I don't think we'll get to 8 -- too many administrators seem concerned about the number of games played and the timing of keeping football a one semister sport.
Clearly it needs to expand, I could see 6 teams (with unwritten policy of every power 5 champion in) with 1 and 2 seeds getting a first round bye.
That's how reports credited them on getting Urban Meyer out from Notre Dame's presumptive hiring.
I'd like for the university to act with some haste as well, especially given their previous coaching searches, but hestiation now may be the result of a well-reasoned planned. Rumors suggest Harbaugh doesn't want any distraction during his season -- such a reasonable request it may in fact be true. Ignoring all other factors what would firing Hoke now do to help this situation? What would you tell other candidates you talk to while the position is open, "sit tight, you're totally our number two guy"?
If umich makes a strong push for Harabaugh, this is likely what it has to look like for the time being.
OSU will be motivated to blow the doors off all their remaining openents as a final push into the playoff. I'm not optimistic about this situation for UM.
If Drake was too injured to play that's one thing.
But since Green and Smith had trouble identifying the proper running lanes, so egregiously they missed the correct side of the field to run to, maybe rotating players through isn't too much to ask.
The math is a little hard to compute but looks like he was presented with this on or with in a few days of Shlissel's fireside chat with students on October 8, 2014.
I am far from an employment lawyer, but I found this intriguing.
I do have a question for you and your expertise: What do you make of the 7-day "grace period" wherein Brandon can revoke his agreement? Still boiler plate? I can't imagine he backs off this, right?
even without his grandson's diagnosis, I think he's smart enough to avoid any situation that would undoubtedly fuel the anti-Lloyd conspiracy theorists, but I'm with you on this.
Yeah, he's been pulling (is it still considered pulling with a center?) a lot. Early in the first the Giants lined up their nose directly over him on a couple plays that he struggled with, but other than that he's looked really effective to my untrained eye.
Has anyone noticed Graham out there? I've been zoning in and out.
students marching on the president's house, whom has reportedly stated the athletic deparmtent needs a culture change; our normally very public AD is in hiding after a series of very public mistakes; and our previous coaching hire is literally calling BS on some of the outside influence durring his tenure -- not exactly a paragon of stability most people look for in new professional opportunities.
Let's not pretend Michigan doesn't need to get its house in order, which is why I believe so many of us want Brandon gone. Until this occurs it seems very unlikely objective top teired candidates will be clammering for any potential opening.
I agree with a lot of sentiment expressed here and in the article.
Forgive me if this has been touched on before, but: can we stop referring to Michigan football as a prodcut? Doing so undermines what it means to so many of us.
It's not a simple commodity. It's a team, part of our community that we all love.
I think the last week has shown Brandon's primary motivation is self-interest. If Brandon feels he can keep his job by firing Hoke I think he pulls the trigger.
That being said, I don't know that Brandon will have that option (read: won't make it to the end of the calendar year). I agree that if you take the current temperature of the situation it seems he's successfully weathered the storm, but I fall back to John U Bacon's statements on Friday.
Bacon is, above all, a measured man. I don't think he's makes such a definitive statement without some privledged information. Now, as Bacon himself cautions, things could change but given the information, Brandon appears done, and it appears to be entirely politically motivated. No matter your party affiliation or lack there of, that's some second rate stuff, but at least the university could get an adept AD.
Either Morris doesn't have a concusssion and is cleared to play or he does and he's not cleared.
I don't think this is very high level thinking, and something everyone, from head coach to player should be aware of given the emphasis that should be placed on head injuries.
Hoke should have been able to definitively say he did not have a concussion the second he put him in the game. The fact official statements fail to mention even the word concussion, much less the rule out of its existance lends crediance to the suspicion that a neuro exam was never done.
This is unconscionable, and to be fair to Hoke, goes way beyond him, but he's captain of the ship.
While the statement outlines what should have happened -- evaluation by the medcial staff with the sole power to determine playable, I fear it may be a complete fabrication.
There were TV cameras and about 100,000 witnesses. Did anyone, literally any one person, see a neuro exam occur in the roughly 2 minutes of real time between being pulled and put back in? Seriously, anyone?
It is insulting Brandon collects so much in salary, delayed compensatoin included.
Didn't Martin work for $1.
The dynamic of a millionaire negotiating for such a sallary heading a non-profit organization (he purportedly loves) while buying naming rights within the program (He's the names sake to the DBs coach, right?) is, let's call it gauche, to kept it polite.
Agree that the only leverage the pro-change camp has now is the attendance mark. Perhaps you're right in that it will be enough.
Ross clearly supports Brandon exclusively fromt he renuve perspective. Given that the development plans for Ross's investment appear to be set and regent-approved, can he be sold on the idea a change in AD would affect his vested interests?
Here's hoping this program can avoid 10 more years wondering in the wilderness.
The doctor point was more in objection to a thought this could merely be the result of the mother leveraging the chid's injuries to affect petterson.
The second point is more to your conclusion. You seem to know these decision rarely happen in a vacuum. It seems likely several people reviewed the information in total and decided something was amiss.
Honest question: Have you heard of superficial skin injuries (contusions, cuts) ever leading to an indictment?
There is the cultural practice of "coining" which as lead to erronious accusations, but in general the system is pretty good at parsing out such details.
It's tough to say, but if we're hedging this seems quite serious.
You raise some good points yourself. The particular telling point for me is doctor's visit.
Pediatricians receive extensive training in identifying potential abuse. This isn't to say we bat a1.00 or that this particular doctor didn't make a mistake or is fully competent, but chances are this is more than your typical spanking incident.
Reporting procedures generally involve input from many people with professional experience.
I've been running the numbers and over the past three years Kelly's home win percentage against teams that finish the season with at least 8 wins is 0.833. Notre Dame is a tough place to win, even for the good teams. Couple this with the litany of mistakes above and you might expect a lopsided score, say along the lines of 31/37 -- 0.
I don't know if Umich can get it turned around -- I don't know enough about scheme or personnel, but I can say this: Dantonio's home winning percentage under the same conditions is 0.500. Though his tenure long home win percentage against good teams is a little higher (0.526), MSU is just not the house of horrors for good teams like it has been for michigan.
Hoke has got to make his stand at State. Win there and hold serve to keep this thing going.
But if you don't mind, I'd like to parse out a few details here:
1) the contempt -- I agree the "true fans" quote seems sensationalized, but the media disdain is palable. You're right, he's not the first on this, but at least when Carr called the guy's question stupid he apologized a few days later. Hoke's standing there, trying (ineffectively in my opinion) to be coy about injury reports saying he's "got a good plan for the oline" then gets routed. It's just another data point in the pile that suggests he's not very good at his job, despite some clear superiority ideation on his part (he mentioned how media members "like to play coach" (poorly) on Monday).
2) The gibbons thing -- that's just such a terribly sad story for so many people. Again, you're right, there's plenty of blame to go around. My contetion here related to Hoke is that he likely, altough admittedly not proven, likely played Gibbons in Iowa knowing the univeristy was motioning to expell him. Now in a vacuum, Hoke would deserve the benefit of the doubt, but given his lying, in general and to this situation explicitely, he cedes that right.
I agree these aren't cardinal sins as you put. They are far from firable, in fact I'd say they're largely actions any coach at any big-time program would take to win, except he's not. Which, to me, leads to the question: What are we getting with Hoke? Among other things, I don't think it's moral high ground.
And I agree with you for the most part, but Hoke isn't just the nice guy. Brian outlined this well in the podcast, so I won't repeat it here. Suffice it say, Hoke has criticism beyond the football field, it's just those are understandably overshadowed.
I'm not trying to argue that any of the non-game related misgivings justify firing. I'm tend to think not actually, but he's not knocking it out of the park either as just a nice guy.
He's willfully tied his legacy to increasing the character of the league with his "discipline czar" (or whatever he's calling himself) role.
In arguably the highest profile case he completely blew it and the subsequent PR reaction. The public refrain to the "we didn't see it until today"-defense is that he/his office is either derelict or lying -- equally bad.
When you position yourself to be not only the primary but sole actor in any area and fail at the most inopportune time you're an idiot.
It's not like the guy accidently hit reply all on email.
I wouldn't be surprised if this isn't over. Some journalist seem to feel slighted and there's nothing more dangerous than a journalist that's pissed off and curious.
While watching saturday, my prominent reaction was of course frustration -- not only with the team (obviously) but with the blog. What I witnessed was not what I was lead to believe; notre dame, with walk-on replacements, was at the very least exploitable. Coupled with last season's early MSU offensive schadenfreude, college football outcomes are leaving me increasingly incredulous.
You're right, Brian. Predicting is exceedingly difficult. What's more, is how us mere mortals are expected to be any good at it when the coaching staff itself is so completely off base. Your reactionary stuff is still second to none and for that I say thank you, to you and your staff.
Moving forward I'll be cautiously optimistic, but tempered by the stomach-knotting realization that what got broken in South Bend doesn't get back put back together (not by this coaching staff).
Heads up, boys. It'll get better eventually. Right? And if not, well then... this is water. So said David Foster Wallace.
Like many fans, I'm done with this coaching staff too. The lack of development -- they're clueless.
There was, like in every year before, so much hype coming out of the fort. Even Mattison replied in the affirmative when asked if this was finaly a "Michigan Defense." Hoke was nausiatingly coy on the oline developement -- "we got a plan; it's a good one." Well there's now plenty of game film to refute this.
It reminds me of the Rodriguiz years, when after the many painful losses he stand at the post game press conference and admit he didn't know why the team preformed so badly. He mentioned how they played well in practice, but for unknown reason couldn't execute in games.
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I don't think we'll get to 8 -- too many administrators seem concerned about the number of games played and the timing of keeping football a one semister sport.
Clearly it needs to expand, I could see 6 teams (with unwritten policy of every power 5 champion in) with 1 and 2 seeds getting a first round bye.
That's how reports credited them on getting Urban Meyer out from Notre Dame's presumptive hiring.
I'd like for the university to act with some haste as well, especially given their previous coaching searches, but hestiation now may be the result of a well-reasoned planned. Rumors suggest Harbaugh doesn't want any distraction during his season -- such a reasonable request it may in fact be true. Ignoring all other factors what would firing Hoke now do to help this situation? What would you tell other candidates you talk to while the position is open, "sit tight, you're totally our number two guy"?
If umich makes a strong push for Harabaugh, this is likely what it has to look like for the time being.
I thought Cutler looked great when he beat the 9ers in SF (or guess Santa Clara) back in september
Add the bears to the potential Harbaugh suitors list?
OSU will be motivated to blow the doors off all their remaining openents as a final push into the playoff. I'm not optimistic about this situation for UM.
As in, at some point during their second head-to-head match up?
Yeah, that sounds about right.
If Drake was too injured to play that's one thing.
But since Green and Smith had trouble identifying the proper running lanes, so egregiously they missed the correct side of the field to run to, maybe rotating players through isn't too much to ask.
what a weekend
Florida with the 14-7 lead at the half is a good thing vis-a-vis our potential coaching search, right?
watch the fake?
if Gardner was even remotely healthy he could have ran that in.
was Hagerup hurt on that tackle? Who is the back up there?
The math is a little hard to compute but looks like he was presented with this on or with in a few days of Shlissel's fireside chat with students on October 8, 2014.
I am far from an employment lawyer, but I found this intriguing.
I do have a question for you and your expertise: What do you make of the 7-day "grace period" wherein Brandon can revoke his agreement? Still boiler plate? I can't imagine he backs off this, right?
that was the crack of the bat from Schliseel knocking it out of the park.
Masterful answers, pleasent approach.
I don't know if there'll be enough students to spell this out.
We may need to come up with some catchy abbreviation less we create our own miscommunication
even without his grandson's diagnosis, I think he's smart enough to avoid any situation that would undoubtedly fuel the anti-Lloyd conspiracy theorists, but I'm with you on this.
they actually surpassed(?), cratered beneath(?), You Raise Me Up
Thank you for posting this OP. I also echo the earlier comment stating appreciation and reverence of your service.
The president and now a prominent regent (denise ilitch) have said or alluded to too much to back off a removal process now.
I think, as nothing more than a theory, it happens late friday or during saturday's games trying to sneak it in.
he's getting a lot of love locally for his post game interviews (his good play now too).
Yeah, he's been pulling (is it still considered pulling with a center?) a lot. Early in the first the Giants lined up their nose directly over him on a couple plays that he struggled with, but other than that he's looked really effective to my untrained eye.
Has anyone noticed Graham out there? I've been zoning in and out.
Because right now, Michigan also means:
students marching on the president's house, whom has reportedly stated the athletic deparmtent needs a culture change; our normally very public AD is in hiding after a series of very public mistakes; and our previous coaching hire is literally calling BS on some of the outside influence durring his tenure -- not exactly a paragon of stability most people look for in new professional opportunities.
Let's not pretend Michigan doesn't need to get its house in order, which is why I believe so many of us want Brandon gone. Until this occurs it seems very unlikely objective top teired candidates will be clammering for any potential opening.
this is schedule for the same time as the regents' candidate forum
I agree with a lot of sentiment expressed here and in the article.
Forgive me if this has been touched on before, but: can we stop referring to Michigan football as a prodcut? Doing so undermines what it means to so many of us.
It's not a simple commodity. It's a team, part of our community that we all love.
I think the last week has shown Brandon's primary motivation is self-interest. If Brandon feels he can keep his job by firing Hoke I think he pulls the trigger.
That being said, I don't know that Brandon will have that option (read: won't make it to the end of the calendar year). I agree that if you take the current temperature of the situation it seems he's successfully weathered the storm, but I fall back to John U Bacon's statements on Friday.
Bacon is, above all, a measured man. I don't think he's makes such a definitive statement without some privledged information. Now, as Bacon himself cautions, things could change but given the information, Brandon appears done, and it appears to be entirely politically motivated. No matter your party affiliation or lack there of, that's some second rate stuff, but at least the university could get an adept AD.
Either Morris doesn't have a concusssion and is cleared to play or he does and he's not cleared.
I don't think this is very high level thinking, and something everyone, from head coach to player should be aware of given the emphasis that should be placed on head injuries.
Hoke should have been able to definitively say he did not have a concussion the second he put him in the game. The fact official statements fail to mention even the word concussion, much less the rule out of its existance lends crediance to the suspicion that a neuro exam was never done.
This is unconscionable, and to be fair to Hoke, goes way beyond him, but he's captain of the ship.
While the statement outlines what should have happened -- evaluation by the medcial staff with the sole power to determine playable, I fear it may be a complete fabrication.
There were TV cameras and about 100,000 witnesses. Did anyone, literally any one person, see a neuro exam occur in the roughly 2 minutes of real time between being pulled and put back in? Seriously, anyone?
Bold move
Concussion screening procedures have to be initiated after the hit, don't they?
And this, by definition, must be done above any input from the coach.
But, yes, Hoke really failed to protect his 'son' as he likes to refer to them as with the media.
so, is maryland not a bad football team?
I have no idea. It's still early, but what are the chances a middling to bad ACC team joins the B1G and competes for a division title its first year?
Is there aything more Big Ten! than that?
Didn't Brandon do this very thing (clean house) with in the A Deparmtent? (honest question, maybe it took him longer to change over personnel)
It is insulting Brandon collects so much in salary, delayed compensatoin included.
Didn't Martin work for $1.
The dynamic of a millionaire negotiating for such a sallary heading a non-profit organization (he purportedly loves) while buying naming rights within the program (He's the names sake to the DBs coach, right?) is, let's call it gauche, to kept it polite.
Agree that the only leverage the pro-change camp has now is the attendance mark. Perhaps you're right in that it will be enough.
Ross clearly supports Brandon exclusively fromt he renuve perspective. Given that the development plans for Ross's investment appear to be set and regent-approved, can he be sold on the idea a change in AD would affect his vested interests?
Here's hoping this program can avoid 10 more years wondering in the wilderness.
current circumstances are very "un-michigan", to use the parlance of the '07 search?
Maybe I just want to believe this too much, but it seems plausible. In fact, could the regents be floating the idea to gauge public opinion?
good news: I think there's enough talent on this team for the next coach to have a very good first season
assuming they're competent of course, avoiding career .500 mac level coaches should put us in the clear
So is our rooting interest to hope that the reports out of baltimore are true and get worse such that the ravens organization falls apart.
I don't think jim leaves the nfl before he gets a superbowl.
at least mattison can get his guys playing
Is Gardner injured or does he just not have the arm strength?
I think that 2 down play was ment for williams not Chesson.
The doctor point was more in objection to a thought this could merely be the result of the mother leveraging the chid's injuries to affect petterson.
The second point is more to your conclusion. You seem to know these decision rarely happen in a vacuum. It seems likely several people reviewed the information in total and decided something was amiss.
Honest question: Have you heard of superficial skin injuries (contusions, cuts) ever leading to an indictment?
There is the cultural practice of "coining" which as lead to erronious accusations, but in general the system is pretty good at parsing out such details.
It's tough to say, but if we're hedging this seems quite serious.
You raise some good points yourself. The particular telling point for me is doctor's visit.
Pediatricians receive extensive training in identifying potential abuse. This isn't to say we bat a1.00 or that this particular doctor didn't make a mistake or is fully competent, but chances are this is more than your typical spanking incident.
Reporting procedures generally involve input from many people with professional experience.
As always, we'll have to wait to see more facts.
so forgive me it this has already been covered...
I've been running the numbers and over the past three years Kelly's home win percentage against teams that finish the season with at least 8 wins is 0.833. Notre Dame is a tough place to win, even for the good teams. Couple this with the litany of mistakes above and you might expect a lopsided score, say along the lines of 31/37 -- 0.
I don't know if Umich can get it turned around -- I don't know enough about scheme or personnel, but I can say this: Dantonio's home winning percentage under the same conditions is 0.500. Though his tenure long home win percentage against good teams is a little higher (0.526), MSU is just not the house of horrors for good teams like it has been for michigan.
Hoke has got to make his stand at State. Win there and hold serve to keep this thing going.
edit: typos
Didn't the officials have a mea culpa after clockgate?
At the very least they changed time keeping procedures, even if there wasn't an outright admission.
This thread sucks (no offensive OP -- good info). I'm going to stop reading.
If I remember correctly it was homecoming. The more than usual visiting alums were pretty shell shocked.
Now of course we know better.
If Hoke's tenure ends without improvement from here I think that'll be his value-added to the program; not great but non-trivial.
This would then allow the AD (hopefully not brandon) to hire the best outside candidate.
But if you don't mind, I'd like to parse out a few details here:
1) the contempt -- I agree the "true fans" quote seems sensationalized, but the media disdain is palable. You're right, he's not the first on this, but at least when Carr called the guy's question stupid he apologized a few days later. Hoke's standing there, trying (ineffectively in my opinion) to be coy about injury reports saying he's "got a good plan for the oline" then gets routed. It's just another data point in the pile that suggests he's not very good at his job, despite some clear superiority ideation on his part (he mentioned how media members "like to play coach" (poorly) on Monday).
2) The gibbons thing -- that's just such a terribly sad story for so many people. Again, you're right, there's plenty of blame to go around. My contetion here related to Hoke is that he likely, altough admittedly not proven, likely played Gibbons in Iowa knowing the univeristy was motioning to expell him. Now in a vacuum, Hoke would deserve the benefit of the doubt, but given his lying, in general and to this situation explicitely, he cedes that right.
I agree these aren't cardinal sins as you put. They are far from firable, in fact I'd say they're largely actions any coach at any big-time program would take to win, except he's not. Which, to me, leads to the question: What are we getting with Hoke? Among other things, I don't think it's moral high ground.
And I agree with you for the most part, but Hoke isn't just the nice guy. Brian outlined this well in the podcast, so I won't repeat it here. Suffice it say, Hoke has criticism beyond the football field, it's just those are understandably overshadowed.
I'm not trying to argue that any of the non-game related misgivings justify firing. I'm tend to think not actually, but he's not knocking it out of the park either as just a nice guy.
I mentioned this early but I'll repeat it here if you all don't mind.
Any thoughts of Greg Schiano? It almost happened once.
Seems like the (too) hard nosed dictator, man-ball scheming coach the program likes. I think very few people could have succeeded in Tampa.
Yes, Goodell is an idiot.
He's willfully tied his legacy to increasing the character of the league with his "discipline czar" (or whatever he's calling himself) role.
In arguably the highest profile case he completely blew it and the subsequent PR reaction. The public refrain to the "we didn't see it until today"-defense is that he/his office is either derelict or lying -- equally bad.
When you position yourself to be not only the primary but sole actor in any area and fail at the most inopportune time you're an idiot.
It's not like the guy accidently hit reply all on email.
I wouldn't be surprised if this isn't over. Some journalist seem to feel slighted and there's nothing more dangerous than a journalist that's pissed off and curious.
While watching saturday, my prominent reaction was of course frustration -- not only with the team (obviously) but with the blog. What I witnessed was not what I was lead to believe; notre dame, with walk-on replacements, was at the very least exploitable. Coupled with last season's early MSU offensive schadenfreude, college football outcomes are leaving me increasingly incredulous.
You're right, Brian. Predicting is exceedingly difficult. What's more, is how us mere mortals are expected to be any good at it when the coaching staff itself is so completely off base. Your reactionary stuff is still second to none and for that I say thank you, to you and your staff.
Moving forward I'll be cautiously optimistic, but tempered by the stomach-knotting realization that what got broken in South Bend doesn't get back put back together (not by this coaching staff).
Heads up, boys. It'll get better eventually. Right? And if not, well then... this is water. So said David Foster Wallace.
While I'd like for Harbaugh to be here next season, it does seem unlikely.
If Hoke is let go before 2015, what would people think of going after Greg Schiano -- end the coaching transition with how Bill Martin started it?
Like many fans, I'm done with this coaching staff too. The lack of development -- they're clueless.
There was, like in every year before, so much hype coming out of the fort. Even Mattison replied in the affirmative when asked if this was finaly a "Michigan Defense." Hoke was nausiatingly coy on the oline developement -- "we got a plan; it's a good one." Well there's now plenty of game film to refute this.
It reminds me of the Rodriguiz years, when after the many painful losses he stand at the post game press conference and admit he didn't know why the team preformed so badly. He mentioned how they played well in practice, but for unknown reason couldn't execute in games.
Are you kidding me?