What else would you like from Hoke?
We have all had some time to let last season go, digest it a bit and let the rage disperse. I admit after the bowl game I was done with this coaching staff because I did not think Hoke would make the changes needed to compete. I thought the only way out was to fire Hoke. My main problems at the time were:
#1 Al Borges- no explanation needed
#2 Darrell Funk- no explanation needed
#3 Hoke and Mattison-coaching the Dline has been a failure, and the d-line not being even average has caused Mattison to coach way too conservatively.
#4 Lack of a qb's coach- I feel like our teams that have had the best qb play in the past have always had a qb coach, I also think DG has regressed since he became a starter as a result of coaching.
I have been thinking about what Hoke has accomplished this offseason, and im pretty impressed with it. #1&3 faddressed and #4 somewhat addressed with the hire of a qb guru OC. I never thought there could be a fix on D because Hoke and Gmat were the dline coaches so you couldn't fire them, I was wrong. Hoke fired both their asses in a move that commanded my respect. The man seen the problem and did whatever it takes to try and fix it, pride be damned. I can think of a few coaches that would go down with the ship before making that change. As for the big one #1..many wanted him gone last year, who really beleived it would happen? For the 3 of you who thought it would happen, what kind of replacement did you think you would get? I remember the post Brian made on pro-style OC's we had a shot with and he was basically saying go get someone from div 3. We know how that ended, props to Hoke or Brandon or whomever you want to credit, we made a serious upgrade. As for Funk, I still feel how I feel about him, Looking over his history he has been with Hoke since Ball St. and he has coached some good o-lines. That doesn't excuse the last 2 years(o-line was Ok his 1st year here with Molk) but it does give him more time to fix things before Hoke would make a change. I still have my doubts.
The reason I bring all this up is because I have seen some long respected posters being pretty harsh when spealking about Hoke lately, and it got me to think. What else would you like to have seen him do this offseason? A slight change in scheme on D and all the positions have new coaches I beleive. On O a new OC who is highly respected (I assume a whole new scheme). I am excited, why aren't you excited?
A deep run in the Champions League every year and failing that winning the Europa League. Anything less is a failure
peeking for the OSU game. 8 wins with at least one win against OSU/MSU/ND
At this point, I would quickly and painlessly take an ND loss for a win AT OSU or MSU. Easily.
Your critera presumes ND is on equal footing with the MSU and OSU games. They're not even close ATM.
April 14th, 2014 at 11:50 AM ^
at this point, I dont care much about the ND game.....Win, sweet, close loss...oh well, move on to B1G play....just beat one of the two rivals for GD sake.
WIN THE GAME!
I want ALL THE WINS!
Progress. I don't expect a BIG championship this year, but at least show me that we're in the conversation for it in the future.
"We should be expecting B1G titles. We were when he was hired and now we have lowered those expectations because he has underperformed."
We were just hoping for winning seasons when he was hired. The Sugar Bowl win was nice, but it wasnt really expected from us. If I remeber correctly I believe we were predicted to be ranked around 40th and have roughly a 6-7 or 7-6 record during preseason 2011. It was 2011 and we were hoping Hoke would have the program fully turned around by 2015.
I realize the BCS Bowl win raised expectations, but we were a veteran team that year. We lost Martin, Van Bergan, Molk, Hemingway, Koger, etc. and then turned in a decent season with losses against top teams (Bama, ND, OSU, S.Carolina, and Nebraska) and the Nebraska loss was due to Denard getting hurt. Then this past year we lost Kovacs, Denard, Roundtree, etc. and we were a young team with Lewan/Schofield coming back as Seniors with Gallon. Other than those guys we really didnt have any reliable Seniors coming back. Gallon performed well, Lewan and Schofield did their jobs well, but overall we were just a young team. Sorry, young teams lose a lot of games. Now, outside of O-Line, we are becoming a more experienced team and should perform pretty well just about everywhere but O-Line.
If you look at the past few years it is obvious that we have lost more and more talent each year and have basically replaced all our graduates with underclassmen. That isnt going to win many games in the short term, but long term it will. You would think all of you "Michigan Men" would be smart enough to realize that. Instead we all panic and want to call for heads. It is amazing. Whether you liked him or not, RichRod had our team progressing and had his team taken away from him just before it was about to take off. Have we not learned from our mistakes? Hoke is very close to turning us into a contender, even if it doesnt look that way right now. We have lots of talented players all over our roster, they are just young right now. Give Hoke 2 more seasons (until the end of 2015), if he hasnt turned us into a team that can compete by then, then I am fine with us firing him...but anything earlier than that would be a huge mistake.
Obviously I would LIKE to see us compete for one, but unfortunately I don't EXPECT that to happen. We have one senior on offense and a very questionable offensive line. Our WRs are unproven. Our DL has consistently failed to meet expectations. I do expect big things out of our LBs and secondary.
Well if a coach at his introductory press conference said his only goal was to win B1G titles and in his fourth year he is not even competing for one, would it not be time to reevaluate if that coach is the true future of your team?
I get there are plausible excuses as to why we have not been in competiton for a B1G title, but with that being said why are we not at least getting closer? And instead may in fact be getting farther away?
I think the firing of Borges and hiring of Nuss bought Hoke a little time. I hear ya though, he's had enough time here so now we need to see results.
Player development. There has been little to none over the last two years. Every player seems to have stayed the same or regressed or vastly underwhelmed.
Just show me the trend line is up. That's pretty much what I want out of this season.
yeah Devin Funchess, Jeremy Gallon, Frank Clark, Blake Countess, Jarrod Wilson, Jake Ryan, Desmond Morgan didn't improve throughout their careers at all.
Yea let's focus on our five best players and ignore the rest. I mean we were just soooo amazing last year! And Jarrod Wilson? Really?
gallon's gone ...and he was good before hoke
jake ryan regressed last year ...albeit due to injury....
what has frank clark done exactly?
what has des morgan done exactly?
Funchess is the only one ill let you pass by with....but there is an argument that he does it because hes a physical mismatch ...not becoz of coaching...lets not make up arguments
Case in point: defense was awful at the beginning of the year and then, obviously, was much better by the end.
2012 there was still that progression but less so.
2013... well, yeah.
I want Hoke to get back the mojo he had at the beginning of his tenure.
A calzone, a slice of pepperoni pizza, a large soda, and a cannoli three times a week.
>> and a cannoli
No, leave the cannoli. Bring the gun.
if #1 isn't happening, then the only #2 I want to see is ANY type of improvement and hope for the overall future
People are waaaay too hard on Gardner. Yes, he stumbled mightily during that awkward string following the ND game. But he recovered nicely, throwing only a handful of INTs down the stretch and positively shredding OSU (while hobbling on a badly injured foot/ankle). All of which was done while fleeing for his life behind the worst O-line in school history. Nobody took more hard hits than he did. And it was his first year as a starting QB. All in all, he should be applauded. Also, given that QBs tend to make significant leaps during their second year as a starter, expect bigger things from him this year.
Well he's certainly no Thomas Edward Patrick Brady.
You sir are a blasphemer and philanderer. If it were legal, I would challenge you to a duel.
Im not an expert, I was just giving my opinion. I disagree on him only playing worse late in the year. Uconn he was pretty bad, along with a few other games early. I felt like at times he was making bad decisions with the ball and lost confidence because there was no qb coach there on the sidelines. There is no proof it was due to coaching or lack of, I concede that. Overall he was still great under the circumstances, but I beleive he is capable of much much more.
There were plenty of games this year - MSU and Iowa come to mind - where he'd drop back to pass, bring his arm back to throw, and then seem to lose his nerve, scramble around for a bit, and then get sacked.
Last year, and even as recently as the Notre Dame game, it seemed that he'd either make the tough throw or just pull it down and start running. Now I don't know if the bad games this year were as a result of coaching or from him simply becoming gun-shy because of other factors, but to my casual observer's eye he did seem to regress.
You're right about that terrible move in which he'd retreat and retreat, then try to 180 around the defense. It worked a few times a year earlier. So that became his safety move -- until teams figured it out, and he'd end up losing 90 yards on the play. But he mostly cleaned that up as the year progressed. And I do think whatever issues he had were greatly exacerbated by the constant onslaught of D-linemen. No QB could have done much with such pressure. He did as well as could be expected.
Like I said in the last thread, give me 15 plays they can execute perfectly. Not 100 they don't know half of.
Realistically, I think the change to a 4-3 Over and the hiring of Doug Nussmeier, and perhaps the position coach shifts, are the changes that should theoretically (said as 2014 is still 4 months from starting) address many of the more pressing problems. A fresh approach to the defense and an offense with a decided scheme and direction really are the two things that I think people wanted most as last season wore on and those two things were addressed. Moving forward, hopefully we're talking about tweaking and not overhauling things, so for the time being, I think I'd ride with the decisions made by Hoke to date in the offseason.