January 8th, 2011 at 1:39 AM ^
Only a little concerned, huh?
January 7th, 2011 at 8:44 PM ^
That was one of the funniest things i've ever seen... on the webz anyway
January 7th, 2011 at 8:33 PM ^
to welcome Les Miles back.
January 7th, 2011 at 8:33 PM ^
I can't decide if I'd rather have Hoke or Miles. It's gonna take me a while to figure out that one.
January 7th, 2011 at 9:40 PM ^
Hoke is the guy I'd rather have right now. Miles has too many negatives surrounding him for me to be comfortable with.
Hoke may not have an incredibly great overall record, but to take two mid-major program bottom feeders to at or near the top of their conferences, one of them in just two years, is not something people should dismiss lightly.
January 7th, 2011 at 10:00 PM ^
I agree. I think I'd rather have him as well. Unfortunately, most of the members of this blog take Brian's word as gospel. I'll trust DB for now.
January 7th, 2011 at 10:21 PM ^
Gene Chizik, the guy whose team is playing for the MNC, had exactly 2 years of head coaching experience before being named Auburn HC.
His record in those two years...3-9 & 2-10. Their record got worse the second year!
January 7th, 2011 at 10:23 PM ^
Nor do many on here who can look objectively at Brady Hoke's resume and clearly see that he is a downgrade from the person we just let go. Clearly.
Not to mention he will take us back to square one in terms of scheme and lose several key players on the roster due to that transition.
I think a lot og people objected to the hiring of RR and they were open and vocal about it for, well, 3+ years. I see no reason why anyone that objects to hiring Brady hoke shouldn't be afforded that same opportunity. i have heard for 3 years from RR detractors that our opinions and voicing them doesn't have any impact on the success of the coach, so i won't worry about it.
There is no way you put Brady Hoke on one sideline and Jim Tressel on the other and come out with a win in more than one in 5 times.
January 7th, 2011 at 11:48 PM ^
.....you state about Hoke how? I am still an RR supporter and Hoke, at this point, is a downgrade. But in my opinion, so was Harbaugh and many other possible candidates mentioned. RR didn't come to UM and just forget how to coach. Hoke knows how to coach. Doesn't turning around two mid-major doormats count for anything?
And who says he takes our offense completely away from what they were used to? You? Brian? The fact is that no one knows, although some argue that Hoke has tailored his offenses to the players on hand, so there is that. How do you know a Hoke hire will lose key players? Players who had played for him before really love him. You don't get admiration from people without being able to attract that admiration from them.
All the nonsense about Hoke filling every Michigan board is based on nothing more than hearsay type rumours by people who wanted JH or Miles, even as they wanted RR gone. As for your Hoke vs. Tressel comment, maybe someone should ask Patterson what he thought about having to play Hoke's team this season.
January 8th, 2011 at 2:16 PM ^
Good luck with Brady hoke in his first year ever trying to run a spread offense, or some hybrid of a spread offense, but hey, learn on the job is good right?
He has had two good yars at middling programs in his tenure as a HC, only one of htose schools even being a Div I program. Going from terrible to middling is not a turnaround and certainly not sustained success at a level that gives me any confidence that Hoke would be able to turn the M program into an elite football team. that is a HUGE stretch.
The point being, RR did turn a Div I program from an also ran into a program that was a giant-killer and one game, one QB injury away from playing for a NC.....and there were plenty of people when he was hired saying that he wasn't good enough and hadn't proven himself. Now many of those same people are acting as if hoke is somehow a an improvement o that....he is most certainly not.
January 7th, 2011 at 8:34 PM ^
Before everyone pile on Brandon, let's see how it turns out with the hire and maybe even give that hire some time to clean up the Rodriguez rubble and show us the product.
Don't kid yourselves: From a Harbaugh supporter who started talking about him way back after Penn State, there are no regrets about Rich being shown the door.
Watching the major bowl games convinced me that we don't have the athletes on either side of the ball to win like we must at Michigan. That is on Rich Rodriguez.
January 7th, 2011 at 8:39 PM ^
Agree. The panic on here is off the charts. I think Brian could do damage control by saying everything's gonna be ok. That may not be true, but it'd probably work.
January 7th, 2011 at 8:49 PM ^
The collective meltdown has everything to do with how DB is handling the situation and not brian's personal opinion. It's DB's job to calm the fanbase; not Brian's.
January 7th, 2011 at 9:41 PM ^
to hire a new coach who will get Michigan football back to where it belongs. I'm pretty sure the fanbase is secondary on his mind right now. He is too smart of a guy to not have a well thought out strategy. What it is I don't know and neither do any of us but it's fun to talk about.
January 7th, 2011 at 10:10 PM ^
Agree with this. DB still hasn't proved to me that he's a failure. Not yet.
It isn't Brian's job to calm the fanbase, but I think he could if he wanted to. I'd rather him be honest, but all of the hyperbolic stuff against Hoke/Miles doesn't seem necessary. Not when there are thousands of people reading your posts. That's how I view it, though. Brian should run his website the way he wants to run it.
January 7th, 2011 at 9:09 PM ^
Yeah, the fact that he couldn't beat teams starting 3rd, 4th, and 5th year players with his team full of freshman and sophomores clearly means we don't have athletes and had no future under Rodriguez. Let's fire the guy who got us these frosh and sophs who were crazy about our coach and watch them leave the program so we can start all over.
January 7th, 2011 at 9:28 PM ^
I call bullshit. If you look at the guys in the '10 class and the if retained RR '11 class, we'd start to be putting the right guys on the field, '09 was his first class, don't even talk about '08. Defensively Furman, Marvin, and Ash haven't really if at all seen the field yet, then you have Frost and probably Lyons coming along maybe even Dawson if the snake oil was in full effect, then the offense would have only improved, new kicker, returning punter means special teams improvement. Take all that along with a relative weakened Big Ten conference as a whole with senior/junior departures. Even if RR didn't get the public support he would have needed to be great here, things would have improved. This morning on WTKA Bacon quoted Calvin Magee saying essentially, "we have the ingredients, now we're mixing the batter, let us put it in the oven" I know RR's gone, etc. but don't act like things wouldn't have improved once the roster was all Rich's...c'mon nearly 20 starters would have returned.
Unless DB pulls a non Hoke coach out of his ass it will be tough not to consider what would have been possible had RR received another year, not to mention some support.
Also, had RR been given support and THEN things didn't work out and he was subsequently fired, we'd probably be in better shape coaching candidate wise because it wouldn't seem so volatile here.
January 7th, 2011 at 8:35 PM ^
January 7th, 2011 at 8:37 PM ^
I think the timing is just freaking everybody out. I think Patterson is still on the board.
January 7th, 2011 at 8:41 PM ^
I think it's the timing, and what it says about intent. Mullen signed his before the Michigan job opened up. If we're willing to pay for him to get out of that contract, great. Mullen's signing does not evidence an aversion to coming to Ann Arbor.
Patterson on the other hand signed an extention knowing he was a potential candidate for the open Michigan job. Doing so presumably makes it more expensive for him to leave TCU. Had he any sincere desire to head to Ann Arbor, it would have been in his best interest to pull a Harbaugh and delay signing the extention for a few weeks.
January 7th, 2011 at 8:42 PM ^
Like I said before... what does he care about the buyout? I doubt we've offered him the job yet (or anyone), so he was offered some more security by a panicked TCU and decided to take it. It's not like he was faking an interest for leverage, he had 6 years remaining on his deal.
Brandon is willing to pay whatever it takes, he said as much. If Patterson is the guy, we can still get him regardless of the buyout.
January 7th, 2011 at 8:50 PM ^
I think it's pretty clear: If he were in the middle of negotiations with Michigan, he wouldn't have had the time to sign this. If he wasn't in the middle of negotiations with Michigan, he either had been offered, and wasnt interested, or hadnt been offered (which means he probably isn't a candidate, given that DB has had like 36 hours to get in touch)
January 7th, 2011 at 8:57 PM ^
January 7th, 2011 at 10:03 PM ^
Agree. I think DB was banking on Harbaugh until today. Once that went down, he's started a wider search. I'd expect some more steady rumors about Miles/Hoke/Patterson in the next couple of days as he begins to seriously reach out to them.
January 7th, 2011 at 8:36 PM ^
He'll salvage the recruiting class and most likely add him some 4 stars, whereas Hoke would trigger a mass exodus.
Long term, Hoke might be the guy. Why can't we have both? Bring Brady in to run a unit and put him on the 5 year CIW plan.
January 7th, 2011 at 8:37 PM ^
I also can't figure out what color Les Miles' hair is? I wanna say red but I just can't. It's something else...
January 7th, 2011 at 8:41 PM ^
its either burnt siena, or oompa loompa red #6.
January 7th, 2011 at 8:54 PM ^
NO PLAY FOR MR. GRAY
January 7th, 2011 at 8:40 PM ^
Either guy is better than RR. Even his own players were starting to turn on him. The stubborn mule had to go.
January 7th, 2011 at 8:53 PM ^
Yea, the same players who had been hearing he was going to be fired for 10+ weeks straight.
January 7th, 2011 at 8:57 PM ^
Having players' parents talk to Brandon and call for the head coach to be fired is not a normal state of affairs.
January 7th, 2011 at 10:14 PM ^
when did that happen?
January 7th, 2011 at 10:41 PM ^
After the bowl game, Brian and TomVH both reported that players and/or parents had voiced their concerns about Rodriguez to Dave Brandon.
January 7th, 2011 at 8:41 PM ^
Hopefully the extension is just a matter of sorting out a proper buyout for his move to our camp.
January 7th, 2011 at 8:43 PM ^
Mullen just lost his DC to Texas, and MS. St. won't be able to pay a lot to a new DC given Mullen's new contract. Why doesn't Michigan go after him. Not only would his hire pretty much ensure that Denard doesn't transfer, he won't cost a fortune (compared to what Miles might demand and what Harbaugh got). He has proven his worth in a tough league despite being at a program with huge comparative disadvantages. Hiring him might allow more money for a high profile DC like Randy Shannon, who would instantly improve recruiting, which is the single greatest reason why our defense is so poor now IMO. Even better, Mullen was one of Urban Meyer's guys at Florida, so he may be able to bring a couple of those assistants along with him.
January 7th, 2011 at 8:44 PM ^
The way this process has gone, as soon as we think it, Dave Brandon manages to fumble it away.
January 7th, 2011 at 8:42 PM ^
I've seen Schad's twitter, which says TCU confirmed the extension in a release. Does anyone have a link to the release itself?
Would think him signing something is a terrible sign, as it would doubtless include a raised buyout. But agree with Brodie that the mere existence of an extension is at worst neutral and at best positive (i.e. indicates TCU worried GP thinking of leaving).
January 7th, 2011 at 8:50 PM ^
Thanks. Seems like the release insinuates he took it. Damn. Still agree with Brodie that buyout money won't be what keeps Patterson away. Worry what it says about his intentions though (or Dave Brandon's, to the extent he has still not contacted Patterson).
January 7th, 2011 at 8:43 PM ^
We're going to get a sucessfull, but insane and disgustingly sleezy guy or an utter incompetent who can't win in the MAC. That's the reality. We've talked a lot about how RR couldn't succeed partially because no-one supported him from the begining. Are we willing to support whole-heartedly whatever garbage comes out of this mess?
January 7th, 2011 at 8:50 PM ^
But we'll still endlessly debate whether a coach deserves to be hired in the first place.
And I disagree with your reality. While it may come to that, we've still got some pull. At least we know from the Fitzgerald rejection that Brandon isn't thinking about just Miles and Hoke. I don't like how he's gone about this process, but since Hoke isn't the coach yet, I think it's fair to say that we've still got options before we fall back on him.
January 7th, 2011 at 8:50 PM ^
KC Keeler please. My vote.
January 7th, 2011 at 8:52 PM ^
would be our answer to Jim Tressel. I'll stack him ahead of Hoke.
January 7th, 2011 at 8:54 PM ^
My worry about KC Keeler -- other than he's suggested he wouldn't come is that when his teams aren't in the top few in the country they are kinda bad:
January 7th, 2011 at 8:57 PM ^
Yeah, so were Tressel's:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Tressel
Compare the two wiki pages of Tressel and Keeler.
January 7th, 2011 at 9:05 PM ^
Also, Keeler beat up on UMASS as well. He's legit.
January 7th, 2011 at 9:14 PM ^
Yeah, and Mike Hart was a 3 star and Pat White a 2 star. The fact that Tressel worked for OSU says absolutely nothing about Keeler's probability of success at U of M. Nothing.
January 7th, 2011 at 9:44 PM ^
Keeler has built a 1AA powerhouse at Delaware that also runs a fast paced spread offense. His I believe is more passing oriented, but will fit well with the parts we have.
I don't think it'll happen, but I'd honeslty prefer Keeler to Hoke.
January 7th, 2011 at 10:27 PM ^
January 7th, 2011 at 10:54 PM ^
All he talked about was getting back to winning the B1G and getting bigger players from the Midwest and smash-mouth football. That sounds like getting someone who will drop the spread and going to Olde Tyme Football.
Don't get me wrong, I liked smash-mouth football that won the B1G. I hated losing bowl games to teams running newfangled offenses with speedy defenses.
I think he wants Hoke and to tear up the team and start over to install Olde Tyme Football.