Kalis: "I wish I could have had (Drevno as a coach) longer"

Submitted by reshp1 on

"The big thing for me is having coach Drev as my coach. I can't stress (it enough). Coach Drev has helped me so much," he says. "I credit it all to him. The way he's coaching me ... I wish I could have had him longer. I'll say that.

"I wish I could have had him longer."

There are some other interesting quotes from him too, he's always a pretty good interview.

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reshp1

September 1st, 2016 at 10:19 AM ^

Believe me, I agree. This isn't really Hoke bashing (Funk bashing?) as much as a juicy quote you almost never get from a player that gives you a rare look behind the scenes. We've had endless arguments between youth vs coaching here and this is a pretty definitive piece to put on the coaching side. 

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Bo Glue

September 1st, 2016 at 10:12 AM ^

Dave Brandon/DoucheBag, whatever. From what I understand, we might have had a shot with Jim after RR flamed out if he hadn't been such a flaming, incompetent moron.

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Seth

September 1st, 2016 at 10:18 AM ^

Funk was a zone coach. He and Borges never should have been on the same staff. You saw the OL improve throughout 2014 at zone blocking--for some of them that was the first time they'd ever tried it. Borges threw so much stuff at those guys then Nussmeier barely paid attention to the OL, just expected them to do whatever he thought of.

Funk was just kind of the Rich Rodriguez of Michigan OL coaches. He's pretty dang good at what he does, but not at traversing all the politics of a messed up situation.

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reshp1

September 1st, 2016 at 10:27 AM ^

That's probably true, but they also were terrible in pass pro, sometimes resorting to extremely simple schemes and they still just couldn't do it. Add that to some of the practice videos where guys hitting sleds are doing things so wrong that even laymen could see it (e.g. Braden leaning and keeping his head down) and I just never got the impression Funk really paid enough attention to teaching fundamentals.

Contrast that with last year with guys making those types of basic mistakes early, and then gradually getting them cleaned up as the season moved on. I never saw that type of improvement with Funk's lines, even though you'd expect to see more dramatic improvements from the guys when they were younger/more raw.

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Space Coyote

September 1st, 2016 at 11:44 AM ^

But Borges also ran mostly zone at SDSU. They weren't a bad pairing if they just ran what they ran at SDSU. In fact, while Borges was always a WCO type coordinator that ran a combination of zone and man run schemes, he was mostly zone based both at SDSU and Auburn before then. That fit what Funk was as well (as shown with the improvement under Nuss).

Borges career as far as tendancies/base is fairly weird. I don't think you can go through the history of Borges's career and watch highlights and say "yeah, that's a Borges offense", because it was very different everywhere he went (he had a lot of the same plays, but his base changed everywhere he went). Which besides Hoke's proclomation to run Power, makes it weird that they were so Power dependent until they finally gave up on it toward the end of 2013. Even in 2013, when the OL was an absolute disaster, toward the end of the year they went mostly to inside zone and suddenly looked like not the worst OL ever. But when Borges first came in they went away from zone and really ran a gap/man sweep with Denard instead of Rich Rod's zone, it was odd (still successful either way, but an odd choice to change).

I don't know if it was Hoke mismanaging the staff with what he envisioned (which is weird because he really never cared what kind of offense or defense he ran until he got to Michigan when he proclaimed Power on offense and Under on defense, and those are obviously his preferences but he never dictated it before). Did Hoke fall victum to the same thing Rich Rod did in dictating what is run? Maybe I guess. But then he knew what he was getting with Nuss and Nuss's offense looked very much like what Nuss had always run, which is different than what Borges ran at Michigan.

So I don't know, the whole thing was weird. But it was clear that the OL absolutely failed to improve at the clip they should have. Some of that was youth, regardless of what people want to say, Funk did alright with Lewan and Schofield. But not picking up the pass pro basics, not being able to block anything compentently enough to even be successful when running away from you, etc. The OL was an absolutel disaster. Funk is an alright coach if he is coaching to his strengths, not good, not awful. But when asked to expand like he was asked to at Michigan, the OL was absolutely mismanaged.

FWIW, Purdue last I knew was a lot like Nuss's offense in terms of run schemes.

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mGrowOld

September 1st, 2016 at 11:49 AM ^

"Did Hoke fall victum to the same thing Rich Rod did in dictating what is run? Maybe I guess."

And yet he doesnt do that at any of his other coaching stops so it's kinda odd he does it here.  My strong suspicion is that his boss, the guy who liked to attend the Sunday film sessions, had a VERY heavy hand in a lot of things, our offensive sets and preferred blocking schemes included, given Hoke's prior track record.   

 

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buddha

September 1st, 2016 at 1:16 PM ^

This question has - and will continue to - bug me for a long time. It's hard to hypothesize: Was Hoke's failure at UM derived from heavy micro-management by Brandon; or, Did Hoke get in over his head when he went to an institution that had high expections and atmopsheric standards of excellence? 

After some thought, I think the answer is frankly both. I do believe Brandon's meddling impeded Hoke's ability to assume appropriate leadership and controls over the team. As more and more comes out and is made public about Brandon's tenure, it's obvious the guy was inserting himself into domains and areas he had no business going into...

Having said that, I also think the bright lights of the Big House, and the visibility of UM nationally, were too much for Hoke to handle at the time. I'm not sure he had the gravitas necessary to be successful at UM over a sustained period of time and his overall mismanagement of the team seemed pretty obvious at times. 

I don't like Brandon and I do throw a lot of blame at his feet. I neither like nor dislike Hoke; he just "is" to me. I wish him success at Oregon and hope he lands a good head coaching job again. However, I'm not entirely sure I want to see him on the sidelines of UM anytime soon (unless he's on the opposing side).

Harbaugh? Harbaugh.

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reshp1

September 1st, 2016 at 1:27 PM ^

I have a pipe dream that he takes the reigns from Mattison whenever he's ready to retire and becomes the DL coach here. His recruiting and DL development were top notch and could be a big contribution to the program. 

Obviously, it's very unlikely to happen, but you never know.

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Heywood_Jablome

September 1st, 2016 at 10:23 AM ^

Didn't Kalis say the same thing last year?  Remember some comment about "blowing people off the ball."

By all accounts, Kalis has never really lived up to his hype. Maybe he can prove people wrong this year.

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Roland Deschain

September 1st, 2016 at 12:04 PM ^

Why is it bad form to say this? One person could interpret this as a slam against Funk. Another could interpret this as a highly recruited star OL whose had a dubious career at best wishes he could have learned from arguably the best OL coach in the business for more than two years. Seems reasonable to me.



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turtleboy

September 1st, 2016 at 10:33 AM ^

We all do, Kyle. We all do. Hopefully he can have a Harris style senior year because he has so much potential. Could be better than his dad, even, if he can put the pieces together this season.

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Roland Deschain

September 1st, 2016 at 11:43 AM ^

And Drevno has done the same...and produced All-Pro linemen in the NFL. Kalis isn't saying Funk was a bad coach. Funk is probably a great coach that simply didn't "fit" with the Hoke / Borges offensive philosophy. But - it's also not fair to suggest Funk is remotely on the same level as Drevno, and - if I was Kalis and vying for a potential NFL career - I'd want to be developed by the best. That's not a knock against Funk but rather a complement to Drevno IMO.



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Perkis-Size Me

September 1st, 2016 at 1:17 PM ^

For however many guys Funk sent to the NFL, he undoubtedly ruined the potential of many more of them.

Sorry, I'm sure he's a decent enough guy, and this isn't an attack on him as a man. But we had a stupid amount of talent on the OL in 2013, and it finished among the worst in the country.

I've seen enough to know that he's not a good OL coach. At least not a good one at a top FBS level anyway.



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True Blue Grit

September 1st, 2016 at 10:50 AM ^

I really think the key for Michigan to have a championship season will revolve around how well the OL performs this year.  The defense will be excellent.  Special teams will be good enough.  Whomever is the QB will do a fine job under Harbaugh/Fisch.  We have plenty of good RB's and receivers.  But how well Michigan run blocks and protects the QB on a consistent basis will make or break this season.  Under the 2nd full year with Drevno, I'm optimistic we'll see a significant step up this year.  

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Sione's Flow

September 1st, 2016 at 10:55 AM ^

I think the O-line sees a noticeable uptick this year. Drevno is the guy who put all five of the Niners O-linemen in the Pro Bowl. You have to think that in his second year and building on the bowl game the O-line feels confident in their ability.

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Alumnus93

September 1st, 2016 at 11:31 AM ^

kalis should man up and not throw his former coaches under the bus like that.  the former ol coach funk at ball state sent several low ranked recruits to the pros, so he had to be a decent coach... i can understand the enthusiasm for drevno, but there are better ways to express this, because when one vastly underperforms for years, it comes across poorly, to me.

 

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steve sharik

September 1st, 2016 at 12:21 PM ^

"Some of my friends (at other schools) I've talked to, they wake up at 7 or 8 and they're done at 2 or 3. We start at 6:30, first meeting at 7, then we go till 8 or 9 at night. It's been non-stop."
Shhhh! Don't tell Snyder or Rosenberg! If they don't even look into it (regardless of what they find) then that's proof of a vendetta and should be prosecuted in some way, shape, or form.

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