Why Coaching Is Concerning
1) Starting a True Freshman at LT.
This is so telling on so many levels. We have not developed players and a true freshman has better technical skills than any other player at our most or second most important position on the line. We've recruited a boat load of talent here as well with minimal results.
2) Defense is confused and has the same issues that are starting to become exploited.
Two big issues here.
We cannot stop the inside seam route. OSU, Kansas St, SC, ND have all unloaded on the seam route and we have no chance at defended it.
We cannot stop the inside run. Our defensive line does not maintain assignments and our LBs do not read the lineman and are often out of postition.
3) Devin Gardner has Major Technical Flaws
Almost every throw was off his back foot.
He does not have any routes (besides bubbles and screens) that get the ball out of his hands quickly.
He stares down every WR he's throwing too
He picks 1 guy to throw to and will throw it too him or take a sack. It's very seldom he goes to his check down WR unless he has plenty of ample time (which may never happen).
4) WE CANNOT WIN ON THE ROAD
This is all about prepartion and gameplan and I have yet to see a solid gameplan against a worthy opponent. Every big away game the team comes out extremely FLAT as if they were all sick. No drive, no intensity, no focus.
5) The lack of Information given to Media is Lack of Confidence in Coaching.
Almost every coach hands out information about injuries and depth chart but Hoke has a say nothing or stretch/cover up the truth attitude. This does not equate to a good gameplan strategy and only forces the media and fans to become distant to the program.
The lack in confidence shows up in recruiting too. The no visit policy is an obvious lack in confidence that we can be the best school despite kids wanting to see other schools.
I'm sure there are others and I remain in support of Brady until he is no longer the coach here, but I am very concerned with the direction of the program to say the least.
September 8th, 2014 at 9:07 AM ^
Has anyone looked at other HC records in road and neutral games in the conference? It's difficult to win on the road. I'd like to see if Hoke's is way below others, maybe I'll look into that later.
September 8th, 2014 at 9:10 AM ^
September 8th, 2014 at 9:17 AM ^
What is it about football that makes grown adults turn into gibbering children? When things aren't going our way, the liveblog and posts on the blog devolve into preteen bitchfests rife with non sequiturs, gratuitous punctuation, and immature sentence structure.
September 8th, 2014 at 9:30 AM ^
I was all pi$$ed off about the game and Brady and the world in general when I went to Church yesterday. Our pastor, a guy from Nigeria, asked us to pray for his family because he'd lost contact with them after they fled from the Boko Haram offensive.
I went home to my house with two healthy kids and clean water and decided if UM lost out for the rest of the year it would be sad, but not worth getting all that hot and bothered about. THat's just simply a problem to fix without existential repurcussions. :-)
September 8th, 2014 at 9:45 AM ^
Yeah very healthy attitude. It's not a great situation but at the end of the day Michigan Football does not determine if my life is good or not. The coaches and players presumably are 100x more concerned about the state of the program than any of us are.
I'm sure we'll become relevant again at some point in the future. Afterall, FSU came out of the woods though it took awhile.
September 8th, 2014 at 10:02 AM ^
I upvoted you for the similar sentiments. I was upset at the pasting Michigan received at the hands of Notre Dame. Nevertheless, after I stopped watching the game, I went into my 8 month old's room and watched him sleep for a minute. During that time, I had a similar realization that there are things that are just more important.
Great post.
September 8th, 2014 at 10:24 AM ^
I agree. Michigan losing is a first world problem. It is nice that our big problems center around games for college students.
September 8th, 2014 at 10:38 AM ^
but after a rough weekend where my 2 month old spent a couple days in the hospital, I was looking forward to escaping to some Michigan football, which in reality has no real affect on my life.
Saturday's performance was far from an ideal place to escape to. Losses I can take, but an unexpected blowout to a rival was just one more blow after a rough weekend.
I am suprised though, that most of the discourse after the loss has not been super hostile. This board has many times been a place I really did not enjoy visiting (the process was hard, and the time when a bunch of people got tossed after a disagreement over calling a recruit young made this board brutal). Most people so far have been angry, but have apoligized and admitted when they were wrong when others have rationalized for them. Again, apologies and aadmissions of wrongness on the internet. MgoBlog community is doing pretty well considering.
September 8th, 2014 at 1:19 PM ^
Do any of us really know what to think after that game? It was so bloody-minded that even forming a coherent opinion seems difficult and confidence in said opinion is impossible.
September 8th, 2014 at 1:24 PM ^
by and large, most of us have just been beaten into near-submission, but certainly acceptance of...
Well, I think Bryan's post sums it up pretty well.
I'm going to get some counsel from some lifelong Oregon fans to ask them how they handled their football lives before the 90s.
September 8th, 2014 at 1:05 PM ^
would ANYONE downvote this?!
September 8th, 2014 at 9:23 AM ^
I have never met Brady but I know several people who have and they all stated that he smelled just fine.
September 8th, 2014 at 9:53 AM ^
Agreed...47-50 before Michigan...still unsure how that qualified him to be head coach at the University of Michigan. But hey...at least they got their "Michigan Man". Any other head coach with a career record like that wouldn't have been given a sniff that this job.
September 8th, 2014 at 11:10 AM ^
In Hoke's first four years at Ball State, they won 15 games combined. In the next two, they won 19, with a 12-1 record in his final year. At SDSU, they won 4 games his first year, and 9 the second. So in his first two jobs as head coach, he proved that he could turn-around a mid-major. I'd much rather hire a guy who builds a program than takes over at an existing program and just keeps steering the ship, so the 47-50 record doesn't bother me as much as it does some of you.
However, if the plan was to hire a program builder from a mid-major, Jerry Kill had a better resume than Hoke. SVSU improved every year, Emporia State improved from year 1 to 2, Southern Illinois went from 1-10 to 12-2 in 7 years under Kill, and Northern Illinois went from 6 wins to 10. So Kill had a record of turning around 4 schools, compared to Hoke's two, and Hoke's second turnaround only had a 2-year track record. The one big difference between the two that swung things Hoke's way was the "Michigan Man" thing, which is something I think needs to die. Hire the best available and let them become a Michigan Man. If they start looking over the fence and thinking the grass is greener, a la Frieder, then it's fine to bring up the Michigan Man thing and let them go, but when deciding on who to hire, it shouldn't be a consideration.
September 8th, 2014 at 12:14 PM ^
September 8th, 2014 at 9:26 AM ^
Are you serious? How do teams go 12-0, 11-1, 10-2? Yes if you look at teams that win 50-60% of their games, you'll find a lot of team who do poorly on the road.
September 8th, 2014 at 9:37 AM ^
No, I was just kidding. We should just assume Hoke is terrible without considering his performance relative to anything else.
I understand Hoke has been bad on the road, I was merely wondering if anyone has been able to quantify just how bad, relative to other coaches in the conference.
September 8th, 2014 at 9:50 AM ^
With the top teams consistently winning at least 10 games each year, that doesn't leave a lot of room for road losses.
The yardstick should be the top teams in the B1G and the top teams nationally, unless being average is your acceptable benchmark.
September 8th, 2014 at 9:27 AM ^
is 26-7 on the road at OSU and Florida, that includes going 1-3 his first year at Florida.
Florida doesn't play many non-conference games away, but that does include 3 trips to FSU where his teams went 2-1
Meyer is probably the gold standard for road winning coaches.
September 8th, 2014 at 9:35 AM ^
Yes, but I'd peg his road success as an outlier, not the norm.
September 8th, 2014 at 9:43 AM ^
Shouldn't our expectations be for an outlier who has an exceptional road record? Not trying to attack your statement but I feel like we should expect the best results.
September 8th, 2014 at 9:51 AM ^
Yes, it should. Hoke may very well be too average (or even below average) for this coaching position.
September 8th, 2014 at 9:50 AM ^
is 21-13 at Michigan State
None of these numbers include conference championship games or bowl games btw.
September 8th, 2014 at 11:41 AM ^
2-3, 3-3, 2-3, 3-1.
10-10 through 4 seasons on the road. No bowl games, where he is 3-4. No neutral sites, where I think he is 1-0.
Better than Hoke so far (6-7). Let's see how this ends up after this season is through. If Brady Hoke is the next Mark Dantonio, would that be good enough for you?
September 8th, 2014 at 11:43 AM ^
Ah, the old UM = MSU fallacy. Been awhile since I've seen it.
September 8th, 2014 at 12:22 PM ^
September 8th, 2014 at 12:27 PM ^
No. This is not good enough if we are using MSU as the bar. Your question answers itself, though you managed to get it wrong anyway.
September 8th, 2014 at 12:35 PM ^
September 8th, 2014 at 3:51 PM ^
scary D... Rose Bowl victory... yeah. I'd be quite happy there.
One thing Dantonio has, that I haven't seen from Michigan in awhile, is, IMHO that fire.
He HATES Michigan. He acts like every team that he faces just looked at his daughter the wrong way.
I like that. I liked that Bo could have that and have a super clean team too (not casting aspersions on Dantonio, just saying its a risk).
September 8th, 2014 at 1:42 PM ^
Brady Hoke in road/neutral games (1st 3 seasons): 39%
Brady Hoke recruiting ranking (5 year running averages): 14.2, 13.2, 12.2
Mark Dantonio in road/neutral games (1st 4 seasons): 43%
Mark Dantonio recruiting ranking (5 year running averages): 38.2, 34.4, 34.8, 33.8
Not the same talent level to work with.
September 8th, 2014 at 9:46 AM ^
under Hoke: Northwestern (x2), Illinois, Purdue, Minny, UConn
September 8th, 2014 at 9:56 AM ^
Wow...look at the strength of those teams. It's frustrating to see how far we have fallen.
September 8th, 2014 at 10:22 AM ^
September 8th, 2014 at 10:46 AM ^
But you could also argue that we could have / should have beaten Penn State at Happy Valley last year as well. Not that a road win against PSU is anything to trumpet about the past couple of years.
September 8th, 2014 at 9:59 AM ^
Here you go:
Road game records (no bowl games or neutral fields)
W | L | W% | ||
OSU | Urban Meyer | 10 | 0 | 100% |
Nebraska | Bo Pelini | 19 | 9 | 68% |
MSU | Mark Dantonio | 21 | 14 | 60% |
Wisconsin | Gary Andersen | 3 | 2 | 60% |
Northwestern | Pat Fitzgerald | 19 | 13 | 59% |
Rutgers | Kyle Flood | 7 | 5 | 58% |
Michigan | Brady Hoke | 6 | 7 | 46% |
Iowa | Kirk Ferentz | 32 | 43 | 43% |
Maryland | Randy Edsall | 6 | 10 | 38% |
Minnesota | Jerry Kill | 5 | 10 | 33% |
Indiana | Kevin Wilson | 2 | 13 | 13% |
Illinois | Tim Beckman | 1 | 8 | 11% |
Penn State | James Franklin | 0 | 0 | 0% |
Purdue | Darrell Hazell | 0 | 5 | 0% |
This was a quick look, but should be pretty accurate.
September 8th, 2014 at 10:05 AM ^
Ouch.
September 8th, 2014 at 10:16 AM ^
Does this mean we are Iowa? I don't like that
September 8th, 2014 at 11:05 AM ^
Hire Kyle Flood.
September 8th, 2014 at 9:08 AM ^
Your points are reasonable, or at least worth discussion, with the exception of this one. You're simply wrong.
The recruiting has been by far the best aspect of Hoke's tenure.
September 8th, 2014 at 9:37 AM ^
I think some of the things he does are just coaching moves I can live with (Mason Cole? He sees him every day. I don't. And honestly hes done better than I expected. I give Hoke the benefit of the doubt here...)
Others really worry me. Can he develop talent??? Dantonio seems to do a great job of developing talent for his system. Too many of our guys seem to have all the right stats and numbers in HS but seem to still have some sloppy technique, or never be able to make it to the next level in terms of skill.
And Defense? After the depth reviews and Mattisons claim this was the Michigan defense he wanted since the beginning, I was very excited. But we couldn't get pressure and had a hard tiem slowing down the run in key circumstances. Ugh.
I might be way off base, but if we have another 7-6 year here, I'd let Hoke stay one more year. Not because I think that will make a difference, but because with 2 previous issues of holes in recruiting (Carr, RR) it would be nice to make a transition with a roster full of well recruited talent. Even if that last year due to questions he can only get 3 stars. I've read alot about how 3 stars aren't that far from 4 stars and can easily be coached up.
Give the next guy a full cupboard to work with.
September 11th, 2014 at 7:05 AM ^
Cole being this "good" this early is a plus.
The minus is that the line is in such a state that our other options at LT are Dawson, LTT, Bushel Beatty, and Mags (i think), and none of them are right now better than a high school senior (or are needed else where at a position with even fewer ready to play players.) And this is year four.
Hoke had Lewan, got Mags and then rested on that, thinking he had time to let his projects develop. His answer to "what if the projects don't develop?" Is to say "well...", get surly with the fans and have another .500 season.
September 8th, 2014 at 9:43 AM ^
The only aspect of Hoke's tenure....
September 8th, 2014 at 9:56 AM ^
A rivals ranking doesn't translate into successful seasons.
How you use and improve your recruits is the key.
2013 rivals ranking:
Alabama
Ohio State
Notre Dame
Florida
Michigan
LSU
Mississippi
UCLA
Auburn
Florida State
Which team above doesn't seem to belong with the rest?
All these teams start with nearly the same pool of "4 star" and "5 star" recruits.
Yet most of these teams are top 10 teams and conference contenders every year.
Recruiting is a red herring.
September 8th, 2014 at 10:42 AM ^
Ole Miss?
September 8th, 2014 at 10:44 AM ^
I would say Ole Miss is the one that really doesn't belong in that group.
September 8th, 2014 at 10:46 AM ^
I never said it did. All I pointed out was that by any objective measure, Hoke's recruiting classes are as good or better than most other programs in the country, which your list helpfully highlights. After all, the majority of Michigan's highly-rated recruits had many offers from schools on the list next to Michigan. If Hoke was wrong about a particular recruit, so were many other schools.
Your logical argument shouldn't be that Michigan's recruiting sucks—again, your list shows it doesn't—but that Michigan isn't developing what it gets. I'd agree with that point.
September 8th, 2014 at 10:54 AM ^
Yes. At this point the Rivals rankings are incredibly damning statement on the coaching ability. Outside of our WR coach I dont see a position group consistently finding and developing players. I see Nortfleet improved from last year now under Coach Heck. I see Chesson improved. Funchess of course. Gallon last year. Name me another position group you routinely see a host of players improve. LBs are the only one maybe in the mix - but even that seems a stretch now.
This staff is working with the raw material only 7-10 teams in the country have. This staff should be compared to those staffs. They are once again doing less with more.
Look not every guy is going to live up to his ranking. But we now have multiple top 10 classes bunched together and the RESULTS on the field are not there. The EXACT SAME ISSUE we had with RichRod. With less attrition than RR. How can anyone defend this anymore - it is beyond me.
September 8th, 2014 at 10:09 AM ^
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
September 8th, 2014 at 10:26 AM ^