years, get our Dantonio (minus the douchiness) and we maybe get back to being an elite program.

Wasn't thrilled about the Hoke hire because of his "meh" resume and the fact I knew nothing about him

Then the press conference came.  He actually got me very excited and confident about the future of UofM football.  Can we expect a leap like RR's offense on the defensive side of the ball?  Probably not, but you would be a fool to think our defense wouldn't get substantially better.

"But, our offense was so YAY and Hoke doesn't run a spread and Hoke's record and Hok--"  Shut up.  Seriously.  Shut your run-on sentence up.  Just because the scheme changes doesn't mean Denard can't learn it.  The kid's got a work ethic better than 95% of the posters on this blog.  Hoke isn't going to be stupid and ignore what Denard brings to the table.  Denard's legs are what makes him such a threat.  With more development on the passing game, we'll see less of "QB draw QB draw QB draw lol" and more variation in our playcalling.  Besides, RR's offense disappointed me like no other.  It would stall for at least a quarter every freaking game, especially against good defenses.

If I had to guess, we're going to be a very hybrid offense that can adapt to the situation.  We'll run more plays out of the I-formation and fewer plays out of the spread, but they should hopefully be more effective plays that will keep defenses guessing instead of just "Where's Denard going?"

Sorry.  Here's your soapbox back.

until all the facts come out. My previous opinion of Hoke was "meh".  His hire of Mattison for DC was an excellent choice IMO.

Ask again after the Notre Dame game in Ann Arbor next fall.  Unlike previous seasons, I think that game will be a better barometer for Michigan's 2011 season.

just a little bit?

Every situation is different. Hoke's opportunities at SDSU and BGSU were at places where winning at all came with great difficulty. I'm thinking that his work there included fairly substantial obstacles to success. Maybe his W-L records at those schools tell us something, and maybe they don't.

We have no idea if the BH hire will work out at Michigan, because we haven't got a single shred of evidence as to how he will do with this staff and this football team at this university.

We have some evidence about the kind of respect the man gets in the coaching community; the Greg Mattison hire is but one example of the kind of individuals who want to work for the guy. Whether that translates to success or failure at this program only time will tell.

I love the University of Michigan. So I'm going to give Hoke full support. I don't see any mileage in complaining or predicting at this very early stage in the building of a program. I do have a gut feeling we'll win.

He's been on the job for two months.  In that time he's been excellent, not just good.  To wit:

1.  Players are staying, not leaving; clear signs of players buying in to the change, starting with Denard
2.  All coaching positions filled expeditiously; DC hire outstanding; coaches appear to be aclosely-knit team.  Very encouraging signs that offensive and defensive coaches have "chemistry", and that, to me, is huge
3.  Clearly and accurately assessed team weaknesses and strengths
4.  Hard-charging, take-charge effort more than "salvaged" the 2011 recruiting class; 2012 recruiting is focused on high-need positions, targeting highly-rated players not just in the Midwest but in California, Florida, Texas, etc.
5.  Clearly articulated for the team his goals, priorities, and success measures; began healing the fanbase divisions from day one.

To many, these points seem obvious, perhaps trivial.  Yet with our divided fanbase, crazy expectations, and political pressures, it's easy to stumble.  He hasn't.  It's hard to push all the right buttons, to hit all the marks, and to begin unifying a sharply divided banbase.  Brady Hoke's transition is nothing less than stunning for the speed, smothness, and coordination it exhibits.

So why , despite the strong start, do many posters take a condescending tone toward his record, his capabilities, and almost inevitably his name ?    Try this experiment:  substitute Jim Harbaugh for Brady Hoke and look again at the 5 points I've listed.  If Harbaugh had been hired, I'd bet that many on this  Board would be pointing out what an outstanding hire he was, just as we expected. 

But take a name like Brady Hoke, well, it sounds hokey.  I'm tired of the "hoke-jokes."  I'm tired of  "Hoke springs eternal" on this masthead.  I liked "In Rod we Trust" because it expressed out faith in a good coach.  "Hoke springs eternal" is a put-down and not a very clever one. 

To sum up.  Hoke's done an excellent job in his first two months.  Those posters who've condescended to the man or mocked his name just piss me off.