Herbstreit calls Brady Hoke criticism a 'witch hunt'
Is this Hoke criticism about Morris' injury even a story if UM were 4-0 ranked in the top 10? #witchhunt
I'm not saying head injuries aren't VERY serious, just saying the reaction is over the top because of how badly UM is playing under Hoke.
October 2nd, 2014 at 11:04 AM ^
No. What Herbie fails to realize is that Hoke's public statements and demeanor have been eroding what was a very large reservoir of good will at the beginning of this season. It is not just the won-loss record. It is the refusal to speak candidly about the team and its problems. It is the appearance of being aloof and sullen when reasonable questions are asked by those who serve the fans. It is the "we're a really good team and the guys are working really hard" meme that lacks the basic accountability that Hoke himself always talks about. So it is not just the won-loss record, it is the eroded confidence from Hoke's demeanor this entire season. I have been a huge Hoke supporter for his entire tenure. But now my stomach gets upset at the mere sight of him standing in front of a microphone -- not because of the questions he is going to be asked but because of the way he is going to answer them.
October 2nd, 2014 at 11:39 AM ^
true. When I think of Hoke from the beginning I think of a guy who would say "That is on me. We have to be better." That has been completely absent all year. He actually seems like a different person.
Theory - Hoke really, really opposed the firing of Borges. He opposed it to the extent that he would not publicly be the voice of it and did not speak at the press conference. He and Nussmeier basically have no relationship. The coaching staff is irrevocably fractured. Hoke really does not care anymore and actually wants out.
October 2nd, 2014 at 11:45 AM ^
October 2nd, 2014 at 2:15 PM ^
This is based on anecdotal evidence, but I don't think it is remotely possible that Brady Hoke would put anything in front of Michigan.
I think there is one thing he is obviously putting in front of Michigan - his own job.
October 2nd, 2014 at 11:49 AM ^
They were together for five years and maybe he thought the play calling had some logic and that this team had other, bigger problems. That may be the case, and you are right about him and Nuss having no relationship.
But that's where your theory should end. This is Hoke's dream job. He ain't young, and if he crashes and burns here it makes the next job that much harder to get. To say he doesn't care and actually wants out is borderline crazy to think.
October 2nd, 2014 at 10:16 AM ^
He's extremely balanced for a Buckeye and generally speaks very fairly on Michigan.
And he's right anyway
October 2nd, 2014 at 10:26 AM ^
is very dismissive of them, though, even when they are theoretically playing in "big games." You can always tell that he does not believe that they are a very competitive team nationally and it comes across when he calls their games. He has almost been "glib" in both Under the Lights games. I guess it is fairly accurate perspective though.
October 2nd, 2014 at 10:30 AM ^
Well, we aren't a competitive team nationally.
October 2nd, 2014 at 10:34 AM ^
why I said it was a fairly accurate perspective.
October 2nd, 2014 at 11:26 AM ^
Fair enough, I guess I missed that.
October 2nd, 2014 at 12:46 PM ^
...we aren't a competitive team, regionally
October 2nd, 2014 at 11:07 AM ^
Herbie uses his position to undermine the team that he hates -- Michigan. This goes back to the post-Carr coaching search and it continues today with a constant undermining -- first of Hoke, then of Hoke's UM detractors, then of the players, then of the fans... Herbie is skillful in undermining our program.
October 2nd, 2014 at 11:11 AM ^
He does it meticulously and passively, the kind of things that if you try to explain them people would call you paranoid.
October 2nd, 2014 at 12:10 PM ^
I have never heard Herbstreit say anything particularly unfair or untrue about Michigan. For years I've never seen him take unnecessary shots at us. The Buckeyes don't like him because they think he's too nice to us
If you wanna see people "undermining" Michigan, just watch College Football Final with Holtz and Mark May. Those guys never have anything positive to say about Michigan even when we're doing well.
October 2nd, 2014 at 10:16 AM ^
2-3 and looking terrible creates an understandable baseline level of ANGAR. This added to that. We already wanted him fired, the only place to go is "Fire him faster!" Anyway I think at this point most of the Morris related anger is directed at Brandon. It wasn't a "Fire Hoke" rally.
P.S. It would be really weird if we were 4-0, since you know, we've played 5 games Herbie. Of course Herbie still thinks our coach is Les Miles...
October 2nd, 2014 at 12:39 PM ^
The whole, "If M were 5-0, fans wouldn't be angry..." hypothetical is ridiculous. We aren't 5-0, so this is just another Hoke failure to pile on top of his others.
Another hypothetical: If concussions weren't a thing, fans wouldn't be angry about Hoke's handling of Morris.
October 2nd, 2014 at 10:17 AM ^
October 2nd, 2014 at 10:18 AM ^
It is a witch hunt, but one that is deserved, because we are awful in year 4 of Hoke. At this point, I'd rather have Borges (and that says a lot).
October 2nd, 2014 at 10:25 AM ^
That game was already over. We were 2-3 and what do you know, worse than the year before again. Plenty of calls for Hoke's job were already being made for season's end.
All the Morris incident showed is that Hoke can't necessarily be trusted to even do that. Hardly a witch-hunt.
October 2nd, 2014 at 10:42 AM ^
seriously, "27 for 27" Al Borges huh. Better step away from the keyboard until your drunken stupor has subsided /s
Go Blue!
October 2nd, 2014 at 11:02 AM ^
but the offense through 5 games this year is averaging 20 pts/game. I'm not advocating the return of Borges but the longer the 2014 offense struggles, the less inclined I am to believe that Borges was the key problem with the offense in 2013.
October 2nd, 2014 at 10:18 AM ^
Seriously guys. What's the big deal?
October 2nd, 2014 at 10:23 AM ^
God...will we ever see a scoreboard like that again....?
October 2nd, 2014 at 10:31 AM ^
Ahem....no, you will not.
October 2nd, 2014 at 10:45 AM ^
for the ugly fucking avatar .... trollboy.
October 2nd, 2014 at 10:24 AM ^
October 2nd, 2014 at 10:21 AM ^
October 2nd, 2014 at 10:24 AM ^
Nailed it. Why Herbie is not able to make such an intelligent analysis is beyond me. Perhaps he suffered one too many concussions.
October 2nd, 2014 at 10:32 AM ^
if UM was 4-0 heading into the game Morris wouldn't have seen the field, unless Hoke was pulling the starters.
October 2nd, 2014 at 11:54 AM ^
Gardner would've seen Cockran coming, and he would've run backwards.
We'd act a lot happier about that, right?
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October 2nd, 2014 at 10:42 AM ^
Prove it.
I see this comment a lot, but the fact of the matter is that winning teams still have breakdowns in communication all the time, especially with regards to their medical staffs. Please explain how coaching ability and communication with the sideline neurologist are 100% correlated. I'm not saying there's absolutely no connection, and it's certainly easy at this point to point to larger institutional dysfunction given both factors (this incident and being 2-3), but don't act like one can only happen with the other.
October 2nd, 2014 at 11:11 AM ^
Again, it's a pattern of issues from this coaching staff... e.g. multiple PR issues, poor clock managment, only 10 guys on the field for a punt, not seeing your QB take a headshot. These aren't simply X's/O's issues, but systematic breakdowns in attention to detail. Details that fall on the head coach as he's not simply a coach, but the CEO of the entire program.
Beyond the breakdown in communication with the neurologist (apparently the only one on the sideline who saw the hit) being too far away from the coaches, why are the trainers not tasked with watching all players on the field? Especially when you have an already innjured QB in there, why is no one watching behind the play? As for Hoke's Monday press conference, how could he go up to that podium so woefully underprepared to answer the questions he's paid to know are coming? Again, this is a massive trainwreck and the Shane Morris incident is one derailed car.
October 2nd, 2014 at 11:41 AM ^
The problem is that everything that Hoke has shown us this year helps explain why the team has regressed every year. App St was the expected blowout, so it was hard to learn much. In ND, although I did not (mercifully) see the game, it seems clear he left people in to get dinged long after the game was over (sort of inconsistent with caring about the well-being of players). Against Miami he botched the 4th and 1 (among other issues). Against Utah, we have the 10 men on the field (among other issues). Against Minnesota we see him oblivious to a player's injuries. After Minnesota, by what he said at his press conference he did not appreciate the need to be absolutely on top of Shane Morris's medical condition or even the need to remedy a sideline situation that caused the one doctor who observed the problem not be able to timely address the problem. Regardless of what Brandon was doing, Hoke should have been talking to Morris about every single thing that was being done to determine his condition, and if there is one thing that is clear it is that Hoke failed to do that.
What this shows is a very serious lack of proper organization. To win, a head coach probably needs to be well organized as much as he needs to be anything. What Hoke has shown us this fall is his lack of organization, as well as a level of stubbornness that was not nearly so apparent in the past.
October 2nd, 2014 at 10:48 AM ^
October 2nd, 2014 at 10:21 AM ^
I feel like the criticism of Hoke has subsided and everyone is squarely focused on Brandon lately. No one thinks he is a good coach and we all know it was a mistake, but we are really analyzing the AD's handling of the entire situation.
Hoke has always been bad at handling scrutiny (because he doesn't answer difficult questions), but that's not his job. He needs to coach and the AD should be backing him up and helping him through, which they are decidely not.
I really wish that someone would try to understand what is really going on in A2 rather than just make ridiculous assertions.
October 2nd, 2014 at 10:22 AM ^
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October 2nd, 2014 at 10:27 AM ^
but if Hoke and/or the athletic department just came out right away and said "We believe we made a mistake with an evaluation of one of our players. We in no way intend to put any of our student athletes in harms way and we will review our medical procedures to ensure it doesn't happen again" then this whole situation is over in like 4 hours.
October 2nd, 2014 at 10:54 AM ^
done.
October 2nd, 2014 at 10:34 AM ^
probably not a huge debate if we are 4-0.
Correct, but not for the reason you think. People like Herbstreit, and several around here, use this line as if to say, "you guys are being hypocrites and don't really care about the concussion thing, you're just mad about losing."
Well, maybe if we were 5-0, or maybe if we'd been reasonably successful in the past, then there wouldn't be this pattern of incompetence. And it could've been chalked up to a legitimate one-time thing, which we wouldn't be real proud of, but we'd all be pretty confident it could get fixed.
Instead, we've been calling Hoke incompetent for months now, and rather than a one-time lapse, the story is that Hoke's incompetence crossed the line into putting someone's health at risk. So yeah, if we were 5-0, Hoke would be considered competent, fallible, but capable of handling it. In real life, he's been screwing up, he screwed up again, and the school screwed up the response. The same goes for Brandon.
October 2nd, 2014 at 10:44 AM ^
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ so much this.
I generally hate just saying "this", but that's exactly what I and a lot of people have been saying. Stop with the meme that we're more outraged about our record than this one Shane Morris incident, people. Just seriously, stop. Shane Morris' concussion and our 2-3 record are both spawned from our top-down culture of inaccountability, inattention to detail and deer-in-headlights incompetence. You cannot talk about one without the other.
October 2nd, 2014 at 12:14 PM ^
Shane Morris' concussion and our 2-3 record are both spawned from our top-down culture of inaccountability, inattention to detail and deer-in-headlights incompetence.
That's the very heart of it, and much more succinctly and effectively than I put it. When it's just losing, people grumble. When it gets someone hurt, people get rightfully pissed off.
October 2nd, 2014 at 10:49 AM ^
completely agree with you. This is obviously an issue. But, these issues wouldn't be as overblown as they are if we were 4-0 and had just won the big ten last year. However, we're not, and we didn't, and it's clear Hoke is a terrible head coach and I'm totally ok with this being something that fuels the fire if it gets him out sooner.
October 2nd, 2014 at 10:24 AM ^
And if my friend wasn't a drug addict, he wouldn't have to deal with all these "fairweather friends" telling him to go to rehab.
Obviously, we have problems, and almost everyone now recognizes that fact. Why are so many people's defenses of Hoke premised on "yeah, but what if we DIDN'T have problems?"
October 2nd, 2014 at 10:26 AM ^
Even though this is old, he's only partially right. The outcry by the fanbase, and the subsequent latching on by the national media, is so much louder than it would've been had we been doing better. However, he's missing a huge chunk of logic in order to conveniently paint us in a bad light. Instead of seeing this as something we're only getting upset about because we're struggling, it should be seen as the straw that broke the camel's back for us. As a fanbase, the last thing we were holding on to with Hoke as a shining positive is how much he took care of his players. Last Saturday shattered that for us, hence how we all finally went gung ho for his ouster.
Try seeing the big picture for once, Herbie.
October 2nd, 2014 at 11:28 AM ^
That's actually a perfect metaphor for what's happened here. In a vaccum, neither the losses nor the Morris issue would have caused such a shitstorm. But we don't live in a vaccum.
Less precisely (but more dramatically), all I'm saying is that Coach Hoke's failure on Saturday was our assassination of Archduke Ferdinand.
October 2nd, 2014 at 10:29 AM ^
He's been saying this all week. He sounds like a typical rival fan who knows nothing more than the coverage this gets on ESPN, which from what I've seen has parroted the crappy season as motive line. If it's all about wins and losses, why is Brandon under more fire than Hoke? When you're consistently fucking up in lesser ways, you are one big one away from the dam bursting. I know psycho OSU fans once ran him out of Columbus, but with Meyer there he's back in good graces and he's not being a journalist here, he's being an Ohio State fan. He'd love nothing more than for Dave Brandon and Brady Hoke to stick around.
One a side note, one thing I wonder, though. Fanbases chase coaches out of town all the time...why does Michigan get bashed so badly when it happens (or is perceived as happening) here? Howie Schwab?
October 2nd, 2014 at 10:24 AM ^
You're right, Herbstreit. This is a witch hunt. But its one that is completely justified. Completely throwing aside the terrible handling of Morris' injury last Saturday, have you bothered to see just how GOD AWFUL this team is?
It'd be somewhat understandable if this was happening in year 1 of a new regime here. But in year 4, when you've had several top-10 recruiting classes, in a conference that is by all measures the worst in the country, and you get dominated by the likes of Utah and Minnesota, don't sit there and tell me that the criticism of Hoke isn't justified. Things have been getting worse and worse each season, and with the way this team is playing right now, its hard for me to believe that there are better days ahead as long as Hoke remains the head man here.
October 2nd, 2014 at 10:26 AM ^
Brian tweeted something along the lines of "If this were Bama, this would be an aberration. At Michigan its a pattern".
I agree. If Michigan were 5-0, we'd look at this and be concerned, because obviously what happened was wrong. But the outrage wouldn't be there and it'd be easier to buy that this was just a one time mistake that would be fixed.
But that's not how it is. We're a poorly run team with a terrible head coach and a terrible athletic director. On top of this, in the aftermath we've seen the AD and probably the HC participate in covering up the fact that Morris had a concussion. Its disgusting.
I guess its not just all former Michigan players who are taking the time to shout out horrible opinions.
October 2nd, 2014 at 10:38 AM ^
^^^^^ This is exactly how I feel about the situation. This wouldn't be near the story it is if we were a better football team.
October 2nd, 2014 at 11:44 AM ^
I don't often agree with you...but on this I am in 100% agreement. You can't separate the two because they're both true, with one (2-3) providing context for the other (Morris incident). Remove/change the context (5-0), and would perception change? Of fucking course it would, because context matters! That's why I was quick to point out that ND was just one game...at the time, there was no indication whether that was an aberration or the beginning of a pattern for this season. Well, we obviously know now.
Another analogy. Climate change. One hurricane or heat wave can not definitively prove or disprove climate change...one piece of anectdotal evidence does nothing. But start accumilating things, and it's clear you've got a pattern.
To then make the argument that "things would look different if all that other evidence was different" is like, so much "no shit sherlock".