November 30th, 2014 at 11:28 AM ^
...forgetting our emotional win over traditional football power Penn State?
November 30th, 2014 at 3:43 PM ^
But how sad is it that barely beating a terrible Penn State team is the year's high point?
November 30th, 2014 at 12:10 PM ^
Defensive "stand" to the game, thus preventing Pat FItzgerald from jumping up and down to celebrate a victory! How could you forget this high point?!
November 30th, 2014 at 10:57 AM ^
The 3-9 team had reasonable excuses. First year of a regime change blah blah blah. This team not so much.
November 30th, 2014 at 10:59 AM ^
Folks were willing to give RR another chance. This was Hoke's final one.
November 30th, 2014 at 11:04 AM ^
To be fair, Hoke was retained for the same record that got RR fired. DB used "direction of the program" as an excuse for firing RR, but RR won more each successive year while Hoke lost more each successive year. I know this has been said numerous times here, but it seems like people tend to forget sometimes.
November 30th, 2014 at 11:18 AM ^
November 30th, 2014 at 2:57 PM ^
the process had something to do with the gaping hole in this year's graduating class. How many of Hoke's guys stayed around from his first class? Technically 10 guys commited to Hoke and Barnett quit, Tamani Carter and Rawls transferred, Bryant and Poole medicalled, and Clark got kicked off the team. But sure it RR's fault. Just like it is RR's fault that Jake Fisher decommited and Kris Frost decided on Auburn after the coaching change.
November 30th, 2014 at 11:19 AM ^
Exactly what I keep telling my brother-in-law....RR record improved every year, exact opposite for BH.
A team with a 3rd year starting QB should not be as offensively inept as we were this year.
I didn't like RR anymore than most of the others on this board, but I will admit that he wasn't given a fair chance. I'm glad to see him doing well at AZ.
November 30th, 2014 at 11:27 AM ^
November 30th, 2014 at 2:39 PM ^
RR won more each year because it's nearly impossible to not win more after winning 3 games in year 1.
While that's true, the weight of the evidence from both before and after his Michigan tenure confirms that RR's teams were also winning more games each year because he, unlike Hoke, is a competent football coach. What do you think Hoke's record would have been after three years if he'd faced the headwinds that RR did in 2008? Conversely, what do you think RR's first-year record would have been had he inherited a junior-year Denard and an offensive line chock-full of guys who'd go on to play in the NFL?
November 30th, 2014 at 3:31 PM ^
I am beginning to believe that most of this board has forgotten the RichRod years. Now living in Arizona, let me explain one common theme of Rich Rodriguez. Anytime things went wrong for him in a game, he had that look on his face like he was about to wet himself. Go watch the Pitt-WVU game in 2007 when Pat White got hurt. The whole game he looked like, "What do I do, what do I do? Why is this happening to me ..." Which is what he constantly seemed to say during his years at Michigan (per JUB 3 and Out).
The 2008 and 2009 teams were god awful and worse in many ways than this team. In 2009, when we lost, we got wacked, and weren't even in the games. Revisionist history sucks, and Angelina should know better.
November 30th, 2014 at 4:19 PM ^
I am beginning to believe those who hate RichRod have forgotten that he had a coaching career outside of 2008-2010. Now living on planet Earth and with access to both the internet and basic cable, let me explain another common theme of Rich Rodriguez: when he's not facing the mountain of shit he had to deal with at Michigan, his teams win a lot of games. That 2007 WVU team you reference won 10 games with him at the helm, and an 11th (a BCS bowl) after he left. (Yes, it suffered a disappointing defeat when its best player got injured.) His Arizona team just won 10 games, the best for that program since 1988, when they won 9. He's had success everywhere he went except for Michigan, but yes, please keep telling yourself that the problem was him, and not the program, notwithstanding the fact that Hoke received far more support than Rich Rod did, inherited a better team, and has still driven this program into the ground.
This season's performance, relative to expectations, is far more disappointing than 2008's.
November 30th, 2014 at 6:01 PM ^
November 30th, 2014 at 7:40 PM ^
The reason so many feel compelled to come up with a "list of excuses" for the guy is because people still refuse to acknowledge the man is a damn good coach, and not all of the issues from 2008-10 were the fault of Rich Rodriguez. If those around here don't want to see people post the list of reasons why it wasn't entirely on him, then they should really wake the fuck up and realize it wasn't.
November 30th, 2014 at 8:30 PM ^
A real leader overcomes the "mountains of shit" and perseveres.
That's what RR did. His teams improved record-wise every year, and notwithstanding everything he had to deal with, he was able to build a team that, in what would have been his fourth year, was so talented that not even Brady Hoke could screw it up on the way to 11 wins and a Sugar Bowl victory (yes, Mike Martin, RVB, and David Molk were awesome, and were recruited by Lloyd Carr). Brady Hoke has had, from the outset, far more support than Rich Rod ever did, an extra year to recruit, no bullshit "NCAA allegations," and has built far far less.
It's okay to admit that firing Rich Rod in 2010 for anyone other than Jim Harbaugh was a collosal fuckup from which we still haven't recovered.
November 30th, 2014 at 11:33 AM ^
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
November 30th, 2014 at 12:02 PM ^
In same boat. Hoke should be fired, but the "improvement" in RR's last year was fools gold. A bunch of marginal close wins (Illinois, Indiana, UMass) and every loss was a blowout where we never had the ball in the 4th quarter with a chance to tie.
That year was a lot more exciting because of Denard, but this team never quit on their coaches like RR's last team did.
November 30th, 2014 at 12:16 PM ^
November 30th, 2014 at 12:36 PM ^
wouldn't say much tougher conference.
Ohio state ---- Oregon
Michigan state ----- Arizona
Wisconsin -------- UCLA
Minnesotta ------- Arizona state
OSU vs. Oregon is probably a 3 point spread an i wouldn't want to have to call the winner.
MSU probably beats u of A
I'd take Wisconsin over UCLA
And Purdue beats Colorado
I'm not going to go through every team in both conferences but they might be a little better top to bottom but come on.
November 30th, 2014 at 1:26 PM ^
defenses are generally horrible though.
November 30th, 2014 at 1:46 PM ^
Their defenses are comparable to the B1G's. The difference is their offenses are twilights and leaps and bounds better than the shitty B1G's.
Stop being delusional.
November 30th, 2014 at 2:28 PM ^
MSU probably beats u of A
Why is this, exactly? Because Arizona beat the Oregon team that crushed MSU?
November 30th, 2014 at 2:41 PM ^
November 30th, 2014 at 3:46 PM ^
Colorado just gave a ranked Utah team everything they could handle. (You may recall that same Utah team giving us more than we could handle earlier this year.)
November 30th, 2014 at 10:17 PM ^
I can only assume you do not watch much PAC 12 football. PAC 12 is arguably the second-best conference in the country, and top-to-bottom they would OWN the B1G. The coaching is better, the teams are better, and the football is better.
November 30th, 2014 at 2:51 PM ^
but RR's first full recruiting class were all sophomores. i guarantee that offense would have blown up in 2011 under RR. the D though, who knows.
November 30th, 2014 at 8:56 PM ^
In both of those games we moved the ball up and down the field while the game was still in doubt. Unfortunately our kicker sucked and we had to go for it on fourth down instead of turn to a reliable or at least average kicker. Plus we turned the ball over deep after marching down the field. So it's not as if those games were blowouts and then we could suddenly move the ball in the 4th quarter.
December 1st, 2014 at 4:39 AM ^
November 30th, 2014 at 12:36 PM ^
What makes you think the majority of this board did not like RR? I would guess that it leans about 70 -30 in favor of the opinion that had he been supported fully by the fan base he would have been a consistent winner here. Was not meant to be but damn... he was the best coach avialable and would have brought us into the 21st century.
November 30th, 2014 at 10:57 AM ^
Her point was that this is the 4th year of Hoke's era vs. RR's first year w/o QB.
November 30th, 2014 at 11:17 AM ^
...if she's giving Rodriguez's teams a break because they didn't have a good QB, then it's not really the worst team she's covered. It sounds to me like she's just exaggerating to get more attention.
November 30th, 2014 at 11:29 AM ^
This team looks disorganized and in many ways very poorly coached, with most of the issues the kind of issues that can fairly be laid at the feet of the head coach. Hoke seems inadequately aware of what is going on around him (clock management, Morris injury, 10 men on field, the list goes on and on) and seems unable to come up with overall plans that will take advantage of strengths while minimizing the impact of weaknesses (like poor starts and no halftime adjustments).
Perhaps she meant most poorly coached team. With RR, the offense usually looked like it was moving in the right direction. Too many people criticize his offenses against good defenses but overlook the fact that he never even got to the point where he was able to work with a QB for a second year. Year 1 was Threet/Sheridan, year 2 was primarily Forcier and year 3 was Denard. My guess is that with RR, Denard would have progressed from year to year, unlike his regression under Hoke.
November 30th, 2014 at 11:54 AM ^
RR's defense shows hopeless sign. Not not to blame him though, AD doesn't want to spend money on the DC he wants.
On the other sides, Hoke was given more resources and money to hire assistant.
He and Hoke share the same flaw though, loyal to his crappy staff.
Nepotism is one of Michigan's biggest issues, not only in AD, but in the entire academics (most undergrades probably don't know what I am talking about).
November 30th, 2014 at 2:44 PM ^
November 30th, 2014 at 3:48 PM ^
What are you talking about on the academic side?
November 30th, 2014 at 9:40 PM ^
You must be an undergrade.
November 30th, 2014 at 12:38 PM ^
it's been over ten years since Michigan had a well coached football team
November 30th, 2014 at 2:04 PM ^
November 30th, 2014 at 11:49 AM ^
It really isn't about the QB. We all watch football to be entertained. Brady Hoke's Michigan football team played quite possibly the least entertaining football I have ever seen. Tailbacks running into miserable offensive lines. Throwing deep once per season (if we were lucky).
Rodriguez may have had some poor defenses, but god damn at least football was fun then. It was exciting. It was new. It looked like we were keeping up with the joneses in terms of offensive innovation and cool schemes.
Now? We don't even snap the ball before there's one second left on the play clock.
Brady Hoke's style of football is dead. And I'm thankful that I never have to see it again.
November 30th, 2014 at 12:07 PM ^
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
November 30th, 2014 at 12:39 PM ^
November 30th, 2014 at 2:32 PM ^
If you honestly found anything Denard did on the football field (both good and bad) "pretty damn boring," you should probably go ahead and stop watching football.
November 30th, 2014 at 2:56 PM ^
damn that sophomore first year starter who broke ncaa records. imagine what he would have done as a junior and senior under RR.
November 30th, 2014 at 3:17 PM ^
But it was better than Carr's 1st down, run Mike Hart into the left side of the line. 2nd down, run Mike Hart into the left side of the line. 3rd down, TE screen. 4th down, punt.
November 30th, 2014 at 12:42 PM ^
I've never heard her be that critical. Even Jamie Morris seemed agape. . .yeah I said it, AGAPE. . .
November 30th, 2014 at 2:41 PM ^
I don't think she was giving RR's teams "a break." I think her point was that the circumstances surrounding the two are relevant to a comparison of their overall records. And she's 100% correct. Hoke's failure's in year four are far worse than RR's in year 1, which serves as the basis for her conclusion.
November 30th, 2014 at 1:43 PM ^
what team did she play for? who'd she coach?
November 30th, 2014 at 10:57 AM ^
Well, we beat Appy State.
November 30th, 2014 at 11:16 AM ^
CRUSHED Appy State!