CC: Looking back, and a question we don't seem to be asking
The general tenor on the board concerning the state of the program seems to be that Hoke was a bad hire from the start and that his initial success in 2011 was primarily due to Denard "saving us" inspite of Hoke's ineptituted, as well as a defense which improved but ultimately simply enjoyed being on the positive side of the bell curve when it came to turnover margin and 50/50 plays (which even then was acknowledged as unsustainable).
It seems to me that if Hoke, Borgess, Funk et. al. are/were inept, which is clearly the belief now, then either they've always been inept or somehow became inept over the course of the past few seasons. We talk a lot about an increase in recruited talent not translating into on-field success and, rightly, attribute that to coaching... and some of us have gone to 11 with the vitriol.
But this staff, by all accounts, NAILED IT in 2011. Despite what many posters, contributors, and even Brian might recall now, while the 2011 season was happening we did NOT think we were winning despite this staff's (lack of) ability, we thought we were winning because of their ability. We lauded the fact that they came into a situation with limited personnel, limited depth, and players who were unsuited to Hoke's particular vision of football and guided them to an 11 win, BCS bowl season. It seems to me that if this staff is now just a group of inept, out-of-their-depth neophites, we'd have picked up on that in 2011 (we certainly seem to see it that way now). But go back and read the write ups and comments after the Nebraska win, and the OSU win.
Here's what Brian had to say after the Nebraska pummeling:
I was wrong. I was mad when Michigan hired Brady Hoke because I though it was a capitulation, that it was Michigan returning to the things that made it such a frustrating team to root for once Lloyd Carr stopped having the best defense in the universe.
It turns out as I was sitting in the stands burning up inside as Rocky Harvey scatbacked Illinois to victory or Michigan punted itself into oblivion against OSU, Brady Hoke was standing on a sideline burning up inside, whether it was at Michigan Stadium or somewhere in the MAC. Hoke does not want to lead by 17. He wants to lead by 21, dammit. If anything, the playcalling this year has been too aggressive what with the constant unleashing of the dragon
If this feels like getting back to Michigan, it's the Michigan of your dreams, the Michigan you left back in Peoria when you shipped to Saigon. You've got one good picture of her and she's that pretty every day in an ugly place. "This Is Michigan" is about the idea, not the reality—at least not a reality from the last 20 years. So far. Days like Saturday inch us closer to the picture in our heads.
Here were his thoughts after OSU:
I could not have been more wrong about Hoke. He's not the milquetoast win-by-not-losing sort. He's not even average. He has a gut feel that is on par with every RPG minimaxing engineer out there. Forged by the fires of MAC defenses, Hoke has learned to push when he should and pull back when he should. I would not want to play poker against him.
I know Hoke talks about toughness and physicalness even if the latter isn't really a word, and that's fine and important. It's half of the equation. The other half is putting your guys in position to take advantage of that. Hoke does that. MANBALL: pretty much not pejorative anymore.
Undertand, this isn't a Brian "callout;" we all thought we were seeing the same thing here. (Go read how we - and I use "we" as the "collective mood of the board" - felt after Hoke won the Conference Coach of the Year award.) I was in agreement with Brian's analysis then, and I'm more or less on board with the "this staff looks out of its depth now" sentiment. But while we're duscussing how we got from THERE to HERE, the conversation is always about how much this staff, particulary on offense, just seems to "not get it." There is no talk about how they went from "getting it" to, well, "not."
Now... after the Sugar Bowl we were all a little *yeesh* about the offense, and had no illusions that the Alabama game in Dallas was going to go well for us. Brian's write-up mentions worries that now seem prescient.
ALL RIGHT NOW WE HAVE A TALK. Holy pants the offense. This was the third time this year Michigan's offense was just beyond terrible; they lost the other two but horseshoed themselves the Sugar Bowl. It was imperative that Michigan establish something VT had to react to, but they never did. Their big tactical innovation for this game was a not-very-spread formation with a TE, a tailback, and Odoms in motion for a jet sweep fake. That worked on the first play of the game when Odoms got the edge and then hardly ever again. I don't understand Michigan's emphasis on running to the perimeter against a defense like VT's that thrives on getting their safeties to tackle in space. Meanwhile, Michigan receivers got zero separation all night, allowing VT to tee off on the run with impunity. Michigan needs an athleticism upgrade there.
However, we didn't think this staff was out of its depth by any stretch. Now, we act like it's been evident since day one and only Denard, Molk, Martin, Kovacs and luck saved us that year. We went from calling out other fan bases for ripping on Hoke's looks, his weight and his demeanor, to doing it ourselves.
These things we point to now, these "basic," "egregious," and "nearly comical" errors that are so plain to us today, were some of them there in 2011? To me, it's more than "we now have more data." I can see how the results of this season and the two prior outweigh 2011; but the rhetoric now is "they've clearly always been incompetent," yet that wasn't our take back then. We Legitimately thought these coaches were good 4 years ago, now there's no way they were ever anything but a gang of monkey's fucking a football.
How did WE, as a blog, a board, a group of "compatriots," get from THERE to HERE? Lack of results on the field, sure. But to go from one extreme to the other in terms of our affection for this staff, our confidence in them... talk to me a little bit about your experience going from "there" to "here."
October 8th, 2014 at 12:31 PM ^
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
October 8th, 2014 at 1:27 PM ^
This appears almost unassailable as an analysis.
The one possibility that I might throw out is that while this is almost unquestionably right regarding the offense, that I don't think it's nearly as true about the defense.
This logic leads me to suggest the things that were suggested by many others, that most/all of the offensive position coaches really needed to go away along with Borges.
Unfortunately, it's also a potential truth that leaves little or no hope for substantial improvement this year, unless Nussmeier's leadership on the offensive side is endgendering slow skills improvement by the offense. There are some pieces of evidence to support this idea. I kinda wish some of them were the kind you see on the W-side of the W-L column.
Rob
October 8th, 2014 at 12:19 PM ^
I like the fact that you're not calling people out in this post. I remember all the accolades Hoke was getting in 2011 and did think it was odd that some of the same people were piling on the "fire him" bandwagon now.
Michigan's struggles this year are a giant mystery to me.
Getting shut out at ND? Losing to Rutgers? 2-4 start? 10 men on the field multiple times? RBs making bad decisions? QB play regressing at an alarming rate?
I did not see that coming. It's all very confusing.
October 8th, 2014 at 12:37 PM ^
Thank you for the organized, coherant retrospect (paragraphs!! cough...Wolfman)
October 8th, 2014 at 12:34 PM ^
I was also confused at this board's and the fan base's praise of Hoke when he was winning with RRod's players. Hoke's success was similar to when Charlie W won 10+ his first season at ND. I posted these views and was down voted considerably at the time. Hoke NEVER had a winning record prior to getting to Michigan and his best record was 9-4 at San Diego State, a team with the best recruiting base of the mid-majors on the west coast. Hoke had no track record of being an elite coach. Not even sure why he was considered.
October 8th, 2014 at 12:39 PM ^
You say Hoke NEVER had a winning record before he got to Michigan, and then you immediately post a winning record that he had. I am confused.
October 8th, 2014 at 1:39 PM ^
Also left out a 12-1 season with Ball State.
October 8th, 2014 at 2:13 PM ^
Hoke was 34-38 at Ball State and 13-12 at SDSU before coming to Michigan, so he had a slight winning margin at SDSU.
October 8th, 2014 at 2:39 PM ^
...but both were reclamation projects.
It could also be said that at Stanford Jim Harbaugh was only 29-21, that two of the four seasons he coached there were losing seasons, and that one of them was an 8-5 season. He only had just that one really great season at 12-1.
Obviously the fact that Stanford had been bad for a long time makes a lot more sense out of those numbers, and Harbaugh's .580 win % wouldn't give any of us pause about hiring him if we could get him.
I'm not saying we should ride it out with Hoke, I am only saying that his record at Ball State and SDSU can be seen more positively than negatively, given the turnarounds he engineered at both places.
October 8th, 2014 at 12:35 PM ^
I blame Obama and Lewan. That's obvious.
October 8th, 2014 at 12:39 PM ^
In hindsight, its obvious that PurpleStuff was right all along and that that team was going to be good so long as the OC didn't mis-use Denard and the DC wasn't GERG/hamstrung by the head coach. Rodriguez built up a good team that finally matured (hey second year QB!) and Hoke got to coach it. Combine that with a weak schedule + 2 lucky wins over ND and Va Tech and you get 2011's success.
Brady Hoke walked into a golden situation and screwed it all up. Even when things were bad last year, no one blamed him for the teams failurues. All he had to do this year was have a decent season (8+ wins, beat one rival on the road, etc.) and things would have been fine for him. Instead, he showed that all his initial detractors were correct.
October 8th, 2014 at 1:48 PM ^
I'm internet famous, yo!
October 8th, 2014 at 12:47 PM ^
1. Poor player development. Here are 247 composite 4+ star recruits and 2012 class:
Current Starters - Kalis, Bolden, Norfleet, Wilson, Funchess
Current 2nd stringers - Pipkens, Magnusen, Ross, Wormley, RJS, Ojemudia, Williams
Not playing much at all - Richardson, Strobel
14 players with very high upside, of whom we're getting "star" performance out of Funchess and... anyone?
2. Poor Organization. Here I point to Bellomy's missing helmet, concussion-gate and two different occasions with 10-man special teams. (There have to be numerous other examples that we don't even know about.) My point is, this seems to be across-the-board failure to dot i's and cross t's from the HC who's supposed to be acting as CEO. Say what you want about LC's last few years, but you can't say he didn't run a tight ship.
October 8th, 2014 at 12:54 PM ^
2011 was a lot of smoke and mirrors, and not even just in the bowl game. That team was good, but they weren't that much better than the 2012 team, which didn't benefit from the same lucky bounces. As I recall, the turnover margin that year, for example, was ridiculous, and it's been demonstrated that turnovers are highly influenced by randomness.
Nevertheless, 2011 did give us much to be excited about, and went a long way toward extending Hoke's honeymoon.
October 8th, 2014 at 6:55 PM ^
Tend to agree with this. The 2011 team had a lot of talent but it also had a considerable amount of luck. They beat an OSU team that was reeling in scandal and had a terrible interim coach. There were many more breaks. I am not saying it was all luck but Hoke wouldn't have gotten by Tressel.
October 8th, 2014 at 12:56 PM ^
but I do remember several here saying "see we should have kept RR he was on the verge..." I thought Hoke seemed more in charge back then, but there were leaders on both sides of the ball "field captains" or field generals. Now it seems everyone looks to the sideline for guidance and Hoke is standing there with arms folded or clapping and there is no input. I don't think anyone got dumber or is dumb, I totally agree with the above statement that Hoke has never had to stop a boulder going the wrong way downhill. He could coach the skill and develped talent, just can't develop it himself. Sounds like a position coach, not a head coach. There is no crime in that, just unfortunate that is what we have.
October 8th, 2014 at 12:56 PM ^
This definitely is a call out against Brian and staff.
Is the OP seriously advocating we should retain Hoke?
October 8th, 2014 at 1:31 PM ^
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
October 8th, 2014 at 2:26 PM ^
Hoke's behavior has definitely changed. Early on he would think for seconds about a 4th down, point to go and get aggressive. He would challenge his team to succeed. Now he punts from the opponent's 40 with nary a whimper. Brian liked one set of behavior (game theory), and dislikes what hoke's recent decisions have been.
October 8th, 2014 at 12:58 PM ^
October 8th, 2014 at 1:03 PM ^
I don't think Hoke is inept, though he has made some pretty awful decisions. I don't think Mattison and Nussmeier are inept, either. I think--if they keep coaching after they leave--this whole crew will go on to have success.
Michigan is one of the two most difficult places to win in all of the country. Here's why:
- Demand for academic excellence
- Demand (and tradition) for on-field excellence
- Demand for moral superiority
- Demand for "honoring the past" through both pageantry and on-field style
Only Notre Dame faces a similar cadre of demands, and they are not as attached to "old-school" play styles as Michigan is. They were willing to innovate.
As for Hoke et al., here are what I perceive to be the biggest challenges:
- Staff. Jim Harbaugh said, "You can't afford to have one bad coach on your staff." I'm afraid we have several. Funk, Ferrigno, Jackson, and maybe even Hecklinski have failed in player development. They have great talent. They are not making the best of it. But one of our biggest problems, IMO, is Aaron Wellman. I don't understand how our superior athletes consistently look slower and weaker than our competition. That is not okay with me, and four years in, we should be more physically dominant. Defensively, we have looked better, but Mattison appears to only know how to stop vanilla offenses (and not always that) with no answer for anything new.
- Attention to detail. 10 men on the field. ALL OF THE TIME. That's a minor exaggeration, but this simply can't happen as often as it has, especially on a unit that isn't getting it done. Everything about this staff seems imprecise; I believe the staff and players work hard, but don't focus enough on the details that make good players great.
- Stubbornness. While Nuss has brought some more modern concepts to our offense and deserves time to implement them, the defense still looks stale and the offense moribund. AJ Williams is not good at football, but we play him all the time. Yes, we've run WR screens, fly sweeps, and other modern wrinkles this year, but we don't do any of them well. Ironically, the best offensive plays have included pulling guards, something we haven't been able to do for years.
While it's too early to judge Nuss, the rest of the offensive staff has failed to develop the copious talent on the roster. The defense is good, but lacks the innovation to take the step to great.
"Execution" failures happen because coaches can't get their players to do the right thing. That is absolutely a failure of coaching. I don't think these guys are inept, I think they are better suited to reclamation projects where instilling a winning culture is enough to move the needle from 3 wins to 9 wins. That doesn't cut it in the Power 5 world.
Our staff's shortcomings, the lack of precision in a college football landscape dominated by it, and the stubborn adherence to principles of the past are holding our program back. It's time to move forward. #CC
October 8th, 2014 at 1:05 PM ^
October 8th, 2014 at 1:08 PM ^
I recall Martin, et., al., saying that the new staff was teaching basic techiques that were ignored by the RR and the revolving door of defensive staff. So there was some basic improvement from the defense (eg, they eliminated major breakdowns leading to big play and maximized existing talent on the DL).
W/R/T positive turnover margin - it seems that there was some writing on the board that suggested the margin could historically attributed to random variance. Therefore, 2011 was a return to the mean.
I never felt comfortable with the way Borges/Hoke led the offense in 2011 with the obvious exceptions.
October 8th, 2014 at 1:12 PM ^
I think the 2013 Offense played a big role in getting from there to here.
Borges for some reason decided it would be a good idea to install a new offense every week, with a relatively young/inexperienced group instead of sticking with fundamental elements that he wanted to install. 2013 should have been the year he could have made progress towards building what he wanted to see long term at Michigan. Hoke let him do it.
Hoke was smart to cut him loose but it seems to be too little too late.
October 8th, 2014 at 1:19 PM ^
I was not in favor of firing Rodriguez. I thought Brandon should have made him get a new defensive coordinator and shelled out properly to get a good one. Instead, we got the "process," which was about the worst thing that could have happened.
A big part of the problem, though, was us. Fans always think some savior coach is right around the corner. We are impatient. Some are so impatient, that they find it incredibly important to boycott games to get firings immediately. Nothing less is acceptable.
Hoke took over a team with lots of talent and a favorable schedule. He brought in a defensive coordinator who turned the same players a decent defense, rather than a terrible one. Even the field goal kicker who had missed everything under Rodriguez suddenly became very reliable. This brought us to HOKE POOPS GOLD.
RR was never as bad as the fans thought, and Hoke was never as good. So we are now looking for a savior again, and the CC threads are taking over the board. With all this protesting, boycotting, and nastiness, who pauses to ask "What coach in their right mind would want to step into this shitstorm?" This is where we are part of the problem.
So, we hire someone new who inherits an offensive line that is just coming to age. Things improve! Coach X poops gold. But the lost recruiting class of 2015 comes back to haunt us, and four years later we are calling for his head. . .
October 8th, 2014 at 1:22 PM ^
Development has been poor especially at the OL and QB spots but the line is still young. Before the Rutgers game, we didn't really question the defensive development (but maybe their tackling abilities).
This is the big transition year for the offense and what we were all waiting for has finally happened. The offense can play well in bursts but can't sustain anything. It is better than last year almost everywhere but still not where it needs to be to be competitive.
October 8th, 2014 at 1:25 PM ^
You had a special college level player in Denard, combined with a special college C in Molk, combined with multiple future NFL draft picks along the line. That made an ok back in Fitz look pretty good.
The defense had some talent on it (man beast senior Martin, Roh, Van Bergen, Demens, Kovacs, young Jake Ryan, young Countess), but GMatt was obviously a big improvement over what was here in 2010.
You had a very fortunate schedule. I beleive RR would have won 9 games at minimum with that schedule as well. The defense would have sucked more under RR so thats why 9 games instead of 11.
It was basically RR's offense with GMatt's defense.
Also we stole the Sugar Bowl - to this day I dont know how we won.
Wins that year outside of the Sugar Bowl
- W. Michigan
- E. Michigan
- 8-5 San Diego State what was actually a decent win
- 8-5 ND (good win) but required a miracle in the closing moments [UTL]
- 6-7 Northwestern
- 7-6 Purdue
- 7-6 Illinois - to this day Hoke's best road win
- 9-4 Nebraska - to this day Hoke's most impressive win IMO
- 6-7 Fickell OSU (bad coach)
- Va Tech
Out of that list the Nebraska game was a truly impressive win, not that Nebraska was a world beater but we crushed them. OSU we know the story - they were not a good team, with a bad coach. If not for some Denard miracles at the end of UTL that could have been a loss. Outside of that we beat a bunch of .500 teams. I know at this stage of UM football beating .500 teams is a miracle but during RR's run of 2009/2010 we usually did fine vs .500 type teams. It was the good teams we got destroyed by.
So again you take a special player, in an pretty established system with a few tweaks, and you marry it to a competent defense and you can beat a lot of average Big 10 teams. You add a miracle finish vs ND, a down OSU, a game I have no idea how we won vs VA Tech and isolate the Nebraska win as truly dominant and that's your 2011. Which was fine for a first year coach - you look at that and you say, well he didnt have all his pieces and wow 11 wins, I'll take it. But it turned out to be fool's gold.
October 8th, 2014 at 1:39 PM ^
It's probably difficult to overstate how much OSU's self-inflicted destruction affected our perception of where Michigan was. You'd have to forgive someone who thought in 2011 that the tide of the rivalry was turning. But OSU was never lacking for talent, and they (as we all know) simply traded one great coach for another.
October 8th, 2014 at 4:22 PM ^
and I don't think the perception of Michigan's recovery was just based on the OSU game.
Michigan was the #9 offense and the #16 defense in the country that year (Fremeau throughout). It's uncommon to have both units in the top-16; here's OSU over the last seven years:
- 2007: 22/14
- 2008: 39/22
- 2009: 27/3
- 2010: 16/2
- 2011: 65/22
- 2012: 10/15
- 2013: 3/42
They happened to be matched up against the worst of the lot but 2011 Michigan would have stacked up pretty well against most recent OSU teams.
October 8th, 2014 at 9:29 PM ^
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
October 8th, 2014 at 9:43 PM ^
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
October 8th, 2014 at 1:26 PM ^
Fans are optimistic beyond the point of reason, that's why they're called "fans" (short for "fanatics"). There's a reason for the tags "brady hoke has a horseshoe stuck in his posterior" and "brady hoke poops magic." These tags were created in 2011. We all realized at the time that it had been an abnormally fortuitous season. At the time, we still knew Hoke was an incredibly uninspiring hire. But isn't it in fans' nature to overlook the more unpleasant things and try to enjoy the team's success, and make slightly unrealistically optimistic projections toward the future?
My point is, I think if we were actually fooled, it was a willfull deception on our own parts by overlooking the unpleasant truth that Hoke is not that great of a coach, due to circumstances such as a good record and the incredible improvement of the defense under Mattison.
October 8th, 2014 at 2:16 PM ^
how would we have known that "Hoke is not that great of a coach"? In contrast to how things have gone for him here, in his other two coaching stops his teams got better every year, until they were very good (at least vs their level of competition).
I don't think we fooled ourselves in 2011 - Hoke had a solid track record for turning around moribund situations, but the jury was still out on whether or not his skills would translate to a higher level of competition.
I do think the general fan discontent is due simply to poor results in year 4 - the honeymoon was great but it's been over for a while and frustration has set in. However, OP's question r.e. the level of vitriol (personal attacks regarding Hoke's appearance, etc) is a good one and for my part it's somewhat sobering. It is possible for fans to be disappointed and upset with the current staff without turning into an unruly mob of 7th-graders...
October 8th, 2014 at 1:35 PM ^
First, kudos to the OP for an interesting question.
Second, my answer is simple: Coach Hoke is 3-9 in his last 12 games. He's 18-17 against Power 5 (plus ND) opponents. He's 4-6 against the rivals, and that's including a year in which OSU self-destructed. Michigan just lost the Jug and is 0-2 in the Big Ten for the first time since 1967.
alum96 and Ron Utah do a good job filling in some of the details that I see, but the team's record speaks for itself.
October 8th, 2014 at 1:39 PM ^
October 8th, 2014 at 1:41 PM ^
but if you go for it, it is also risky and doesn't win you the game as a reward. You then still have to score. Now that is just for a generic team against a generic team.
Matt Wile flat out looks like BELOW average kicker and Rutgers is FLAT OUT the best kick blocking team in the country.
On the flip side you have DG and DF (not to mention the BUTT) to pick up 9 yards (not 15, not 25 NINE).
Conclusion: DUMB move. The fact that NUSS doesnt go APESHIT at that decision shows he is NOT HC material either.
October 8th, 2014 at 1:44 PM ^
I don't care if he's coached up 1 or 2 first round draft picks per year. Had top 10 offenses and defenses. He is 4-10 the last 14 games. At any University, where the bar is set high, this is a fireable offense. Let alone starting out in his first season with 11 wins and a BCS Bowl win, then to progressively get worse each year is almost unheard of. I'm not sure what the problem is, but he's made his bed and will eventually sleep in it at the end of the season. Most probably in a new state and as a d-line coach somewhere.
October 8th, 2014 at 1:49 PM ^
Like others, I was pretty mild about the idea of Hoke at best, but I always thought that with the right coordinators, this might work perhaps even at that. I think we might have the right coordinators for a very good team - separate discussion for unit coaches, of course. That being said, one of the failings that is now apparent in Hoke's style is the development aspect...and perhaps the actual management aspect that needs to happen in the style of coaching that he seems to have chosen. He's a great motivator and great at engaging people and making them feel involved, but there are things that are missing which hold this team back, in my estimation.
October 8th, 2014 at 2:31 PM ^
I understand that was the perception when he was hired, but given the past 14 games, how can that be true? Particularly, as the players don't look motivated and sometimes not evn necessarily engaged. As someone not excited by the hire, I thought Hoke would at least bring motivation and energy to the program.
October 8th, 2014 at 1:58 PM ^
October 8th, 2014 at 2:44 PM ^
Mattison was able to improve the defense and Borges always fell back on the spread.
2012 may have been better if Robinson did not get injured in the NE game and we would have won.
2013 was a disaster! We still had two NFL talent tackles on the team.
2014 is beyond a disaster. It is an embarrassment. Hoke and coaches have whacked the fail button this season. I don't see any player development.
I can't wait until Hoke and CO is gone. And they better show Brandon the door as well.
October 8th, 2014 at 3:08 PM ^
Success had us feeling back then that we'd made the right hire. It is not difficult to read into facts what we want out of them. This is a bottom line business and the bottom line was Hoke got wins his first year. A coach is a genius when he win, a bozo when he loses.
I think teams that perform the best are teams that are led from within. I think the 2011 team had really solid senior leadership. I think the 1997 also had superior leadership. Also turnovers, the 2011 team benefited greatly from a huge turnover margin. Realistically that 2011 team probably should have been 9-4 rather than 11-2, and 9-4 doesn’t look nearly as good. I think Hoke lucked into a team with good senior leadership, he did not develop it himself, but got credit for it.
October 8th, 2014 at 3:13 PM ^
If Rich Rod had been given $1 million to hire Jeff Casteel, the Wolverines might very well have run the table in 2011. David Brandon not only set the program back another five years, but, in all probability, he cost Denard Robinson the Heisman Trophy.
October 8th, 2014 at 4:25 PM ^
I'm reminded of a fitness exam I took when I was much younger. One guy sat on a bench during the running portion of the test, then claimed to have finished two miles during the twelve minutes. When it was pointed out that he couldn't possibly have run two miles while sitting, he said "but I would have, if I had run."
October 8th, 2014 at 9:14 PM ^
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
October 8th, 2014 at 4:03 PM ^
Is the decision-making process in the program different now than it was in 2011? How much external pressure is exerted on the staff now, as opposed to three years ago?
It's natural to assume that command-level decisions are being made by the head coach, but I don't know that that assumption's justified here. I think the simplest explanation for the split-personality nature of a lot of the decisions that have been made is that more than one personality is making the decisions, and that that problem's gotten worse over time.
It's felt that way to me from day 1. It made absolutely no sense to commit to power football and hire the mad bomber Al Borges as OC. There had to be different people behind those two decisions.
I think Brandon had already made a decision to re-brand the program as "smashmouth, traditional Michigan football" (never mind whether that's really the tradition at Michigan, with its legacy of outstanding QBs and receivers) and hired Hoke with the intention that he'd carry out the plan. Hoke's a d-line guy, after all, and likes that kind of football. Of course he also likes winning, and he already had something that was working so he brought it with him.
The problem was that Borges is anything but a smashmouth OC, and Brandon couldn't have been in a position to force the issue in the face of 11-2 and a Sugar Bowl win. There was lots of talk about power football but the product on the field was something completely different, something much more in line with Borges's prior work than it was with the branding project (and what must have been worse, the changes that were made from the SDSU offense were in the direction of RR's spread, the opposite direction from the project).
But what Brandon couldn't do at 11-2, maybe he could start to do when the next year opened 2-2. This staff was hired to do a job, after all, and it was high time they got to work on it.
Isn't it a plausible explanation for the odd mix of gameplans? How could 2013 Iowa and 2013 OSU be the same OC? It would all be unthinkable tinfoil stuff if it weren't for the known fact that the OC does his film work with the AD but w/o the HC. That may not be so good for the on-field product but it is one way to make sure the plan is executed.
Have I gone off the deep end here?
October 8th, 2014 at 4:20 PM ^
October 8th, 2014 at 4:43 PM ^
October 8th, 2014 at 4:53 PM ^
I seriously started doubting the coaching staff in year 2. When Denard got hurt, and Bellomy threw (4 or 5?) interceptions and the guy who should've been our backup quarterback was playing reciever and not prepared to take over. I couldn't believe that they seriously considered Bellomy a good enough backup.
Then they decided to use Denard as a running back, except they only put him on the field when he was going to get the ball. Maybe an overstatement, but it felt like ANY time he was on the field, he got the ball, and every defense we played knew it. For the rest of that season, if Denard was on the field, key on him because he's getting the ball. They only put him on the field when they were gonna give him the ball, than they took him off the field. In a way I thought that Denard's injury could be a blessing in disguise, because it would let Devin get experience and allow us to have an incredibly dynamic backfield with Devin and Denard out there at the same time. Borges and Hoke totally blew that situation.
Those two things put doubts in my mind about the judgement and ability of the staff, and, obviously, things have gone downhill since.