Make the case for retaining Hoke

did you see what tosu did to our little brother?  Barrett has developed into a fine QB...he can't run like Braxton but he is a supeior thrower.   We are going to get smoked in Columbus.

Next year practice wins will count as bowl eligible wins?

1. Coach Hoke has shown what he can do with seasoned talent (see 2011).

2. He inherited a giant gap in the OL from Coach Rod, which leaves them fairly young at that position even now.

3. The defense is fairly good, and players have developed on that side of the ball.

4. He's graduated all of his players (I believe), and seemingly brought in good citizens.  And everyone seems to agree that he cares a lot for his players.

5. His teams have played well against OSU.

6. He's been reasonably flexible with regard to the offense, adapting to Denard somewhat and then brining in Nuss. 

7. He's been a great recruiter.

That's the best I've got, and it's pretty weak.

This team scored 10 against Northwestern.

Iowa scored 48.

Iowa lost 51-14 on Saturday to Minnesota.

They will not win out and will be lucky to score a TD on 11/29.

If we get rid of him, the "Big Ten Championships" "42" call and response might change.

I don't like change.

But one could argue that if we fail to secure Jim or a proven success.  Honestly I can't even make myself finish typing this.  There is no case to be made.  You think recruiting is bad now?  At least this class is small which mitigates the damage a bit.  He needs to go.

If Jim wants to retain him as D-line coach....weeell ok.

First, the number one job of a head coach is recruiting. Everything else should be outsourcable to assistants. Hoke has done an undeniably very good job at recruiting both players and two coordinators with exceptional (read: better than Hoke's) resumes; no one denies that. The failure has been in player development, that is on the position coaches more than the HC.

Second, this team has had a terrible turnover margin the last few years, without which we would have been much more respectable. Turnovers are largely random (http://mgoblog.com/diaries/turnovers-and-randomness) so to the extent our failures have been related to turnover margin, that failure should not be held against Hoke, and is likely to revert to the mean in coming years.

And no, of course I don't believe any of this shit. He should be fired. Probably yesterday.

IANAL, but to play devil's advocate, I doubt the person making the decision is going to say "hey look what OSU did to MSU" when making this decision.  That doesn't seem to be how people think around here.  This theoretical decision maker would have to conclude that "Hoke's Players" are still sort of underclassmen.  About 90% of the offense (not starters, the entire offense) has 2+ years of eligibility left... AFTER this season and the defense has a lot of young talent that should theoretically improve next year.  So THEORETICALLY there should still be some improvement next season, and it is unfair to fire a coach until the play of his team seems to have reached its max potential and has plateaued.  

There may also be some thought that Michigan fired the last guy too quickly, and that could have an impact.

doesn't even make a good nacho dip.  I got nothing.....

The only reason I can see for keeping him is if the AD and high level donors put feelers out with candidates, don't find a lot of great options, and decide to put this off until next year. It doesn't look like a great year to be looking for high level coaching hires with few established successful coaches this year looking to make the jump to an elite job. I am guessing there will be a lot of coordinator hires this year.

I don't think this will happen though.

His players like him? That's about it.

John comes to coach offense, Jim comes to coach defense (or vise versa) each with full reign, and Hoke takes a massive pay cut but remains the "J. Ira and Nikki Harris person in charge of things is just in charge of things" defacto head coach/father of 115 kids?

Start Shane Morris* at QB then beat Maryland by 50 and Ohio State by 10.

(* To be clear, I am not calling for Morris to start.  I'm stating that Hoke would have to prove that his QB has been holding this offense down, and beating the remaining two teams soundly with a different QB would provide the appropriate evidence).

To be made.  Fire him after OSU.

He'd make a great d-line coach for whoever we bring in as the next head coach.

Hoke doesn't need a map to get around Ann Arbor. We are saving enormous sums of money by slashing our map budget nearly to nothing.

If you look at this purely with cold logic and remove all fandom aspects.

We have a good defense and a staff that has shown skill in developing defensive talent, not to mention recruiting it.  

We have a horrid tire fire of an offense.

If a clear homerun hit (Jim Harbaugh, Dan Mullen, your favorite target's name here) is not on the market, we are left going after an up and coming name.  We have half the pieces we need. At that point the AD has to consider the potential risk behind a total regime change or the risk behind trying for some kind of stability with coach shuffling.  Ideally you have experts such as Moeller look over what Nuss has been doing here and say "Do you think he turn this around or do we need to send Borges a shit ton of flowers and an apology?"  Not to mention Funk of course.

Another factor I think one might consider is how much you want to risk on Harbaugh.  What if for example the vibe we are getting off Harbaugh is that he is pretty sick of the NFL but not quite fed up enough to leave this year and no other sure fire options are moving?  So he's not in play for the 2014 Coaching Search, but there is an eighty percent change he is in play for 2015, then why not extend Hoke (with a small buyout due to his current performance) and if Harbaugh really is in play in 2015, you can fire Hoke then after his fifth year.  If you replace Hoke this year, we'd have to fire a guy in year one to take advantage of the market in 2015, and that's a bad look.  

The 2014 market is kind of grim honestly in that we're looking at Harbaugh, Mullen maybe being in play to a bigger program, and rumors that Stoops isn't happy.  There's no really strong up and coming names at mid major schools we can hit right now.  So the fact Hoke is fireable in 2015 unless he totally tears it up, actually has some value to the program.  If you can't buy a winning stock in 2014, do you want to buy an unproven stock or do you keep your known mediocre stock and try again in 2015?

is based on "making decisions is hard, firing a coach and hiring a new coach involves a lot of decisions, therefore, let's retain him."

That's pretty much it. Every time I hear a rumor that UM would like to keep Hoke on, all I hear is, "MAN, firing/hiring a coach seems like a lot of work!"

I won't make the case, but if it does happen, here's what they'll use for justification:

 - The usual Great Guy stuff,

 - Top choices not available / too expensive, so go with the devil you know,

 - Large buyouts for him and his staff . . . they want to de-emphsize stratospheric money spent on football coaches,

 - The illusion of team improvement if he wins out / goes to a bowl,

- He was handcuffed by youth / inexperience / injuries.

Now that Brandon's gone, I don't think they'll be so stupid as to try to blow that kind of lame crap by us with a pat on the head, but I've been wrong before.  They will ultimately do what they want to do and then make up a reason why later.  

We would have to get new name plates for offices in Schembechler Hall and that seems like a lot of work

no.

With the complete collapse of this recruiting class, Hoke can NOT stay.  Unless Robert Kardashian reads this blog, I doubt anyone could make the argument.  

Next year is slated to be a "fresh start."  By keeping Hoke, we are haulting progress and very well may push this slump well into the future.