I think I get it now
January 12th, 2011 at 10:52 PM ^
I'm actually in the same spot you are. I'm still uneasy about how the offense will be, if Denard truly returns, and how we use him if he does return.
Other than that, I'm pretty cool with this decision and think its a solid and safe hire.
Oh and to add to this, I hope Brady does not hire his brother as DC. Please God NO!
January 12th, 2011 at 10:55 PM ^
May I ask why you are so adamant about this?
Oh and to add to this, I hope Brady does not hire his brother as DC. Please God NO!
January 12th, 2011 at 11:05 PM ^
I'm just not a big fan. I think we can do much better and with "Michigan men" (i.e. Trgovac or Heater).
And this from a different article rubbed me the wrong way:
"I don't think people can really say much about him. He has been here two years and last year Lovie "took over" the defense and this year Rod Marinelli took control so who knows what Hoke has really done in decision making. Although since he came, there was a bunch of players shifting around position wise in the secondary in the off-season, Bowman, Graham to safety then back to corner. Manning from nickle-back to strong safety and Tillman from one side to the other at cb. That and he really didn't develop anyone to be solid. Bowman was all hype then had a bunch of INTs but tons of blown plays and is benched. He was noted as not thinking Graham was quick enough to play cornerback and put him in the doghouse. Does he get credit for DJ Moore stepping up at all? I don't know because before Lovie was all into coaching the nickle position but I'm not sure if it was the case this year. Hoke is just a person there really."
"Hoke is kind of a long forgotten coach amongst our staff. Him and whoever the heck coaches our TE position simply never come up, ever. Good or bad? You decided, but pretty much no one will really be able to tell you anything about Hoke. Our secondary for the most part blows and has needed to be hidden by our pass rush. Harris has really given us a boost but he's a long time vet who's just come back to the team this year so I don't know how much credit you give Hoke for that. DJ Moore is another player of note, but like Clyde said, up until this past year it's been well known that Lovie personally coaches our nickle position (there's no reason to believe he doesn't still). Manning has come on this season at Strong Safety but then again he's been a pet project of Lovie's since the day he got here so who knows how much instruction he receives from Hoke vs Lovie.
All in all he's the last coach I'd care about leaving the Bears staff. Then again Perry Fewell had the same gig as Lovie Smith's secondary coach back when he was with the Rams in 03 and then came to join the Bears in 05 and now he's the hot name for head coaching gigs across the NFL so take that for what it's worth."
January 13th, 2011 at 1:12 AM ^
Joe Barry
January 12th, 2011 at 11:03 PM ^
January 13th, 2011 at 12:09 AM ^
I just think it looks bad. Even if they would work great together, it's the "appearance of impropriety." I'd rather see them get a great, established DC.
January 13th, 2011 at 8:05 AM ^
January 13th, 2011 at 8:13 AM ^
worked out pretty poorly for Oklahoma...
January 12th, 2011 at 10:52 PM ^
Exactly how I feel. My buddies and I have been texting back and forth how fired up we were after watching his presser. Of course impressive pressers does not guarantee he will win, but I like our chances.
January 12th, 2011 at 11:02 PM ^
Funny, I have been texting my buddies with the exact opposite reaction since he was hired. Not trying to be a dick, but has this ever happened before......a national power in football firing a head coach and hiring one with a losing record? I am actually looking for a serious answer here.
January 12th, 2011 at 11:06 PM ^
January 12th, 2011 at 11:13 PM ^
First off, I won't count Auburn as I think they will be giving that national championship back in the very near future. Secondly, I don't want us to take any page from the Auburn college football handbook to winning. Ever. But that being said, if Auburn with a very wealthy QB is the only example out there, I think being a little disappointed is warranted.
January 13th, 2011 at 8:12 AM ^
January 12th, 2011 at 11:08 PM ^
January 12th, 2011 at 11:16 PM ^
Not trying to be a dick
but with the name bigblue, are you a NY Giants fan? i need a serious answer here.
/s
In my opinion and to answer your question. I believe it is Hoke's mentality that Brandon is banking on. His emphasis on fundamentals and "toughness". You can look at the man and complain about his win percentages. Just don't forget to look at his improvements at every level he has coached. Exciting things are gonna happen. I just hope fans and alumni have reasonable expectations for the Michigan man named Brady Hoke.
January 12th, 2011 at 11:31 PM ^
The question is whether or not our fanbase and trigger happy AD will give him enough time to win here. I hope to god he wins a lot and wins quickly, but if he doesn't, I fear our whiney entitled fanbase will turn on him in a second.
January 12th, 2011 at 11:44 PM ^
"Trigger happy AD"?
I thought we've all been complaining that he took too long in making a decision?
January 12th, 2011 at 11:47 PM ^
How can anyone honestly call DB trigger happy, we don't know the extent of the meeting between DB and RR. Who knows for all we do know DB gave RR a choice to fire his D staff and RR refused to do so, and he fired him. On top of that RR set many records at M, and all I can say is none were good. I was happy to see RR gone, I felt he brought bagage with him when he came (4mil buyout.) and left with bagage (NCAA violations, and the all time worst coach in M history.) It was time to find someone new and could reunite the M family. I wish Hoke and his staff the best of luck in regaining the level of compitition and tradition M is use too.
January 12th, 2011 at 11:59 PM ^
I look at firing your head coach with no backup plan and then hiring option #3 to be trigger happy.
January 13th, 2011 at 8:02 AM ^
You're assuming that Hoke was option #3. Not sure that's a safe assumption.
January 12th, 2011 at 11:46 PM ^
Well, Michigan has done this before. Gary Moeller was 6-24-3 at Illinois prior to taking the Michigan job. Of course, this was after Bo retired as opposed to someone being fired. Pete Carroll was just barely above .500 (33-31) in the NFL before he took over USC for Paul Hackett.
January 12th, 2011 at 11:46 PM ^
Being just over .500 in the NFL is much, much different than in college (as over .500 in the NFL is not that bad), but I do like the Moeller example. I am really trying to get on board.
January 13th, 2011 at 1:00 AM ^
I think being .500 at Ball st and San Diego state is much harder than being .500 in the NFL, where everyone plays with essentially the same budget and the worst teams get to draft the best players the following year.
January 13th, 2011 at 12:50 AM ^
You werent fired up watching the presser? I dont care if he was 0-393, he still gave me chills. I see your point about a guy being hired who doesnt exactly have a great resume, but if you werent impressed with his press conference then something is wrong. I was just as upset as the next guy about the hire, but after what I saw today, im all in.
January 12th, 2011 at 10:52 PM ^
But let's move on.
http://rivals.yahoo.com/video/press-and-news-football/Michigan/Brady-Ho…
Hoke says sometime around 2:20 (estimate) that he will fit his offense to the personnel and do what is best for the players and team regardless of whether that implies spread or pro style or multiple sets.
I can dig it.
January 12th, 2011 at 11:07 PM ^
January 12th, 2011 at 11:38 PM ^
that comment busted my gut!!
January 12th, 2011 at 10:52 PM ^
Maize and Blue ...
That shows. And if we can see it I think all the recruits, parents, opponents, every stakeholder will see it.
January 12th, 2011 at 11:14 PM ^
And that is probably the most important thing of all
January 12th, 2011 at 10:52 PM ^
Not to echo an internet meme, but...
+1
January 12th, 2011 at 10:52 PM ^
But when you have little to no support and people make it difficult for you to succeed. The perception from the general public will be that you "Dont Get It."
January 12th, 2011 at 10:56 PM ^
January 12th, 2011 at 11:03 PM ^
Yes. Good lord. What is with the weird denial? If the guy had beaten a single quality team, he'd still be here.
January 12th, 2011 at 11:03 PM ^
Sounds like you "get it" too. Im sure there is a Seventh Grade Student council somewhere that is experiencing the same model such as this. And quotes such as "Billy just isn't a James K Polk kinda guy...ya know."
January 12th, 2011 at 11:07 PM ^
Brian put some quotes up yesterday from Shea (I think) that pointed towards the exact opposite of what you said. Before RR even coached a game, ex players and alumni already didn't like him because he was a spread coach and he didn't get it and etc.... I have a hard time believing winning games is going to change anyone's mind when you have ignorant viewpoints before the coach has even stepped foot on the field.
January 12th, 2011 at 11:11 PM ^
But I was more speaking towards the "He doesn't understand the rivalries" talk after he would lose to OSU or MSU. I mean shit, he lost to a lot of other people too. Its not like he was only losing to them and didn't care.
Also, the "hick from WV" talk didn't really start until year 3 from what I remember. I feel like if we were winning 10 games a yr we could have had the assistant coach from the water boy and no one would have cared.
January 12th, 2011 at 11:19 PM ^
Agree to a certain degree, but you brought up a perfect example of why winning wouldn't change those people's mind. Do you really think RR didn't get the MSU and OSU rivalries but somehow "got" the Notre Dame rivalry? That's my point....people like dahblue were saying this year that RichRod doesn't get rivalries and that is why he hasn't beaten OSU or MSU. Obviously winning 2 out of 3 against another rival doesn't count to those types of people. I guess that was my whole point. Unless you think "getting" rivalries equals winning them, I don't know if winning 10 games will help.
January 12th, 2011 at 11:44 PM ^
Agreed. People make it sound as if rr was greeted with widespread hostility. There were doubters, sure. There always are. Hoke has them. Most locals welcomed RR.
January 13th, 2011 at 5:30 AM ^
not by a longshot was RR welcomed by most, there were no previous players garnered to provide supportive quotes, nothing from Lloyd Carr, nothing from any other previous coaches, nothing from any journalists supporting the hire and direction RR would go......the best he got was a big fat ? in terms of will it work? Compare that with the dog & pony show that DB has orchestrated to support his hire and you can see that the starting points are completely different.
January 12th, 2011 at 11:31 PM ^
I will agree that the way the media, alums, boosters, and a lot of fans treated RR was unfair, he deserved better from a program that claims to stand for the things Michigan does. That being said, though, it is not like the detractors were lining up against him on the field, either. RR is no longer the HC because he didn't get it done on the gridiron. Last year when the team was 4-0 and looking great, everyone was on board, then they proceeded to tank the rest of the season. Same thing this year. The only thing that RR had going for him is the fact that he could score lots of points against garbage teams. Most BCS conference schools can. Our offense was ranked highly as a scoring and total yardage offense for one reason only. Our defense was atrocious. We had to keep the starters in and running up the score in all our gimme type games because our defense couldn't stop anyone. That is what did RR in. Nothing else. To imply that the Michigan elite or the fractured fan base had anything more than slightly marginal impact upon the decision is just ignoring the results that speak for themselves.
People talk of chasing off a coach who was showing improvement, because his record improved every year. All I have to say is I would hope so! It is really hard not to improve on absolute trash. If you look at the record in '07 before the faceplant in '08, RR was still below where it was before he got here. Is that improvement? I hardly think so. Another year may have gotten him back to where we started, but again, that is not forward momentum.
January 12th, 2011 at 11:35 PM ^
Thats a funny way to look at it and I agree to some extent. If the "getting better every year" metric was all at mattered, he should have won only 1 game in year 1 to ensure a longer contract.
January 12th, 2011 at 11:43 PM ^
First off, the new coach took 5 years to get back to where Ball State was before he got there, which was .500. If that is your standard, Hoke should have been fired after year 3 at Ball State.
Second, could we please stop with the "our offense was only good against poor defenses" shit. It's old and not correct. Illinois had a better defense than both MSUs and we put up 28 points and had 550 yards against Iowa, who had the 24th best defense in the nation.
January 13th, 2011 at 12:00 AM ^
Let me preface this by saying that I fully supported RR while he was here. I didn't want him to get canned, but in the same token, I was ok with the decision to do so.
Arizona, Wisconsin, Minny, and Missouri put up similar point totals against Iowa, hardly elite offensive company by any means. Iowa's defense was overrated this year because they blanked a bunch of patsies. As far as 550 yards, that signifies an inability to get the job done. 550 yds of total offense should put many more than 28 points on the board, and further illustrates the problem with the offense this year.
As far as the new HC's record at BSU, that isn't the same situation. You're referring to a first time HC heading into a garbage program. I am talking about what RR did at Michigan. You can't defend his record by saying that others have done just as bad in a different situation, it just doesn't fit. If you're not happy with Hoke to replace him, that's fine. I personally am holding judgement on Hoke until I see what he does here. To imply that RR was getting the job done, though, just makes you look like your suffering from blind fanboyism.
January 13th, 2011 at 12:32 AM ^
Actually, by firing the coach after year 3, we have stated very loudly that we believe in year 3, the entire team is the head coaches and he better do what the last guy did or he is gone. If year 3 is the year to judge progress, then Hoke failed at Ball State. Miserably. That was my point, not that RR had done everything right.
Also, at what point can Iowa's defense be the 24th ranked in the nation if not at the end of the season? I can't stand this "look at what they did agains x team....therefore the stats don't count." Michigan played just as many patsies as anyone else and ended the year in the top 10 offenses in the nation, just like Iowa played the same amount of patsies as everyone else and ended up with the 24th ranked defense in the nation. Just like Illinois actually had a decent defense for the year but no one on this board thinks so because the only game they saw them play was when our offense threw up 67 against them. If your point is that good offenses do worse against good defenses and good defenses do worse against good offenses, then great. The sky is up and grass is green. I agree that our offense should have scored more points, but I think junior Denard makes far fewer mistakes than sophomore-first-time-starter Denard does, turning a lot of those yards into points. Having a serviceable kicker would also help.
January 13th, 2011 at 1:07 AM ^
You really don't get it if you have to point to losing to Iowa as evidence of our improved offense. Doesn't matter, we lost the game, just like we lost every important game under Rich Rod in his 3 years.
January 13th, 2011 at 1:55 AM ^
Well if you had any reading comprehension, you would know what point I was arguing. I don't care whether we lost the game or not. The point was about the offense. Please read again if you want to understand a little better.
January 12th, 2011 at 10:53 PM ^
Those who stay, will be Champions!
January 12th, 2011 at 10:53 PM ^
I'm all in (again), muthaf*ckas!!!
January 12th, 2011 at 10:57 PM ^
don't think "loving Michigan" is a particularly important job qualification.