Semi-OT: Congrats to Brady Hoke and SDSU
All in all, a pretty impressive season for SDSU and Brady Hoke. They won 12 games, beat Arizona and Utah (!), made it to the Mountain West Championship Game and then beat a ranked UTSA team in the bowl game.
Though it didn't work out here, I've always felt Hoke's love for Michigan was truly heartfelt, so I'm glad to see him succeed elsewhere. SDSU feels like the right scale of program for him.
December 22nd, 2021 at 9:55 AM ^
SDSU shirts are selling out in Utah! Congrats, Brady and company!
December 22nd, 2021 at 9:57 AM ^
Truly a good guy and a true Michigan Man. He was just in over his head - especially when saddled with the aftermath of RichRod and the goofball AD. Glad to see him succeeding again!
December 22nd, 2021 at 10:05 AM ^
I thought Brady's loyalty to his assistants is what did him in at Michigan. The inability to let some of them go for underperforming is a serious flaw for a coach. It's not one for a human being though and it has always been easy to like Hoke and root for him elsewhere.
December 22nd, 2021 at 1:10 PM ^
Especially a guy that isn't involved in the X's and O's. I do think in hindsight, Brandon forced the staff's hand on what kind of offense to run. He nor Borges were never as married to "manball" elsewhere.
December 22nd, 2021 at 10:46 AM ^
I've always been a fan of Hoke. I used to sit close to where he coached our d line and could always tell he had the respect of the players. It just wasn't the right fit as head coach here. I hope her stays at SDSU and becomes a legend there.
December 22nd, 2021 at 11:58 AM ^
100% agree that Brady was a really good guy put into a tough situation, and I blame his goofball boss at the time more than Brady.
For the Big Ten Championship, we unknowingly stayed at the Iowa hotel. The morning of the game we ran into Jerry Montgomery and his beautiful family at breakfast. Jerry was on Brady's defensive line staff for 2 years. He was a 4 year starter for the Hawkeyes and his son Jayden just signed with Iowa as a LB which is of course why they were there.
We asked Jerry what he thought of Brady. He said that he was the salt of the earth and would be happy to work for him again. Currently, Jerry is a defensive line coach for the Packers.
Glad to see Brady's success at SDSU and wish him all the best!
December 22nd, 2021 at 9:59 AM ^
I wonder if Brady Hoke will ever be offered a P5 HC job again and if so, would he take it? He just seems made for that SDSU program.
December 22nd, 2021 at 10:33 AM ^
G5 is where he seems to fit best and San Diego is a beautiful place to live. I'm not him, but if I was I think I'd stay at SDSU as long as they'd have me.
His salary certainly could be a lot higher at a P5, but $1M/year (even in San Diego) ain't a bad number. Then again, if he's gonna drink every beer in San Diego, he may need a raise!
December 22nd, 2021 at 10:46 AM ^
Let's start the Wednesday Morning Drinking Thread here then, shall we?! I still remember my first visit, years ago, to a relatively new, little heard of craft brewery called Stone. I wasn't well versed in IPAs at the time (I don't think many were). My how things have changed. Some great beer is brewed in that county.
December 22nd, 2021 at 12:29 PM ^
Alesmith ftw.
December 22nd, 2021 at 12:42 PM ^
Stone has the absolute best beer garden and restaurant. Many family celebrations occur there. (And 1 Will Ferrell sighting)
December 22nd, 2021 at 1:53 PM ^
I think the guy absolutely deserves another shot at a Power 5 job. Like everyone has said, cleaning up the mess of RichRod and having Dave Brandon meddling in everything was at least half of Brady’s battle in Ann Arbor. He undoubtedly fixed our defense and was able to bring in many top notch recruits to lay the foundation for the Harbaugh era. I think we have salty memories of his time and it’s easy for us to say he couldn’t do any better than mid-major level football, but I think he has the chops for the right power 5 job in the right situation, where he has a level headed AD that will give him some level of autonomy and the money to hire good assistants (which I don’t think would be hard for him to find as he is so loved and respected by so many in the coaching community).
I do agree with everyone on the board that says San Diego would probably be a hard place to leave, but then again, a 2-3mil/year pay raise with a decent buyout would also be hard to turn down. I could see him killing it a P5 program where expectations aren’t through the roof, maybe somewhere like Colorado, Oregon State or something. I could even see him fitting in at Utah as many think Whittingham is about to retire, although could he produce at the same clip? And I have to say, that if Steve Sarkisian can keep falling upwards after every failure he has, certainly Brady Hoke can land a middling P5 job.
December 22nd, 2021 at 10:43 AM ^
Brady Hoke is 63 years old. He's already achieved his dream of being head coach at Michigan. He's made millions from his U-M contract. After being unemployed for a year (2015), cycling through Oregon (2016), Tennessee (2017), and Carolina (2018) before returning to SDSU in 2019, he would be foolish to leave. Brady is a millionaire living in paradise.
December 22nd, 2021 at 10:46 AM ^
Plus during his "unemployed" year he had a TV gig and they don't do that for free.
December 22nd, 2021 at 1:50 PM ^
Hoke collected paychecks from U-M and a TV network, but not coaching had to weigh on him emotionally. Being unemployed at the age of 56-57 is especially tough.
December 22nd, 2021 at 11:54 AM ^
Yeah this is exactly it. He's made plenty of money and he's in the twilight of his career where he's still making great money at a place he loves (and where they love and appreciate him back). He's got things rolling at SDSU and should be able to keep that going for a few more years until he decides to retire and retire very comfortably. Good for him.
December 22nd, 2021 at 12:03 PM ^
Plus, he has really slimmed down and looked so much more relaxed on the sideline than he used to at Michigan. Seems as if he has found a good life. All the best to him. That said, I still cannot believe he didn’t change the play on the 2 point conversion after OSU called timeout to prepare for what we had shown.
December 22nd, 2021 at 11:55 AM ^
Like others have said, he's 63 years old, has a career record of 94-78 (.547), and has 0 Conference Championships in 14 full years as a head coach.
If you were a P5 Athletic Director, how would you sell that hire to your fanbase?
December 22nd, 2021 at 12:00 PM ^
Well…he had that turnaround at Ball State that one time.
December 22nd, 2021 at 12:02 PM ^
Its a pretty easy sell unless you are selling it to a top top top P5 fanbase.
Turned around Ball State.
Turned around SDSU.
Came back to SDSU and went 12-2.
His only blemish is at Michigan.
You could easily sell that to a bottom-ish P5 school.
December 22nd, 2021 at 3:00 PM ^
Eh... his stops in Tennessee and Oregon weren't great, to put it nicely. I like Hoke very much, and as others have said he seems to have found his sweet spot as a coach. Good for him. But let's be honest when discussing his record, it isn't fair to leave off the jobs that didn't work out for him.
December 22nd, 2021 at 3:44 PM ^
Those were stops as a coordinator not as a head coach.
December 22nd, 2021 at 12:13 PM ^
Have you ever looked at Mike Locksley's career coaching record?
14-49 across parts of 7 seasons and that's an improvement since he's been at MD. How did the Maryland AD sell that?
I don't see Brady going anywhere. He's got a fantastic thing going, and I think he knows it.
December 22nd, 2021 at 9:59 AM ^
Awesome to see! Love to see Men and Women of Michigan Football succeed no matter where they are or what they are doing.
I really hope Hoke is enjoying his 2nd stint at SDSU - he deserves to be happy and to be in a position to succeed.
December 22nd, 2021 at 10:01 AM ^
Happy for Coach Hoke! He's a Michigan Man and deserves the success he's having now.
December 22nd, 2021 at 10:03 AM ^
Yup. Zero animosity towards Hoke from me. He just didn't work out here. Congrats to him.
December 22nd, 2021 at 10:11 AM ^
Yep....glad to see him have some success. He was just over his head at this scale of a program. I could see him getting a lower level P5 job at a bad team and making them mediocre. But really, why leave SDSU at this point? He's got a great thing going, great town, ideal level for him, they are coming off a historic season. Seems perfect.
December 22nd, 2021 at 10:07 AM ^
I can't understand this board's love affair with hoke.
He put a concussed player on the field and then bungled the fallout.
December 22nd, 2021 at 10:12 AM ^
People make mistakes, sometimes big ones. Others have made reference that this program was a more than Hoke could handle. That encompasses the concussion disaster. In balance it seems like he was a good human being who handled something rather badly. I liked the guy as a person, not so much as our football coach.
On the sidelines of the game last night he looked really happy. I'm happy for him.
December 22nd, 2021 at 10:15 AM ^
Agreed. An irony of that incident was that, as far as I can tell, Hoke cares about the players and other people around him more than the average coach. He just messed up.
December 22nd, 2021 at 10:15 AM ^
I wouldn't call it a love affair. No one on this board is defending his performance here, defending the fact that he was hired on the first place, suggesting his on field performance was adequate, that he shouldn't have been fired, or that he wasn't at fault for that.
In my opinion, his handling of that situation was a direct result of him being way over his head for managing a program of this scale and the chaos that was happening at that time. He didn't set up a structure of support to handle that, to coach a competent team, or manage even the most basic aspects of the job. I do not think he did that because he was malicious or a dinosaur "rub some dirt on it" guy.
This I wish him success and hope he learned from that experience....even if I also don't want him on our sidelines again..
December 22nd, 2021 at 10:29 AM ^
There's no "love affair." That's just hyperbole and petty.
It's simple for some of us. The '97 team was iconic. Coach Hoke was the DL coach. The '97 DL was an elite unit, and it was integral to our National Championship (See chapter entitled, "Judgment Day"). Coach Hoke was a significant reason we won. That appreciation remains, despite his head coaching failures. The fact that he's almost universally beloved by his former players and fellow coaches reinforces everything.
December 22nd, 2021 at 11:59 AM ^
Not only that (which is a lot and all true) but Hoke was the primary recruiter for Tom Brady and Brady himself credits Hoke greatly for bringing him to Michigan. Both Woodson and Brady were too of the biggest proponents of his hire initially.
Yes, it didn't work out. No one is suggesting we re-hire Hoke. But it's OK to remember the guy fondly too. He bought us a Sugar Bowl win and recruited Jabrill Peppers, one of the most exciting Michigan players in the last couple decades.
December 22nd, 2021 at 10:37 AM ^
Those are the kinds of decisions that get made in a toxic culture like DB created. Hoke went along with it and owns the decisions he made, but as the saying goes, every system is perfectly designed to get the results that it gets. Whoever put the incentives in place -whether formal or informal- to encourage those kinds of decisions also bears responsibility.
December 22nd, 2021 at 11:08 AM ^
The AD bungled the fallout, remember a middle of the night press release that was basically a lie.
Lack of communication on the sideline put Morris in a bad spot, ultimately Hoke was responsible for that.
December 22nd, 2021 at 12:00 PM ^
Not sure why jimmyjoeharbaugh is getting negged so much. It's a fact that Morris took a helmet to the chin then, staggered and wobbled around and looked dazed. Multiple other Michigan players signaled to the sideline that he needed medical attention. Hoke kept him in the game. There's a lot I liked about Hoke, but that incident was unacceptable for a Michigan coach.
December 22nd, 2021 at 12:28 PM ^
Of course it was a mistake and Hoke's fault, but I won't write off 20+ years of Brady being a great man because he made a bad mistake. Some people like to paint Hoke as a terrible person because of that and it couldn't be further from the truth. The man was in over his head but loved this school and I'll always hope he does well at SDSU
December 22nd, 2021 at 3:34 PM ^
No love affair here. Rational people understand that this job was too much for him, Sugar Bowl win notwithstanding, and that he especially handled the Shane Morris situation terribly. For myself, I would never want him to be head coach here again, but I of course wish him well. He gave this job his all, and I'm sure he did his best.
December 22nd, 2021 at 6:52 PM ^
Oh please. He did no such thing. Nobody saw the late hit to the head as they were watching the pass. They saw the stumble after but Shane said it was his ankle and that it was fine. This led to having someone who's job it is to sit in the press box and look for concussions so it doesn't happen again. This is 0% Hoke's fault.
December 22nd, 2021 at 7:10 PM ^
Did they also close their eyes instead of watching him stagger around while his head wobbled around like a bobble head doll? A rolled ankle causes someone to limp, not stagger around looking lost. They also chose to ignore Khalid Hill and Justice Hayes calling to the sideline to bring in medical for Shane. Maybe not 100% Hoke's fault-Shane bears some responsibility for his own safety. But, I prefer a coach who takes responsibility for his players' wellbeing.
December 22nd, 2021 at 10:11 AM ^
I agree, plus I had SDSU in my bowl pick'em game so that's a plus.
December 22nd, 2021 at 10:12 AM ^
I was aware, but not fully aware.
Congrats you headset-less wonder…
and our last coach to beat OSU until this year’s HARBAUGH! Beat down of the guy still stranded on 3rd.
December 22nd, 2021 at 10:40 AM ^
He wears his headset at SDSU... he learned his lesson.
December 22nd, 2021 at 12:04 PM ^
Yawn.
December 22nd, 2021 at 1:11 PM ^
Your reply to the comment above bores me.
December 22nd, 2021 at 10:57 AM ^
Great guy - was just over his head against the elite of coaches. Recruiting was really good except at the QB position.
One of his weaknesses at UM was the quality of his assistants. Other than Mattison (who was a turncoat TWICE, leaving once for ND and then later for Ohio), none of them ever made it on the big stage again.
He clearly loves UM and brought us the "Ohio" name - as well as "This is Michigan"
December 22nd, 2021 at 12:34 PM ^
I'll never forget "This is Michigan for God's sake."
And although his offensive recruiting was poor at best, he did bring in Devin Gardner and his defenses were loaded.
Also good point on the assistant coaches but with Dave Brandon having so much control over every aspect of everything athletic, I have to wonder how much meddling he did there as well.
December 22nd, 2021 at 2:18 PM ^
Rich Rod brought in DG not Hoke.