MGoPodcast 6.2: Ten More Minutes To Go

53 minutes

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[Bryan Fuller]

WHEN CAN WE FIRE THIS GUY SECTION

Inevitable and mandatory. This was a gamechanger.

OFFENSE

Throw it to Funchess. Line didn't feel as bad as last year despite the issues. Gardner's boggling fumble.

DEFENSE

Really good against the run. What happened to the cornerbacks? Ack.

BIG TEN

BIG TEN!

MUSIC

"25 Minutes To Go," Johnny Cash

"Hell No I Ain't Happy," Drive By Truckers

"Holland, 1945," Neutral Milk Hotel

"Nice Day For A Sulk," Belle And Sebastian

"Across 110th Street"

THE USUAL LINKS

Comments

reshp1

September 8th, 2014 at 3:56 PM ^

Sorry, not to nit pick, but how does RR not get as much blame for Gibbons as Hoke? The incident happened under RR, it was closed when Hoke hired on, until it wasn't again.

JFW

September 9th, 2014 at 7:40 PM ^

but my very sketchy rememberance is that Gibbons was arrested, but then for whatever reason not prosecuted. Or maybe not even arrested but investigated. To my way of thinking, Hoke/Rod should knowabout things like that. Maybe I'm Naive, I'm not sure about the procedure there. But I think it got far enough along that Rod had to have been aware.

Now the thing that bugs the hell out of me from the Hoke end is Did he know that he had a potential rapist on his team? Did he know that when he was telling him to think about brunettes on the beach? Hoke is a nice guy, but that hole thing really bugs me. Rodriguez was a good guy. But it bugs me there too.

For Brian to mention this in his 'I have no sympathy' for the guy to me is just silly, IMHO. Be sympathetic because of internal support differences maybe, but not that.

Space Coyote

September 9th, 2014 at 8:59 PM ^

The comment was BS. Rich Rod didn't do anything to Gibbons because he never was convicted of any crime. After all that was done and in the past, Hoke was hired. A few years later, the issue comes up again. Likely told not to address the issue directly, he essentially suspended Gibbons from playing and then kicked him off the team when he was expelled from the University.

He has no sympathy for Hoke because he wants no sympathy for Hoke. He faught a long, hard, and valid battle against a group of idiots that were against Rich Rod. He ended up losing that fight, a fight he was very invested in. He's a spread zealot that believes other offenses aren't modern and therefore aren't good. He's had backhanded praise while displaying tacit displeasure since Hoke's hiring. His basic reasoning for any support has been "I don't want to go through a coaching change again." He's basically - his phrase for it - "concern trolled" the Hoke tenure until very recently, where he's started to just open up about it anything and everything that could could be disagreeable. I'm sure he really doesn't want a coaching change, because I do think he wants Michigan to succeed, but he ain't feeling awfully bad when things aren't working out other than feeling like some of those games were a nut punch.

But each "nut punch" under Hoke has been deemed worse than any undeniably worse nut punch was for Rich Rod. Manning can't coach CBs because he's coached them for two games and they didn't look good so the staff is rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. The equivalent Rich Rod "get a life" comment gets defended, the Hoke "fickle fans" gets blasted in its own front page post. Etc, etc. It is what it is.

It's because he invested all his time and energy defending what was essentially an anti-Hoke, a guy that was completely mistreated out of the gate, ran a spread offense, and was open with the media. Then when Hoke was hired, he didn't like it because to him it symbolized all that was bad about Michigan football, yet people genuinely really liked the guy. I don't think he's upset people are turning on Hoke, even if he is upset with Michigan losing.

EDIT: I debated and held off writing this for a while, because I don't think it's often productive to be outright critical to Brian. But this podcast irked me. Not because it's critical of what happened, but because of how things have been handled and are being handled. I've been called out several times for "always disagreeing in the nicest way possible", so I feel justified in just calling a spade when I see a spade in this case so I don't fall into that same pitfall of mine.

GoBlueInNYC

September 9th, 2014 at 9:49 AM ^

There seemed to be a fair amount of lingering, old school pro-RR, anti-Hoke bias slipping out of Brian at the beginning. The Gibbons comment, the comment about Hoke being contemptuous towards the fans (how so? that "true fans" comment was a "get a life" style pull-a-partial-quote-out-of-context move), complaining about the fort (I get they're the media and therefore are annoyed by his clamming up, but not being open with the media isn't a reflection of his coaching - RR's openness got him in trouble more often than not).

mgoBrad

September 8th, 2014 at 4:09 PM ^

I had this thought, and didn't know where else to post it, so here will have to do. I'd love to hear Brian or Ace expand on this thought...

2014 Devin Gardner as a microcosm of 2014 Michigan football:

Physically looks the part, has been dominant in the past, has that feeling of familiarity, and yet.... the psyche is scarred from previous beat-downs, and everything goes to crap at the first sign of trouble.

What do you think? Too Bill Simmons-y?

Looking forward to listening to the pod.

NoVaWolverine

September 8th, 2014 at 5:05 PM ^

This is a good point, and gets to one of the many things I find troubling about the current state of affairs -- with the exception of a 2011 season that appears more of a fluke every day, the totality of Michigan Football under Brady Hoke seems more and more to equal less than the sum of its parts. Countess on Saturday was another perfect example: We know now that he's not the second coming of Woodson or even Leon Hall, and maybe he's lost a bit after the ACL injury. But he's a talented kid in his fourth year in the program, who should be in the conversation for all-Big Ten honors -- and he's getting roasted repeatedly, giving up easy slants on fourth-and-3, etc. The inconsistency and lack of development is maddening.

It's easy to chalk up the mediocrity and inconsistency to still being a young team, but when even the fourth and fifth year players like Gardner and Countess look like this, something more than "we're young" is the problem. 

Tater

September 8th, 2014 at 4:25 PM ^

I am always in favor of using anything from the Drive By Truckers.  If Michigan loses another game, can "Lookout Mountain" be in the Podcast?

Sllepy81

September 8th, 2014 at 5:14 PM ^

is Denard Robinson. We had huge hopes for him being smarter, better then last year and he's the same guys....just like Denard was each year. Remember Denards senior year we'll, we were told his passing is improved and it'll be a threat by he was the same guy. Devin is who he is, love him or not this result will happen on occasion. Blame the coaches if you want, I follow the rule of 2-4 years with a so so QB can get a coach fired. Back to back so so Qbs will get the coach fired for sure.

BraveWolverine730

September 8th, 2014 at 6:37 PM ^

Excuse my all caps and rudeness, but blaming Denard Robinson for ANY of Michigan's problems is moronic. Let's play a compare/contrast game.



RR w/o Denard starting : 8-16 .333

RR w/ Denard : 7-6 .538



Hoke w/ Denard 16-5 (counting the Nebraska loss) .762

Hoke w/o Denard 11-9 0.550

That is a 20% win increase for each of the two coaches at UM who had access to Denard's talents. Despite all he accomplished, Denard is somehow still criminally underappreciated by the UM fanbase for how much he papered over the incompetence that surrounded him. 

Sllepy81

September 9th, 2014 at 8:00 AM ^

I was saying that much like Denard Devin got praised to be improved as a QB year to year but is the same, just like Denard was praised from year to year but never evolved. You can blame coaching or not, fact remains a average QB for multiple years tends to lead to termination of the coach and that's where hoke is headed. Not bashing the QBs at all, they're just average and not nfl caliber and at Michigan you can't keep your job with average QBs because they won't win big games enough.

MGlobules

September 8th, 2014 at 8:59 PM ^

all-A student at Michigan who finished his degree in three years and is now in Social Work school, and you're sorry spellin' ass is impugning his intelligence? The number one dual-threat recruit in the country the year he came out? ? ? And you are f*cking Tom Brady? K*ss all of our collective. . . 

wesq

September 8th, 2014 at 5:29 PM ^

The debacle at cornerback was mostly about the shuffling of position coaches? This is a silly statement. 8 or so weeks of coaching and Countess a senior has regressed to a scrub?  This is mostly about changing scheme to something he isn't and never was good at.  We will know more about Manning as the season progresses and how the young guys develop.

reshp1

September 8th, 2014 at 5:16 PM ^

I can't say I agree with the deep ball stuff. We all saw what happened when Michigan tried to do that last year against aggressive front sevens. It's a damned if you do damned if you don't situation. Until Michigan fixes it's blitz pickup (which to be fair, did look a lot better), you need your receivers to get open fast and you need reliable release valves.

J.Madrox

September 8th, 2014 at 5:39 PM ^

I don't think ND is national championship or playoff material. That being said, this is year 4 of Hoke, I don't care how good the opponent is, this was supposed to be the return to prominence. The Michigan we all want/hoped this team would be should not lose 31 - 0 to anyone, playoff/national championship participant or not.

MGlobules

September 8th, 2014 at 9:01 PM ^

Michigan history? 365-game no-scoreless streak down the tubes. Maybe not so bad? Really? That was a debacle. The fact that they have the players to be in that game if only they execute etcetera only places more of the onus on the coaches, IMO.   

KSmooth

September 8th, 2014 at 5:54 PM ^

Any chance someone could post the video of the play at the end where Gardner is hit?  I was at the game but left early -- there seems to be a lot of concern about what this could mean for the team and I'd like to see it for myself.

bronxblue

September 8th, 2014 at 6:41 PM ^

I'm tired of the argument about the late hit. it was the end of the game. Unless you want someone to run across the field and punch someone, I'm not sure what Hoke and the team does.

reshp1

September 8th, 2014 at 8:52 PM ^

Yeah, me too, seems like reading too much into nothing. The QB is behind everyone in the offense and everyone's eyes are downfield at the guy that picked it. There's a very good chance no one saw it happen. The game was over, so even if they wanted to retaliate after seeing the replay, they didn't have a chance. Frankly, I'm not sure I would want that. Having a fight after that performance is just going to make us look like sore losers even if they were in the wrong for hitting Gardner. FWIW, I did notice many guys coming over after the game to give Gardner their support.

MGoCarolinaBlue

September 8th, 2014 at 7:19 PM ^

"WHEN CAN WE FIRE THIS GUY SECTION

Inevitable and mandatory. This was a gamechanger."



Wow, histrionic much? Dave Brandon is going to wait for the end of the season before making that evaluation; your meantime griping is not going to accomplish anything.



I think spacecoyote's assessment of what happened on Saturday is quite a bit more reasonable and a whole hell of a lot more informed than your hysteria is.

JFW

September 9th, 2014 at 7:33 PM ^

But I am curious. I've heard Brian and Ace talk now about 'modern' plans. Our Punt team isn't 'Modern'. Brady isn't a 'modern' coach. What does 'Modern' mean?

I'm not being snarky. He makes a good point about the spread punt; but our offense is morphing into something very similar to what 'Bama ran last  year. Is 'Bama not 'Modern'?

And our Defense had obvious huge issues, but I think those were more closely related to coaching (he does a great job talking about the CB coaching job, I thought. I don't know if its the proximate cause of our issues there but its a very valid point). I don't think it was because our defense is somehow 'old fashioned'.

I have major questions about Hoke, but they relate to player development and game day execution. I think he may well be a bit too loyal to his staff. But I guess I think that if Nuss's O on Saturday could put up 38 points I don't care if it isn't 'Modern'. If the O line had been developed to be average or slightly above average, and the CB's were coached up as well as the WR's, then they execute and the scheme works just fine.

evenyoubrutus

September 8th, 2014 at 7:36 PM ^

I have found that those pretzel pockets with the peanut butter inside are freaking awesome, and (bonus!) a healthier option over Combo's.  Although Combo'sare also freaking awesome.