Mattison's defense of Hoke

Submitted by michgoblue on

Per all the twitters, Mattison apparently gave a pretty passionate defense of Hoke in his presser:

Kyle Bogenschutz‏@KyleBogie2h2 hours ago

  • Greg Mattison on why Brady Hoke is man for job: Mattison says graduation rate is "the most important thing. We're in college, not the NFL."

 

I have always thought highly of GMAT, but I personally find these comments to be over the top, and a blatant attempt to appeal to Schlissel's stated academic concerns. Now I do think that graduation rates and the like are very important.  But, at the same time, so is actually playing good football.  If we only care about graduation rates, then we don't need to pay Hoke $4 million and Mattison and Nuss almost $1 million each.  We can have a staff of professors and guidance counsellors who know enough about football to coach, and treat it like a club sport.  to quote Brian, "cumong, man!!"

side note:  If we are going to talk about all of the molding of men that Hoke is doing, we should at a minimum mention Frank Clark I, Frank Clark II, C'sonte York, the handling of Gibbons, Lewan's fight, Hagurup's issues, Stonum's 2nd DUI and a host of other off the field crap relating to this team.  Not saying that this is all Hoke's fault or that it is uncommon, but if you want to take credit for the good, then you need to share in the negatives, as well.

Also, there's this:

angelique retweeted

Mattison: "Why should [Hoke] be here? Because he's a winner. He's won everywhere he's been. What's the timetable?"

 

Not sure if Mattison knows this but prior to coming to Michigan, Hoke had a sub-.500 winning percentage.  Also, there are a lot of people who have won at other, lower-tiered levels of competition (many of whom could also focus on graduating their players), but that doesn't make them qualified to coach at Michigan. 

By the way, I know of another coach who "won everywhere he's been" before coming to Michigan (and apparently since) and that standard - coupled with a record that improved each year - didn't exactly save him. 

I know that GMAT is Hoke's close friend, and that he is supposed to defend him, but this is just crap.

 

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Brhino

November 24th, 2014 at 3:19 PM ^

People will have their friend's back, more often than not, when they're up against it.  Right or wrong.  There's really nothing that much more complicated than that.

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VintageBlue

November 24th, 2014 at 3:22 PM ^

From Angelique:

When asked to evaluate his program the last four years, Hoke deferred.

"I think I could, but I don't know if I will right here," Hoke said. "I don't think this is the right place for it.

"We'll have another press conference, I've got a feeling, sometime here."

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/sports/college/university-michigan/2014/11/24/hoke-meets-hackett-topic-ohio-state-game/19493857/

 

They all know.

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mGrowOld

November 24th, 2014 at 3:23 PM ^

I swear to fucking God it seems more and more each day that the ONLY people who give two shits about the record of the football team are the fans.  Everybody else - players, ex-players, coaches, ex-coaches - seem to think wins and losses are just not that important in the grand scheme of things.

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East German Judge

November 24th, 2014 at 3:55 PM ^

You are spot on, even DF said that those are just statistics!  Graduation rates are important, but I highly doubt that Mattison and Freddy Jackson etc., are helping the kids with their history papers, psychology mid-terms and chemistry finals other than making sure they get to class and get tutoring of they need it, and by the way are graduating RR's kids.  I wish they were more organized to better coach up these kids so that their on-field performance matched their off-field classroom performance.

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MI Expat NY

November 24th, 2014 at 3:24 PM ^

This is why I thought there may be something positive to giving Hoke the Earle Bruce treatment.  It's a distraction at this point.  Most know that Hoke is gone, but some won't admit it, don't realize it, etc.  If we had just ended it, they could all have gone on, prepared this week and played The Game.  

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Monocle Smile

November 24th, 2014 at 3:24 PM ^

Larry Foote wants more kids from the 'hood, Mattison says graduation is far and away the most important thing, and yet somehow it's the fans who know nothing and are always wrong.

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JHendo

November 24th, 2014 at 3:26 PM ^

If me keeping my job was specifically tied in to my boss keeping his job, regardless of how poor the results from my boss were nor how close the boat was to finally sinking, you can bet your sweet ass I'd be giving every reason under the sun that he's still the man for the job.

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Humen

November 24th, 2014 at 3:28 PM ^

This is about creating a historical narrative that looks at Hoke positively: He couldn't get it done on the field, but he sure got academics in line.



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charblue.

November 24th, 2014 at 3:29 PM ^

His players graduated. And his teams won. They knew what winning meant. And they knew how to do it the Michigan way. Hoke worked under Lloyd. So did Greg Mattison. Lloyd wasn't chosen after a search. He was chosen because he made sense as the next man up after Gary Moeller was forced out. And he delivered. He delivered and his teams never lost sight of what it means to play the Michgan way. 

If I fault Hoke for anytthing it is his inability to pass this trait onto his teams. He is responsible for their failure to play the Michigan way. And that is his failure. Not recordwise but Michiganwise. And Mattison deep down knows this. 

This team lacks leadership whether it comes from the inability to direct itself in face of challenge and contention when the game is on the line. There is a lack of will. And that is a coaches job to impart and demand outside of discipline and practice. It comes from will. And seekikng the best from the leaders and the best, and this coeaching staff has failed to deliver that from their players. We haven't seen it in one perfect performance or near to that effort. 

And that is what Michigan excellence is all about. 

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Never

November 24th, 2014 at 3:31 PM ^

I absolutely do not agree with it. For example:

"I've worked with a lot of head coaches," Mattison said. "I've seen a lot of them. You don't know how lucky you are here."

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glewe

November 24th, 2014 at 5:57 PM ^

And he could say, "Brady Hoke's a great man," and leave it there. Instead, he goes further, to say that we don't know how lucky we are.

Hoke's unsuccessful, but I don't know. I think its his commitment to lousy to mediocre assistants that is his downfall, not anything else.

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