Saturday, May 17, 2014

MLive: Former Michigan football players say Hoke is right man but needs to win now

Nick Baumgardner talks to some former players about Brady Hoke's job status. At best, Hoke can have two more mediocre seasons (with 8-ish wins) before he runs out of time at Michigan. Hopefully 2014 includes 9, 10, or more wins.

Hit the jump for a few attractive women, particularly the one in #3.






11 comments:

  1. 8 wins is the floor (barely) ... a 7-win season spells trouble.

    But with 8 wins he has to beat ND and either MSU or OSU. None of the four losses can be ugly, mistake-filled games.

    9 wins buys him some breathing room, but again ... ND and either MSU or OSU.

    10 wins but losses to MSU and OSU keeps the "can he win the big game?" fires burning.

    Win the Big 10 championship and he's safe.

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  2. Sorry, but this season is the end of Hoke's slack. Another 8 win season, and he should be gone. He took over a 7-5 team, and he's been bringing in (supposedly) top-notch talent ever since. If he can't improve more than one game in four years, he is NOT the guy for this job. Not that he should necessarily have to get this team to the peak of where they could be this year, but he needs to show some serious improvement over last year, and from the start of the season to the end. Yes, the O-line is still not as experienced as you'd like for a championship level team, but you can't put all of this team's troubles on the fact that a couple of guys on the Oline are a year short on experience. The kind of talent Hoke has been pulling in should not take until the 4th or 5th year in the program to make an impact. And the defense has no excuse at all not to be very good. They have depth and experience everywhere, and if they're still struggling to stop mediocre teams, then Mattison's player development is a failure.

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  3. 7 wins = fired.
    8 wins = probably okay, but you better not crap the bed in the bowl game, or above result will occur
    9+ wins = safe

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    1. Sorry, but I still don't see how you come up with a job-saving season with only 8 wins. Who are you losing to in that case? ND, MSU, OSU, Penn State? That's basically losing every big game, every game we've BEEN losing, plus ND who we've mostly been beating. Even if we win one of those, then that means we've lost to a weak team that we shouldn't have lost to. Still not good.

      I think 9-3 is the minimum that Hoke needs to achieve this year, and we'd better not be hanging on at the end against any cupcakes, and we'd better be keeping things relatively close in the losses. We need to have some real momentum going at the end of the season, and look unmistakably like a program on the rise. I don't see how we do that with 4 RS losses.

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  4. what sort of recruiting will UM see in the foreseeable future if the Hoke gets canned? No top tier recruits will consider a program in chaos

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    1. Well, what kind of recruiting will we see in the future if we're perennially 8-4, and aren't sending guys to the NFL? You can only throw good money after bad for so long.

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    2. If we're perennially 8-4, we will get recruits that are able to win us 8 games a season. That's built into the definition of "perennially".

      Also, we have sent some guys into the NFL. We just had a big one in this year's first round. The NFL will never be a problem under Hoke, just like it was never a problem under Lloyd.

      Winning 8 games a season might not be good enough. Keep hammering away at that one.

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  5. Hoke is a delegator and is right for the program as long as he has top quality coordinators and position coaches. His fail last year was clearly Borges (and possibly Fund) but now Borges is gone and we have an excellent o-coordinator who Funk will probably work better with. My main concerns now are Mark Smith, Fred Jackson, and Curt Mallory.

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  6. He has to start winning road games. If you can't do that, you're not the coach for this program. I do like him, and I am rooting for him, but that's the bottom line.

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    1. There is a lot of truth in this. I'll forgive the MSU road loss because the Spartans were playing out of their minds last year. But losses to Penn State and Iowa on the road should not have happened. Win those games and Michigan is 9-3. Losses to rivals MSU and OSU would still hurt, but with a 9-3 regular season we'd be having a different discussion right now.

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    2. All of the above summations, except possibly, no, the one about "team in chaos" is unacceptable. We are in chaos now. We have to begin winning again, and by that I mean double digits. I am not talking about job saving. We are past that point. Let's face it, Brady's only "Michigan standard season was his first, running primarily RR's offense along with a defense that was finally at the correct number, doubling the size LC left it at which was roughly 21, unbelievable for a program of this caliber. Many people forget when RR took over, we were basically playing minus one recruiting class. RR got the numbers back and Brady has steadily recruited with the best in the nation since that time. The mention of Brady being a delegator, to me, is perhaps the major problem. Perhaps the most important attribute of great coaching given reasonable talent-and we have much more than that- is the ability to motivate. And by motivation, I am including motivating not only the players, but the entire staff to perform at optimum level on all occasions with the understanding that each snap in practice is equally important as the ones in the game, and mistakes are corrected immediately. Adjustments, not mistakes, are included as a part of Saturdays' performances. We simply cannot experience debacles of the type that happened against PSU last season. Our talent level is so much higher than any other school in the league with the exception of OSU that poor coaching can be the only result on the line that is underscored twice. It is obvious that Brady is a great recruiter and this may very well be the reason he ultimately ended as winners at his prior stops. One can with superior talent in lower classes, not in the BIG. Even with an OC on board that will simplify things and ensure that we do not move to Level 2 plays until we master Level 1, although a solid addition is not enough. Those players have to play with the intensity and desire they displayed to earn their offers, and ultimately the confidence in knowing they will win each game prior to the opening kickoff. And it comes from one man and it's not a difficult thing if you really are a legit BIG coach. Realizing that all pieces are in place is a comfort, a great comfort for any HC. Realizing your staff is teaching the way you want things taught-yes, the HC does this even to Super Bowl and BCS winning coordinators leaves the final piece. These kids will beat anyone on their regular season schedule if Brady is simply able to convince them they are the better coached, better prepared team than anyone they will face, and they possess the ability to overcome, both through unity in mission and belief in one another anything they might face during the game that playing their best from the opening whistle until the end of the game can result in nothing but a victory. If he can do this beginning with game one the desire for and knowledge of how to achieve their only goal, winning, victory will follow victory and losing will not even be an option. Time to step up Mr. Hoke. You have one thing left to prove. Get those heads straight and all staring at the same target, sir.

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