Can Hoke Become Another Moeller?
Gary Moeller's legacy related to Michigan has always fascinated me. He was fired in disgrace after embarrassing himself and U-M, but after a few years in the NFL, he came back and is now fully accepted as a beloved member of the Michigan family. There he was last week, posing with Harbaugh, Lloyd and Hanlon.
So, my question is: A dozen or so years from now, can Brady Hoke have this same legacy? When we introduce our new coach in 2027, will a gray-haired Brady Hoke be there, wearing a Block M shirt and posing for photos? Does Hoke have a future as another Gary Moeller?
January 5th, 2015 at 10:58 AM ^
hoping you'd try one more spelling of Hoke in that post.
January 5th, 2015 at 12:13 PM ^
LOL. It was from my phone. Got autocorrected. But for the life of me I can't think of another attempt at Hoke other thank Hike or Hole. Home maybe?
January 5th, 2015 at 11:37 AM ^
Are these Hoke's other personalities? Is Hoke Cybil?
January 5th, 2015 at 12:58 PM ^
and apparently successful at that. A lot of his former players loved and respected him enough to support his return as a coach. No, he didn't succeed, but that shouldn't wipe out what he contributed to Michigan football in the past.
January 5th, 2015 at 2:20 PM ^
where as Brady was not fully aware.
January 5th, 2015 at 9:52 AM ^
Yeah, why not. Harbaugh gave Brady a little shoutout for not leaving the cupboard bare and at any rate if Mattison is retained it will at least partially because Brady got him here in the first place. I expect him to be a member of the Michigan family if he wants to be at Harbaugh's retirement after 10 straight national titles or whatever. He isn't an "outsider" like Rodriguez (and I hope RR was invited to the introductory presser too, and just couldn't attend because of Arizona's bowl game.
That said Moe was a good coach, Hoke clearly was not.
January 5th, 2015 at 9:52 AM ^
I thought he stepped down on his own?
January 5th, 2015 at 9:57 AM ^
He was "allowed" to resign.
January 5th, 2015 at 10:01 AM ^
January 5th, 2015 at 10:11 AM ^
January 5th, 2015 at 10:41 AM ^
And it certainly was "some kind of drunken incident," but in a different sense of the phrase:
http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19950503&slug=…
He really took it there -- it was belligerence at its finest. Me and my friends sometimes like to remind each other to not "pull a Moeller." It's too bad we lost the best coach we've had in recent times over it (not including Harbuagh), but the info in the police report is pure entertainment.
January 5th, 2015 at 11:28 AM ^
January 5th, 2015 at 11:41 AM ^
I was just about to post this... interesting especially when considering the fact that none of us flinched at the rumored $49mil contract offer to Harbaugh.
January 5th, 2015 at 11:47 AM ^
If college coaches had make millions a year back then I probably would have made more of an effort to be a football grad assistant than an engineer. Back then you did it because you loved it.
January 5th, 2015 at 12:11 PM ^
I remember watching the Arizona Cardinals play a couple weeks ago and they were talking about the number of long term assistant coaches on staff, one of them having been a very talented assistant to various coaches for some like 40-50 years and the commentator made a point of saying something along the lines of "You don't see too many of them these days [long time assistant coaches] since every coach seems to be trying for a fast tract to a head coaching job. But that's not how it used to be"
This may be sort of a "duh" thing, but I'd be interested to see the correlation between the evolution of coaching salaries and the new "fast track" attitude towards coaching.
January 5th, 2015 at 2:07 PM ^
Yeah the coaches salaries are really crazy now. However, the money involved with the programs is much higher as well. Michigan football is about a 1/4 billion dollar enterprise and as CEO Harbaugh is getting compensated on a typical CEO scale for an organization of that magnitude... still though... Moeller was underpaid!
January 5th, 2015 at 12:40 PM ^
In such detail? I see it was from the Detroit News, but unless we had a big rivalry then with Washington or Moeller had a history there, seems curious, especially so far from football season.
January 5th, 2015 at 2:08 PM ^
The byline shows that it was written by a Det News writer...
January 5th, 2015 at 11:06 AM ^
They won each game afterwards until they faced PSU, which we lost in a close game. Gameday visited for the first time and I remember either Lee Corso or Craig James saying something along the lines of Michigan being one play from being undefeated. We were back in the top 10 and on the fringes of MNC talk until that loss.
Also, the number of people who wanted Moeller gone pales in comparison to those who wanted Lloyd gone after the 1996 season and again in the mid-2000's.
January 5th, 2015 at 4:05 PM ^
I agree that Carr was under a lot of heat post-1996, but if by "mid-2000s" you mean 2005, I'm not sure. I remember most of the ire being directed at Jim Herrmann. After 1997, I don't think Carr faced too much fan scrutiny until 2007.
January 5th, 2015 at 5:37 PM ^
I can distinctly remember people calling for his head in 2005.
January 6th, 2015 at 12:17 AM ^
January 5th, 2015 at 10:18 AM ^
It was jump or be pushed.
January 5th, 2015 at 11:17 AM ^
January 5th, 2015 at 9:55 AM ^
Moeller was a great coach who had an off the field issue. Hoke just wasn't a good head coach.
January 5th, 2015 at 10:05 AM ^
January 5th, 2015 at 10:10 AM ^
I also expectthat Hoke will be welcomed back as a member of the Michigan family if he would like to be. The fact that his circumstances are different from Mo's doesn't mean that the outcome will be different.
January 5th, 2015 at 10:09 AM ^
How about giving Moeller a tiny little bit of respect for actually being good at what he does/did for a living?
I'm still super pissed about the Lions game last night so my responses are going to be harsh, but can we fucking stop with the Hoke shit?
HOKE SUCKED. THAT SUGAR BOWL WAS RR'S. HOKE DIDNT DO A GOD DAMNED THING.
Let it go guys. Let it fucking go.
January 5th, 2015 at 10:12 AM ^
but I think the Sugar Bowl was a little bit Hoke, a lot of Mattison. The team a year before was not the same as the 2011 team...much better defense and Hoke went 11-2 with them with a better coaching staff.
January 5th, 2015 at 10:13 AM ^
That Sugar Bowl was not RR's. Half of that team was Lloyd's last recriuting class, and we were actually playing defense in 2011.
If anything, credit goes primarily to Mattison.
RR would not have made it to the Sugar Bowl if given a 4th year. His teams sucked on D.
January 5th, 2015 at 10:15 AM ^
Signed,
A Bunch of Fans That Never Met Him
January 5th, 2015 at 10:41 AM ^
guys I work with met him a few times. They both said he was a bit of a slob (shorts and flip-flops), but that he was a very nice guy. Engaging, personable, and basically like your next door neighbor.
Then again, one of the guys said similar things about Ron English, so take all of that with a grain of salt.
January 5th, 2015 at 11:04 AM ^
What's wrong with shorts and flip-flops in the summertime? The only time I wear anything else is when I throw on my Sebagos in an effort to class it up a bit.
Then again I might be the living emobiment of the word "slob" so who knows...
January 5th, 2015 at 11:21 AM ^
wrong with shorts and flip-flops, at home. But he was meeting two guys that were giving a career presentation to the team. So he wore that to work. Maybe that's normal in FB, I don't know, being a banker and all.
January 5th, 2015 at 2:11 PM ^
Real men don't wear shorts and flip flops....ever.
January 5th, 2015 at 3:04 PM ^
If they want to comfortably survive a southwest summer they do.
January 5th, 2015 at 3:13 PM ^
Then I'll freely admit to not being a "real man" cause there's no way I could survive a humid Michigan summer without my flip-flops.
January 5th, 2015 at 10:30 AM ^
January 5th, 2015 at 12:02 PM ^
January 5th, 2015 at 11:27 AM ^
but Martin and VanBergen said otherwise after the bowl game. In fact the 3 most valuable players on the entire team were Carr recruits. Hoke recruited well, never had the team quit on him (as Rodriguez' defenses did multiple times) and leaves behind a much better situation than what he inherited.
January 5th, 2015 at 10:10 AM ^
If we the fans embrace him, he will have a place at the table in the future. If we realize that he had a good effect on the program outside of his win loss record, then maybe. However, I think he's going to end up as a head coach at another school somewhere and that will change the narrative that's told about him 10-15 yrs from now.
January 5th, 2015 at 10:15 AM ^
We treated Moeller like crap based on one incident despite a pretty darned good record. Replacing a legend and unreasonable expectations cannot be easy. And FWIW, the legend was furious about the way Michigan tossed Mo aside. Thank goodness he has been so gracious and that enough time hes passed that we can treat him with well-deserved respect.
Hoke was a good soldier, always supporting Michigan and saying the right thing even in the face of disappointing results and being fired.
January 5th, 2015 at 12:13 PM ^
Hoke's legacy is tainted by mediocrity but I see no reason why he shouldn't be welcomed back a la Moeller. The guy bleeds Maize and Blue and has as much passion for the university as I've seen. IMO he shouldn't have been as high on the list of candidates as he was, but I wouldn't say he embarassed the university. He was in over his head and the result was a mediocre record, from what I've seen and heard (which granted isn't a whole lot) he's handled this whole situation in a pretty graceful way.
Lets not kid ourselves into thinking that Rich Rodriguez would've taken us to the sugar bowl let alone beat Virginia Tech in 2011. His defenses were embarassingly awful, no way we go 11-2 running a 3-3-5 in the B1G.
EDIT: someone also brought up Michigan's APR under Hoke which was rediculously high, another reason he should always be welcomed back like Moeller.
January 5th, 2015 at 10:16 AM ^
January 5th, 2015 at 10:16 AM ^
Hoke graduates 69 of 69 and does nothing off the field except personify class and dignity. Moeller, not so much. But Moeller gets invited back for pics and is in the fold. If Hoke is not broght back like Moeller is, everything everyone says about what a "Michigan Man" is is horseshit.
January 5th, 2015 at 10:42 AM ^
Time heals all wounds. Moeller's off the field stuff happened 20 years ago. Hoke's losing ways are a much more recent. Heck, look at how some people talk about RRod now that he has had some success at Arizona.
January 5th, 2015 at 10:44 AM ^
never get drunk? Have you ever even been to A2?
That incident was blown totally out of proportion.
January 5th, 2015 at 3:06 PM ^
so you know how that goes. It's one thing to have allegations of drunken belligerence, but when it's recorded, it's a done deal.
January 5th, 2015 at 10:52 AM ^
January 5th, 2015 at 11:03 AM ^
IS horseshit. It's been covered articulately elsewhere on this fine site - much moreso than I can do at this point. Use the site search box.