I'm an M alumni in Portland and was following Willie due to the Harbaugh connection. Was rooting for him. But my view of him completely changed with how he handled this. Openly lied about things. He lied about not hearing from FSU at his presser last Friday when FSU made contact the day before. Recruits are pissed due to the lying. He definitely showed himself to be Slick Willie. Initially when the rumors came out everyone here understood that it's a chance to go home and a great job. No one faults the decision. But he refuted all of that up until the end in a manner that was quite misleading.
I recall JH handled his last 2 transitions quite a bit better.
This is why when I start the recruiting process I get the compensation information out there as soon as I think the candidate would have a reasonable chance at getting an offer from us. This would help mitigate compensation being an issue once everyone agrees that it's a good fit. I have pulled offers when a candidate who had previously agreed to the compensation terms early on then try to hold out for more once we've decided they were the one and the employment contract is in front of them to be signed.
Michigan alumni. He went to a shit directional school (Eastern Washington) and worked his way up from small local markets in the West and finally made it to ESPN. With the exception of CA, most people in the West do not recognize Michigan as the academic powerhouse that it is. Most people in the West (again making the exception for CA) don't even realize how expansive and powerful the overall M alumni base is. Probably, living in the NE, he's now exposed to M blue bloods and for some reason finds himself annoyed with them. M alumni are in large numbers in the NE and he probably deals with them routinely and this is his way of trolling the entire M alumni base. That is my thought anyhow.
Does anyone think Dave Brandon or one of his allies still in the AD may be leaking some of the stuff to try and blow up the whole thing? Wasn't the offer terms of $49 million over 6 years first reported by a local station in Arizona? Doesn't DB spend his winters in Arizona? Hmmm....
but I don't think Carroll was the #1 or #2 pick for USC. I remember they went after Mike Riley of Oregon State and perhaps someone else. At the time, the Carroll hiring was seen as rather underwhelming.
where he discussed how he said Hoke "didn't forget how to coach," etc to justify not firing him? My rebuttal is this:
You're right, Hoke is exactly what he was when you hired him. He was a career sub 0.500 coach.
It's funny how you did not apply this mentality to RichRod when a jackass like you decided to fire him after just 3 years. This is a guy who had a track record of winning EVERYWHERE before Michigan, and is now winning AFTER Michigan. Hmm...I wonder what the problem was.
You stated in the interview with Sam Webb that Michigan wants to "compete for and win championships". Well, guess what? RichRod career resume has 8 championships won. How many has Hoke won? Oh, none. Closest he got was at Ball State getting upset in the MAC Championship.
Maybe your job as AD should have been to work hard to change the culture in and around the Program so that it would support an "outsider" coach who was going to be successful as long as there was alignment in support for him and the securing the same level of resources you made for a guy who didn't even have half the track record of success that RichRod did.
The disparity between how you treated the two coaches is mind blowing. You are like someone who was given a Porsche, but then didn't take care of it, left it parked on the street, let it get dirty and scratched, scuff up the wheels etc....and then you're like, "hey this car is crap. I'm going to trade it in for a Kia" and then you do all of the maintenance and when you park you take up two spaces like the jackass you are because you don't want anyone to scratch your Kia!
And a "friendly" AD is hired that they only make a move if they can get either Harbaugh or Les Miles. If they can't I think they stand pat for another year or two.
He wrote his source told him RR to be fired after bowl game. This was weeks ahead of the game where the prevailing thought was to see how the bowl game went before making a decision.
You do not do your research. Although he can fly off the handle at times, he is legit and has a long history in sports media and has contacts as a result of it. Even if some of the details are inaccurate or got lost in translation the general gist seems very plausible. He was way out in front on the Hoke hire, breaking it in Dec. 2010, while RR still coaching the team. That seems to support the thought that DB did already have Hoke waiting in the wings before he fired RR. This also supports the thoughts about Miles and Harbaugh being smoke screens last time around.
Your post lost any legitimacy when you compared the guy to Ace Williams.
Your posts from Dec 2010. Wrote something like since the team will win around 9-10 games in 2011 we should just keep RR and not go thru another transition (i.e. Carr left a bare cupboard). Sadly this is probably the same reason Hoke should stay (despite now being in Year 4 versus RR's 3) UNLESS we can pull in a PROVEN head coach who can work with this personnel (i.e. Pro-style) and avoid yet another costly transition from one style to another. Not too many of them out there.
The difference is that had we rode out a few tough years with RR the program would have emerged completely rebuilt with a new identity and would have been ready to make consistent runs to the top in this new landscape. RR will get Arizona to WV levels but will ultimately be limited because it is not a Power Football school
I think short of that miracle where we can land a Harbaugh we're going to be on the Brady Hoke express (or rather slow boat) and maybe we eventually end up with many a uninspired 3-5 loss season which end with corporate sponsored du jour bowl game during ESPN Capital One Bowl Week.
RR has built winning programs everywhere he has been. At every level he has been. And he will at Arizona. The only exception being Michigan. THAT is not a RR problem. That is a MICHIGAN problem. Hoke has been a mediocre head coach everywhere he has been.
M football is the laughing stock of college football. When RR was fired, everyone who followed football here (I live in Oregon) were like, "what the hell is Michigan doing? You guys dump a proven young coach who will build a new dynasty at a school like Michigan for some mediocre guy who has a .500 record after 3 years?"
I believe even Bo said that there was rot from within the program. As long as he was alive he was able to take care of it. But since he passed those who have taken his philosophy and "Bo-isms" have really just perverted them to keep their influence.
A big part of me wonders if this isn't some sort of karmic payback for the Program being stuck in its ways for years and even decades longer than it should have. Possibly starting with when Mo was prematurely fired after his bad night in Southfield. He was the guy who actually was well on his way to modernizing M's offense. I actually believe had Mo not been fired he would have been as successful if not more so than Lloyd and he would have been more open to change and brought in fresh blood into the program. But Lloyd took over despite never being a serious HC candidate (Mo was Bo's choice despite Lloyd being on staff for years as well), won a NC in his 3rd year and then started taking a lot of "Bo-isms" and perverting them in the worst way. His teams continued to win and were rather acceptable but somehow left you wanting more. His offenses got more and more conservative and his staff lacked the same level of upward mobility that those of Bo (and even Mo) had. It was almost like he did not want assistants who would outshine him. I remember reading something years ago when Urban Meyer was HC at Utah that Meyer (while he was @ Bowling Green) reached out to Lloyd and asked to be brought in as OC under Lloyd and designated HC in waiting and meanwhile he would help modernize the offense. Of course Lloyd declined and Urban got offered at Utah and the rest is history. And it is also common knowledge that Jim Harbaugh wanted to be hired as QB coach under Lloyd but of course Lloyd went with Loeffler. And of course sidestepping Les Miles in 2007 as well. And yes, RR made a lot of mistakes here but he was treated so poorly that word is out that M is reserved for M-Men only. So I think a lot of where the program is now is the result of this perverse culture that needs to be washed out. Maybe where we are now is what it takes for this program to finally get past itself and move forward into the future.
I think this makes a lot of sense and is completely consistent with DB statement. It looks like the o line issues set up a lot of the other issues on offense. I also agree that this staff does not seem to be as crisp in-game tacticians as most programs, and that is rather concerning. Hopefully, eventually, talent from the recruiting will overcome all of this and M will wind up being the "LSU of the Big Ten" (with Coach Hoke being a less crazy and less shady version of Les Miles).
That stated, do you think that a plausible outcome will be that Borges and M part ways at the end of the season? I do. I also do not think a new external OC would be brought in, since new OC's would want to put their own position coaches in place. I think the most likely outcome (apart from no changes at all) would be the elevation of Coach Hecklinski into the OC position (although not sure what impact this would have on his current role as Recruitment Coordinator), and Coach Jackson chooses to retire. I think Coach Funk gets a pass, as his linemen are indeed very young and he has been a very good recruiter. I think this is what makes Borges expendable, since he does not really recruit at all and turns out to be Funk's saving grace this year. If all of this happens, then 2 new assistants are brought in to coach some combination of QB/WR/RB.......does this make any sense?
Danny Langsdorf? He is young, runs pro style, has developed quarterbacks and his offenses improve over the course of a season. And Hoke still has connections in Corvallis.
other retread "michigan men" like Loeffler have not been particularly good at their other stops. Why not just give a young promising guy like Coach Heck a shot? It seems like he coaches the wideouts pretty well (at least they block well!) and he's been an OC at some of his previous stops. And he's the recruiting coordinator.
Then he might as well promote Coach Heck to OC (I think he was an OC) and try and poach back Soup Campbell and hire a good QB coach. I personally don't like this keeping it in the family business but if that is the direction then this probably makes the most sense.
What if Gary Moeller never had that drunk night at Excalibur in the Spring of 1995? Yes, he had 2 straight 8-4 seasons, but the general problem was Lloyd Carr's "bend but don't break" defense that broke too often. I recall sitting in the student section during those years with catcalls of "fire Lloyd Carr" and whenever Jason Carr got put in yells of "you suck as bad as your dad!" I remember how a bad Illinois team drove down the field in the last minute to score a touch down to secure an upset over a vastly superior M football team. Mo's offense's were quite good, and he was his own OC. He was also a lights out recruiter, and the 1997 team were Moeller recruits. He was on the path to modernizing M's offense. It makes me wonder if he might have been the one to bring in the spread offense to M in a successful manner? I remember reading on this blog years ago that a young Urban Meyer (he was either an asst. coach at ND or maybe even HC at Bowling Green at the time) sent a letter to HC Lloyd Carr interested in talking about a scenario where he'd come in as the M OC with the opportunity to advance to the HC position whenever Lloyd retired, but obviously they never took him up on it. Might Mo have been more open-minded about adding a young Urban Meyer to his staff (especially since he didn't have a separate coach as an OC), with a natural succession plan? Where would M football be if this actually happened?
What if M actually wanted Les Miles in 2007 instead of this whole contrived scenario where they set things up so that they could not land him? Yes, there is some smoke with Les, but we don't have "hostesses" here. We'd be in Year 6 of a Les Miles coached program....probably a alot better off than we are now
What if M did not fire RR after 3 years? Maybe 2011 would still have been a good year (schedule was favorable, his teams won more games in each successive season, etc.) I know he would have adjusted his offense in the off-season to account for some of the adjustments that opponents had on the QB iso play that was developed for the 2010 season. I do think a RR coached team would have had no trouble putting up points against yesterday's mediocre Nebraska defnese. And he's ahead of schedule at Arizona. At some point, the fanbase needs to realize that when a headcoach has been successful literally everywhere except here, it's on us as a Program.
What if Dave Brandon was not "turned off" by Harbaugh (e.g. pretty sure his "all that glitters is not gold" comment was aimed directly at JH) and actually recognized that this guy was going to be an elite coach and thus treated him as such? In hindsight, should have pursued him more aggressively. So when Harbaugh pretty much "wanted to know what UM could do for him" DB should have clearly articulated that the compensation would be competitive with what he'd get from the NFL, all he needs to do is come in, instill the same culture he did at Stanford, give him his private bathroom, give support to hiring the staff he wanted (the only condition that at least one of his coordinators needed to be someone who could replace him when he wanted to jump to the NFL, and that he could not take that coordinator with him), and that UM would happily help support his dream of coaching in the NFL...just give UM football 4-6 years like he gave Stanford. Pretty much following exactly the same blueprint of what's happened at Stanford.
Lots of missed opportunities in the past 20 years has led to where M football is at now (and actually has been for much of this century, 2006 notwithstanding.) Coach Hoke is a nice guy with the right appreciation for the University and the Program, but he is limited. He is a position coach and "admininistrator". Unfortunately these missed opportunities cannot be "undone" so it's probably prudent to avoid anything "kneejerk"...which is what I thought happened to RichRod. He should be given the time to get all of his recruits as upperclassmen and then evaluated on how the Program is doing. He does, however, need to model what Beilein has done and seriously look at changing some of his staff (Funk, Jackson, Borges). If he's not a brilliant coordinator level coach (i.e. Meyer, RR, Chip Kelley, etc.) then he needs to act like a top level CEO and get people in there who are. This all makes me appreciate Coach Beilein even more since he is both a brilliant tactician AND has shown that he runs his program like a top CEO.
is that I noticed that the "Michigan Stadium" lettering at the top of the scoreboard did not light up at all....I'm pretty sure that I've seen that light up maize before...
for best case is a smaller version of Damian Lillard...similar games, but Lillard is taller and has longer arms, and he finishes extremely well with his left hand in traffic, so he's been able to be an outstanding finisher at the NBA level. Both possess the ability to shoot it from deep off the catch or bounce and have a great pull up midrange game.
I think more likely, though, is Damon Stoudamire....a decent pro but ultimately limited by his size and tendency to settle for the jumper due to inability to consistenty finish at the rim....both Lillard and Stoudamire are/were not premier defenders, and I think Burke will be a defensive liability at the NBA level....
Dude, what are you talking about "move back to a V8 turbo"? I would think a proper car enthusiast would know that ///M cars have always been normally aspirated high compression high revving engines until just very recently with the M versions of the X5 and X6 and now the F10 M5!
Maybe you're thinking of the move to a V10 in the E60 as opposed to a V8, but even then only the E39 had previously had a V8...the first two generation M5's (E28 and E34) both had inline six's......also, for the record, the E60 M5 was a great commercial success, enjoying the highest sales numbers of any generation M5 ever, so again, I'm not tracking this comparison at all!
oh, one more thing...the picture you have is of the E60 and not of the F10....
Uh..,. Actually it's the F10 that breaks tradition by using turbocharging. M cars have traditionally been normally aspirated engines that were high revving. Where the E60 broke with tradition was its use of a clutch less transmission which was rather clunky for day to day driving. The F10 still uses a clutchless transmission FWIW. A better talking point would have been the avant garde design of the E60 versus the reversion to the more traditional BMW look of the F10. So as a M alum and a BMW owner/enthusiast I am seeing some major flaws w/ your comparison. Nice try though :)
I'm from Oregon and went to Michigan for undergrad. When you think elite academics on the West Coast, it's pretty much Stanford and UC-Berkeley. Michigan is a great school, a Public Ivy, but still a state school. An M degree plays very well in New York or Chicago, but out West, a Stanford degree is just as impressive as one from Harvard.
Moeller was HC when I was a student here...and his teams were quite sophisticated offensively. I believe he was his own offensive coordinator at the time. His offensive philosophy was pretty aggressive. They had power running but also a great passing game, and frequently threw on first down. I remember whenever M got a turnover, a favorite tactic of Moeller's was to take a shot at the endzone right away. I actually think that M under Hoke and Borges are headed back to that kind of an offense. Unfortunately he had a few 4 loss seasons (I remember LC getting quite a bit of heat as the DC during those years) and that night in Southfield(?) which ultimately led to his dismissal...or he could have been HC well into the 2000s and maybe avoided the ill-fated RR experiment to begin with.
his HS coach is the brother of the Oregon State baseball team's head coach, so the Beavers might be a contender too....Michigan is quite far away from Oregon and it does not sound like he wants to go too far away....although I'd love to see him go blue...but I can't see him leaving the state.
He will be difficult to pry away from Oregon...WOTS here in Oregon is that Oregon is the heavy favorite...although he'd be a great back for M...reminds me a lot of Tyrone Wheatley in that he has good size and incredible speed for that size
would be an excellent choice. Following him here in PDX, he has elevated the AD at OSU to a level that is historically unprecedented. He's recently expressed some frustration with the lack of fan support for OSU (namely football) among its fan base in Oregon, so I think if he's M's choice he will absolutely take it....
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“Last minute to play…in the period. Last minute…”
”thaaaaaaaaaank yoooooooouuuu.”
(long pause)
“You’re welcome”
Those early to mid 90s Friday nights were so great!
but some of the stuff this columnist writes about probably sounds really familiar in A2
http://tucson.com/sports/arizonawildcats/football/greg-hansen-with-rich…
I recall JH handled his last 2 transitions quite a bit better.
terrible unnecessary roughness penalty they just called on Northwestern
but I don't think Carroll was the #1 or #2 pick for USC. I remember they went after Mike Riley of Oregon State and perhaps someone else. At the time, the Carroll hiring was seen as rather underwhelming.
where he discussed how he said Hoke "didn't forget how to coach," etc to justify not firing him? My rebuttal is this:
Your post lost any legitimacy when you compared the guy to Ace Williams.
The difference is that had we rode out a few tough years with RR the program would have emerged completely rebuilt with a new identity and would have been ready to make consistent runs to the top in this new landscape. RR will get Arizona to WV levels but will ultimately be limited because it is not a Power Football school
I think short of that miracle where we can land a Harbaugh we're going to be on the Brady Hoke express (or rather slow boat) and maybe we eventually end up with many a uninspired 3-5 loss season which end with corporate sponsored du jour bowl game during ESPN Capital One Bowl Week.
M football is the laughing stock of college football. When RR was fired, everyone who followed football here (I live in Oregon) were like, "what the hell is Michigan doing? You guys dump a proven young coach who will build a new dynasty at a school like Michigan for some mediocre guy who has a .500 record after 3 years?"
I think this makes a lot of sense and is completely consistent with DB statement. It looks like the o line issues set up a lot of the other issues on offense. I also agree that this staff does not seem to be as crisp in-game tacticians as most programs, and that is rather concerning. Hopefully, eventually, talent from the recruiting will overcome all of this and M will wind up being the "LSU of the Big Ten" (with Coach Hoke being a less crazy and less shady version of Les Miles).
That stated, do you think that a plausible outcome will be that Borges and M part ways at the end of the season? I do. I also do not think a new external OC would be brought in, since new OC's would want to put their own position coaches in place. I think the most likely outcome (apart from no changes at all) would be the elevation of Coach Hecklinski into the OC position (although not sure what impact this would have on his current role as Recruitment Coordinator), and Coach Jackson chooses to retire. I think Coach Funk gets a pass, as his linemen are indeed very young and he has been a very good recruiter. I think this is what makes Borges expendable, since he does not really recruit at all and turns out to be Funk's saving grace this year. If all of this happens, then 2 new assistants are brought in to coach some combination of QB/WR/RB.......does this make any sense?
Lots of missed opportunities in the past 20 years has led to where M football is at now (and actually has been for much of this century, 2006 notwithstanding.) Coach Hoke is a nice guy with the right appreciation for the University and the Program, but he is limited. He is a position coach and "admininistrator". Unfortunately these missed opportunities cannot be "undone" so it's probably prudent to avoid anything "kneejerk"...which is what I thought happened to RichRod. He should be given the time to get all of his recruits as upperclassmen and then evaluated on how the Program is doing. He does, however, need to model what Beilein has done and seriously look at changing some of his staff (Funk, Jackson, Borges). If he's not a brilliant coordinator level coach (i.e. Meyer, RR, Chip Kelley, etc.) then he needs to act like a top level CEO and get people in there who are. This all makes me appreciate Coach Beilein even more since he is both a brilliant tactician AND has shown that he runs his program like a top CEO.
is that I noticed that the "Michigan Stadium" lettering at the top of the scoreboard did not light up at all....I'm pretty sure that I've seen that light up maize before...
And it was the CART race in Portland in 1997. Road course, not an oval.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twROX0iXZUY
for best case is a smaller version of Damian Lillard...similar games, but Lillard is taller and has longer arms, and he finishes extremely well with his left hand in traffic, so he's been able to be an outstanding finisher at the NBA level. Both possess the ability to shoot it from deep off the catch or bounce and have a great pull up midrange game.
I think more likely, though, is Damon Stoudamire....a decent pro but ultimately limited by his size and tendency to settle for the jumper due to inability to consistenty finish at the rim....both Lillard and Stoudamire are/were not premier defenders, and I think Burke will be a defensive liability at the NBA level....
Dude, what are you talking about "move back to a V8 turbo"? I would think a proper car enthusiast would know that ///M cars have always been normally aspirated high compression high revving engines until just very recently with the M versions of the X5 and X6 and now the F10 M5!
Maybe you're thinking of the move to a V10 in the E60 as opposed to a V8, but even then only the E39 had previously had a V8...the first two generation M5's (E28 and E34) both had inline six's......also, for the record, the E60 M5 was a great commercial success, enjoying the highest sales numbers of any generation M5 ever, so again, I'm not tracking this comparison at all!
oh, one more thing...the picture you have is of the E60 and not of the F10....
I'm from Oregon and went to Michigan for undergrad. When you think elite academics on the West Coast, it's pretty much Stanford and UC-Berkeley. Michigan is a great school, a Public Ivy, but still a state school. An M degree plays very well in New York or Chicago, but out West, a Stanford degree is just as impressive as one from Harvard.
Moeller was HC when I was a student here...and his teams were quite sophisticated offensively. I believe he was his own offensive coordinator at the time. His offensive philosophy was pretty aggressive. They had power running but also a great passing game, and frequently threw on first down. I remember whenever M got a turnover, a favorite tactic of Moeller's was to take a shot at the endzone right away. I actually think that M under Hoke and Borges are headed back to that kind of an offense. Unfortunately he had a few 4 loss seasons (I remember LC getting quite a bit of heat as the DC during those years) and that night in Southfield(?) which ultimately led to his dismissal...or he could have been HC well into the 2000s and maybe avoided the ill-fated RR experiment to begin with.
his HS coach is the brother of the Oregon State baseball team's head coach, so the Beavers might be a contender too....Michigan is quite far away from Oregon and it does not sound like he wants to go too far away....although I'd love to see him go blue...but I can't see him leaving the state.
He will be difficult to pry away from Oregon...WOTS here in Oregon is that Oregon is the heavy favorite...although he'd be a great back for M...reminds me a lot of Tyrone Wheatley in that he has good size and incredible speed for that size
less than 2 years ago and appears to have wanted that job but someone else was selected.
http://www.oregonlive.com/sports/oregonian/john_canzano/index.ssf/2009/12/post_1.html
http://www.oregonlive.com/vikings/index.ssf/2009/12/portland_state_hires_nigel_bur.html
vs. MSU was in 2004