Are we fickle or just irrational?

All this fickle talk keeps me thinkin of Ohio's D-Coordinator and there's way too much thinking of that guy going on.

Synonyms for fickle, please stand up.

I would have had no problem with being called capricious.

This is Michigan fergodsakes.

We are both.

second to last in TFL allowed is such an unreasonable expectation. Expecting more than one legimate td drive in 4 games is also an unreasonable expectation.  Absolute nonsense to try and suggest that fans are demanding too much. The offense has been awful, to the point where youth can not be the only explanation.

I agree with people who think Hoke should get a little more time, but I honestly can't believe that there are people trying to defend the offensive coaching staff by argueing that fans are being irrational or expecting too much. As if expecting better than god awful is some outlandish request.

I'm being especially reasonable considering this article just came out...

http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20131126/SPORTS0201/311260092/Offensive-coordinator-Al-Borges-tunes-out-criticism-from-Michigan-fans?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE

"We don't get in sync," Borges said. "There were a lot of individual breakdowns that caused that to happen, and at this point in the season, there's just way too much of it. We have to go back to work and see if we can get some of this fixed, because we've got the biggest game of the season coming up."

You don't think it's your terrible play calling Al???? Square peg round hole?? 

Throw your players under the bus a little bit more??

RR was very open to the media and got killed for it. Granted, there were insiders who conspired against him, but...

Hoke doesn't need to be an open book, but saying the same exact thing week after week, circumstance after circumstance gets annoying (fine), but eventually makes Hoke and Borges seem like idiots. There is a fine balance, but they need to confirm that there is a problem (stating the problem, without throwing anybody under the bus), they are addressing it, but Rome wasn't built in a day.

It's no different than any public company's quarterly analyst calls when they have had poor performance compared to expectations.

Damn Dave Brandon for not knowing better.

1)  The dysfunctions have gotten worse over the last six weeks, but one would hope six weeks would be enough time to correct the dysfunctions to a degree, or certainly minimize their impact.  Seven weeks was enough for Dantonio and Co. to get MSU from a point where they couldn't score against USF and WMU to a point where MSU could dominate Michigan.  We have seen teams in this division either make huge strides over the course of the season with less talent - MSU and Minnesota - or maintain a decent level of performance despite being ravaged by injuries - Nebraska.

2)  You cannot say that this staff provides no insight and then turn around and say that the media and fanbase tears it up.  This staff has been famously closed to the public since Hoke got to Michigan.  And at the start, Hoke bought himself a tremendous amount of leeway by saying the right things/generally not being RichRod.  What's more is that everyone was more than willing to place Denard's regression as a passer on Denard.  Now that we see a complete hollowing out of Devin as well, Borges doubles down on the "These players need to quit screwing up and want to show up" insight.

Both

Irrational: I got whiff of this last year when a lot of folks here thought we could take Alabama. That beatdown tamped down expectations a little, but it was back pretty quickly once we realized Gardner was pretty good and Lewan was coming back. I knew we were in for a big let down when some were predicting 12-0 and 11-1 seasons, with the consensus that 10-2 was probably most likely, if the interior line developed. We never really quite confronted the consequences of the other side of the "if" part. Sure, it's been worse than what most people expected, but in hindsight it really shouldn't be that shocking considering we never nailed down the starting OL until pretty much kick off, with the guy penciled in (Braden) inexplicably disappearing. People tended to confound recruiting success with instant on field success and were shocked that we couldn't just plug guys 1-2 years removed from HS and automatically win.

Fickle: No one likes losing and predictably everyone wants a quick fix. It doesn't seem like a lot of folks realize sometimes quck fixes don't really exist, and that chasing that quick fix could have negative consequences as well. I can't say our direction is the right one, no one can. But I can tell you that we've recruited for that direction and it's much too early to be jumping ship to something different while these guys are either freshman or not on campus yet.

I've got a grenade. It's not very good though. Yes.

Given the amount of discussion about Hoke's comment, I thought I would share this. I sent an e-mail Tuesday addressed to Hoke at the address listed for him on mgoblue.com. It included a link to Brian's column on the issue and expressed the same general feeling. I don't usually do this kind of thing, but I too was ticked.

I was surprised to get a response today: "I would like to say that 'fickle' is not the word I would choose but rather passionate.  If 'fickle' was used, I apologize for that."

The message was signed in Hoke's name but came from the e-mailbox of Jennifer Maszatics, whoever that is.

For what it's worth.

7-4 and it sure feels like a lot worse.  And I think it is, The Akrin and UConn games were terrible and embarrassing.  Penn State was devastating, but we got that one back with a miracle win at Northwestern.  Nebraska deserved to win that game and so did Iowa.  All in all we all know that although with a couple bounces we could be 9-2, more likely we should be 6-5 or worse.  It's how we won a few games that makes this season so disheartening. 

Been a tough year, but those things happen.  What doesn't and cannot happen is to get beat down in East Lansing like that.  We took as bad of a physical whipping against Sparty as we did against Bama over a year ago.  IMO that took its toll on this team and we're still reeling from it.  It also took away the narrative that Brady had created about building a National Power here.  National Powers do not get physically dominated and whooped by MSU.  It exposed the program for not being nearly as far along as Hoke had us believing.

The great thing about the Ohio game though is that the whole season can be erased with 3-1/2 hours of inspired football.  Win Saturday and everything will be forgotten.  So much is on the line Satrurday.  Win and redemption for the whole season will be had.  Lose, but keep it close and we can at least know the tem might be improving.  Get blown out?  That could have dire consequences for this program and this staff going forward.