Blue Bill

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1 year 15 weeks ago The M&B column is flawed in

The M&B column is flawed in several ways, but I think he makes some good points.

The way I see it is, criticisms of "The Process" are two-fold:

1) DB knew he was going to fire RR at the end of the Big Ten season but he waited until after the bowl game for reasons unknown.  Therefore, he is clearly an idiot who doesn't understand football or college athletics or basic arithmetic.

2) Either (a) DB knew from the outset that he wanted Hoke without having ever met him, and "The Process" was just a sham meant to appease the fan base; or (b) DB is so incompetent that he just went with a guy whom he knew would take the job, even though said guy has never seen a football before and doesn't know how to coach.

 

Regarding #1: Perhaps I'm "misremembering" things here, but wasn't Brian still on board-- though wavering-- with Rodriguez getting another year after the OSU game, but after the bowl game he essentially wrote that keeping Rodriguez could no longer be justified?  Is it so hard to believe DB felt the same way?  Some will say that it should have been obvious that RR needed to go after the OSU game.  That's a fair opinion, but I don't think it's unreasonable for someone to have felt otherwise.  Things weren't where they needed to be, obviously, but there had been some positives and I'm sure at that point DB would have preferred to ride it out with RR rather than put the program through another coaching transition if at all possible.  That possiblity pretty much desolved by mid-way through the third quarter of the Gator Bowl.

Regarding #2a: It's possible, I suppose, but I don't think it's plausible.  If Brandon's plan was to broom RR and bring in Hoke from the beginning, he could have easily done so after the OSU game (as many say he should have); the fact that he didn't do this, give that it would have been preferable to what actually happened, belies the assumption that this was his intent.  If you accept that DB was willing to stick it out with RR until the Gator Bowl debacle, but you assume that immediately thereafter he knew Hoke was his one and only, then what you are assuming is that DB had his heart absolutely set on a mid-level head coach with a mediocre record without having ever met him, even at the exclusion (at that time) of Jim Harbaugh.  Again, I don't think that's plausible.  Here you may object that DB himself was told all sorts of glowing things about Hoke by others before he had actually spoken with him; true, but isn't that part of "The Process?"  And if he settled on Hoke in large part because of what his peers said about him, doesn't that belie the charge that "The Process" was a sham?

Regarding #2b: This is probably the most common charge brought against Dave Brandon: he's a moron who couldn't hire a good coach so he hired a crappy one.  But this argument relies on the premise that Hoke is not a good coach, or at least not as good as some other coaches Brandon could have gotten.  There are reasonable arguments to be made here-- perhaps Hoke will fail miserably here, or perhaps he will have marginal success where someone else could have been the next Fielding Yost-- but keep in mind that this, in itself, is not an indictment of "The Process;" it is a criticism of the final outcome.

And I think that's pretty much where most DB critics are at; they don't like the fact that Platonic-Form-of-Football-Coach is not at the helm of their Michigan Wolverines following three disastrous seasons, and someone must be held accountable.  In this, the buck stops with Dave Brandon.  Similarly, Brian made has made it clear for the past three years that he doesn't think Brady Hoke has any business being discussed as a serious candidate for the Michigan job, let alone being the guy they hire.  If we accept that Hoke was not even close to the best choice of all feasible choices, and yet we are faced with the reality that Brady Hoke has been chosen, then we must find some explanation-- hence we get all of these critical theories about how flawed "The Process" was and how incompetent Dave Brandon is.  As much as I love Brian Cook and mgoblog (and seriously, I think Brian is a breath of fresh air in the sports media world, and I am a total mgoaddict), I find the rigidity in his thinking here rather uncharacteristic: Never is there any doubt that he has been 100% dead-on bullseye right in his evaluation of Brady Hoke as a football coach.  Neither is there doubt that the other options he has considered superior on the basis of record and age alone either weren't as feasibly hired as he assumed or simply weren't actually superior when evaluating coaches on a Gestalt basis using several varied criteria.  In other words, Brian assumes he knows more about coaches he has never met, nor whose personal and professional references he has never heard, than a man who has met them and heard those references, or Brian assumes he knows more about what it takes to be a successful head coach than Dave Brandon does.  Heck, maybe he does know more about what it takes to be a successful head coach than DB does, but I think to assume that DB is an incompetent boob at this point is more than a little unfair, and to continue to take petty jabs at him and at Hoke like this is rather immature.  As flawed as the M&B column was, I think that's where it hit the nail on the head-- Stop with the sniping and the moaning already and move on.

 
1 year 15 weeks ago Perhaps they just like real

Perhaps they just like real diversity, not the fashionable ivory tower "diversity" which is defined as seperate groups of superficially similar people who purportedly think the same way.
1 year 15 weeks ago Dude, is that really

Dude, is that really necessary?  I've met several ass pirates and they're actually really nice guys.
1 year 16 weeks ago Having spent the last three

Having spent the last three years in Baltimore, I think the snow may be a positive-- Cooper will see what it looks like when the local government actually has half a clue about how to handle snow removal.
1 year 17 weeks ago Well, that offensive unit was

Well, that offensive unit was certainly more talented/experienced than this year's defense, but overall it really was a relatively poor squad by Michigan standards.  They couldn't run the ball that well (wasn't B.J. Askew our leading rusher that year?), and they couldn't really pass the ball.  Basically Marquise Walker was our entire offense.  The defense was pretty solid, if I remember correctly, though the secondary was pretty underwhelming aside from a Freshman Marlin Jackson (remember "The Suspects"?).  To this day I don't know how Lloyd Carr squeezed eight wins out of that team (even if it was a down year for the Big 10), and I've long maintained that 2001 was his finest coaching job, even if it was a season we all wanted to forget.  Despite all their woes that team only lost three regular season games, all by less than a touchdown (and one of those due to a cheating clock worker in East Lansing).  Of course, they went on to get curb stomped by Tennessee in the bowl game.... but I think that only accents what an amazing job Carr and his staff did that season.

Anyway, I appreciate the point made by the OP.  I think it's one that Brian has touched on in the past as well.  With as many freshmen and reshirt freshmen forced into starting roles as there were on our defense, there was simply no way it was ever going to be a good unit.  That said, though, I think GERG did very little to help; the picture on the front page of Roh at NT on first and goal pretty much sums up that point.  If, as a defensive coordinator, one's primary job is to put one's players in the best position to have success, then Greg Robinson failed spectacularly (though RR deserves some responsibility for asking him to run a defense he didn't know well).  For that reason, I think excitement over replacing a horrible defensive coordinator with a very good defensive coordinator is entirely understandable.
1 year 18 weeks ago I hate to say it, because I

  Dave Brandon was spinning.  That's what happens at press conferences.  Do you think it would have been preferable had DB said, "Well, he wasn't our first choice... really, not even our second or third choice, but I think Hoke is a fine coach and Michigan will do well with him."  No, of course not.  Brandon knows that one of the most important determinents of success going forward will be the degree to which everyone is united and on the same page (especially after the last three years).  He HAD to come out in full-throated support of his new coach; he HAD to do his best to squash any rumblings about how Michigan had to "settle" or how Hoke wasn't a great hire.

Of course, Brian knows this.  I think the real problem here is that Brian doesn't like the hire of Brady Hoke.  He has made it abundantly clear for the past several years that he doesn't think Brady Hoke should have ever even received consideration for the job.  If Brandon had hired Gary Patterson or been able to snag Harbaugh, I doubt Brian would be complaining about Brandon's spin job in the aftermath.

Of course, criticisms about the timing are valid, but I tend to think it's not quite as disasterous as others seem to.
1 year 19 weeks ago If Hoke coaches this team to

If Hoke coaches this team to 10 wins next year there will be those who complain the team had the talent to win 12.

I can't say that Hoke is one of the best coaches in the country, but I think Michigan could certainly do a lot worse.  He's a good coach.  Maybe not a GREAT coach, but truly great coaches don't grow on trees.  More than that, he'd be a good fit for the program-- which, as we've all learned over the past three years, is more important than one might think.

There was only one "perfect" candidate for this job, and he's now with the 49ers.  The rest all have their question marks.  It's up to DB to decide who's pros outweigh their cons.
1 year 19 weeks ago My fiancee and I were just

My fiancee and I were just looking at a football couch for our TV room..
1 year 19 weeks ago This doesn't even make

This doesn't even make sense.  If Les Miles was enemy #1 three years ago, why is he apparently now a viable option?  Because he aligned himself with the Lloyds?  The Lloyds so despised Rodriguez that they made a Faustian bargain with public enemy #1?  And do we forget that Dave Brandon himself would be a "Schembechler" in this dramatis personae? 

If this account is true, it belies the "LM slept with Moeller's wife" rumor, doesn't it?  I mean, that rumor implies that Carr hates Miles because he wronged Moeller, who was undoubtedly a Schembechler guy.  And for that matter, Carr himself coached under Schembechler for a decade.  Does anyone really believe this is all about Carr's ego and his desire to elevate himself above Schembechler?  I think it's more likely that Carr didn't want Miles because Miles is a sleazy, unscrupulous guy (whether it's because the Moeller's wife thing is true, or just the negative recruiting stuff), and stuff that has transpired in the three years since then certainly seems to corroborate that characterization.  I find it hard to believe that Miles was able to heal this rift simply by "aligning himself" with the "Lloyds" in backroom efforts to sabotage Rodriguez (which, like, how on earth could he do this from Baton Rouge?), especially if Rodriguez's original sin was not being a Lloyd guy himself.  If Carr still has the clout in Ann Arbor to keep Harbaugh from getting a sniff, why wouldn't he also have the clout to do the same to Miles (like he did three years ago)?  And if he has that kind of clout with MSC, how did he get shown the door last Summer by a Schembechler guy?
1 year 19 weeks ago Yes, I understood his point

Yes, I understood his point from a risk/reward perspective.  I concede the Brady anology was not apt, but the Favre anology isn't bad (the Pack gave up a first round pick for him and he hadn't shown anything in his year at Atlanta). 

Regardless, I disagree with your poker anology for the same reason I agree with statement to which my post was directed.  A deck of cards is a known quantity.  We can accurately calculate probabilities with the confidence that we know those quantities.  You are assuming that "coaching resume," (defined as wins/losses, championships, perceived success as an assistant, etc.) represents the total quantity from which the probability of success at Michigan can be estimated.  My point is that you can't simply quantify what makes a successful coach (or what will make one successful at a given coaching position) with such ease and confidence.  People are not cards in a deck.

I will stipulate that Hoke's resume is not as gilded as some other potential candidates.  From there, though, you conclude that if he is hired and succeeds, Brandon must therefore have simply gotten lucky.  I would conclude that Brandon likely knew something that we didn't, or at any rate used more factors in estimating the probability of success than you did.  You say that Rich Rodriguez, despite all that has happened, was still a smart hire-- because you assume that your criteria for determining the quality of a candidate is accurate and complete.  But perhaps if other things besides "coaching resume" are taken into account (like "program fit," or regional knowledge/recruiting ties, or ability to handle recruiting for a more academicaly demanding school, for instance), the hire doesn't look quite as smart and his failure here can be more logically explained instead of resorting to an assumption of "bad luck."  By the same token, perhaps there are other factors not as easily taken into account that may make Hoke a better candidate than some others with apparently better resumes.  If we don't take as our premise that Dave Brandon is an incompetent moron who doesn't know the first thing about football, then it may make more sense (given a Brady Hoke success) to conclude that Brandon understood those factors and took them into account when making his decision.
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