[To listen to the audio version, click here: Bacon_Final_Hoke_11-30-12]
Exactly one year ago, Brady Hoke was the darling of Michigan football fans.
He’d charmed even the doubters at his first press conference – where he coined his now famous phrase, “This is Michigan, for God’s sake!” — then led a team that had averaged just five wins a season over the previous three years to a 10-2 regular-season record, including thrilling wins over Notre Dame, Nebraska and arch-rival Ohio State. Then he capped it all off with an overtime upset of Virginia Tech in the prestigious Sugar Bowl – Michigan’s first BCS bowl victory since a young man named Tom Brady beat Alabama on January 1, 2000.
The man could do no wrong. When Hoke started referring to injuries as “boo-boos” and Ohio State as “Ohio,” fans did not think he was an ignoramus who knew nothing about the greatest rivalry in sports – as they surely would have if Rich Rodriguez had said the same things — but a motivational genius, who understood exactly what the duel was all about.
When fans noticed Hoke did not wear a headset during games – unlike just about every other coach in the country – they did not conclude he was an out-of-touch, glorified cheerleader, but a master delegator and teacher, trusting the play calling to his assistants while he focused on coaching his players.
When you’re winning, everything’s cool. But when you start losing, the same people who patted you on the back start questioning your quirks.
So, this year, after the Wolverines got smoked by top-ranked Alabama, then lost to Notre Dame, Nebraska and Ohio State – three teams they beat last year – some fans dusted off their pitchforks and torches, and more will surely follow suit if the Wolverines lose their bowl game.
But Hoke’s phenomenal freshman year was just as predictable as his sophomore slump. In fact, I predicted both – and this, from the same guy who guessed just about everything wrong from 2007 through 2010, what I call my “unfortunate streak of poor prognostication.”
My calculations were pretty simple: Last season, almost all of Michigan’s key players returned, including an exceptional class of senior leaders. The schedule was much easier, too, with all but one of their big games at home. Perhaps most important, the defense simply had to be better (as my father often tells me, “When you’re on the floor, you can’t fall out of bed”) – and it was, dramatically. I figured all that had to be worth at least two wins, maybe three, and that proved true.
Likewise, when I predicted Michigan would go 8-4 this year, I made my calculation on the same criteria, just in reverse: the schedule would be substantially tougher, opening with Alabama in Dallas, then playing improved Notre Dame, Nebraska and Ohio State squads, all on the road; and they had lost key players like Ryan Van Bergen, Mike Martin, and David Molk, who might have been the toughest to replace. Plus, their leadership and luck were bound to dip, at least a little – and they did.
Sure enough, now they’re 8-4 – and just to get there, they needed last second comebacks against Michigan State and Northwestern. Because Penn State and Ohio State are both ineligible to go to bowl games this year, Michigan will move up in the bowl game pecking order, and therefore will have to play a tougher team than expected – and probably lose, which would leave them with an uninspiring 8-5 record.
But to the fans, it’s not just whether you win or lose – wait, what am I saying? Of course it is! Michigan fans, to their credit, do not believe in a win-at-all costs program, and I’m confident Hoke doesn’t, either. But it’s also the way they’re losing that’s making some fans rummage for their pitchforks.
If you’re going to let your assistant coaches pick your plays, as Hoke does, you better pick those assistants very carefully. Defensive coordinator Greg Mattison transformed Michigan’s defense from one of the worst to one of the best in his first season, with the same players, and he’s kept his defense right up there this year, with arguably less talent. I’ve never seen anything like it. If he’s not the best defensive coordinator in the country, I’d like to see who is.
But on offense, coordinator Al Borges took a thoroughbred offense, led by one-of-a-kind Denard Robinson, and reduced it to a plow horse. In the final plays of last week’s 26-21 loss to Ohio State, Robinson sat on the bench – which didn’t sit well with anyone, even the announcers.
But Robinson didn’t sign up to play for these coaches, and these coaches did not recruit him, either. It won’t be fair to judge Hoke until his recruits become his players, and that takes a few years.
By then, fans will either find Hoke’s style charming or cheesy, and it won’t depend on his press conferences, his football philosophy or his headset, just one number: how many games he wins.
As General MacArthur once said, “There is no substitute for victory.”
And that goes double when you’re playing Ohio State.
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Friday night, Dan Chace’s documentary, “PERSERVERENCE: The Story of Dr. Billy Taylor,” premiers at the Michigan Theater at 7:30 and 9:55. It’s received excellent reviews, and is about an hour long, followed by a question-and-answer session with Dan and Dr. Taylor. For information and tickets, please go to perserverencefilm.com, michtheater.org/shows/perserverance.
Radio stuff: On Friday mornings, these commentaries run at 8:50 on Michigan Radio (91.7 Ann Arbor/Detroit, Flint, Grand Rapids), and a few minutes later, I join Sam Webb and Ira Weintraub LIVE from 9:05 to 9:25 on WTKA.com, 1050 AM. And on Sunday mornings, from the start of football season to the end of March Madness, I co-host “Off the Field” with the legendary Jamie Morris on WTKA from 10-11 a.m. And yes, there will be a quiz, so “stop what you’re doing, and listen!”
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weather? how about whether?
I can’t fix the “weather” on the Facebook post, even after I fixed it on the Blog. Awesome!
How can you tell whether the author knows the difference between whether and weather? I do not know. But then, no one can fix the whether — er, weather.
I like ‘weather’ in the title . . . as in ‘fair weather fans.’
Of course, as a Michigan fan, this was a disappointing day. But, the surprise of the day was 100,000 Ohio State fans cheering Jim Tressel as past players hoisted the violator up on their shoulders. The next scene will be USC adulating OJ Simpson. I don’t even want to think about what will happen at Penn State.
Not surprising at all. An NC and his record against Michigan are what matters. Not lies. Not violations. and, evidently, not sanctions.
GO BLUE !
John – right on the head with this one. M fans can be, well, fickle. Borges has been working with a hybrid scheme and talent and that is not easy. Denard is fabulous, but he can also be binary too. If as you say the offense is struggling with their guys in it then a fair analysis can be had. Look to our south and west to see how Mr. Kelly has faired finally having his dudes in his system.
When I moved to Columbus, Ohio in 1966, and sat on the Michigan side for the Ohio State game, I was a big Michigan fan. In a very short time I became a big Woody Hayes fan, not for his football prowess, but for the things he did off the playing field. When Newell Miller, wintertime neighbor in Bradenton, Florida, touted me on your latest book, Three and Out I began an odyssey into Bo and Michigan football and Woody Hayes and Ohio State football. I remain a big Woody Hayes and Bo fan, a Michigan University fan for their class, but it is no longer a life and death matter who wins that last game of the Big Ten season.
My only concern now is that both universities run a quality program, something that The Ohio State University has failed to do in recent years, replacing character with winning at any cost. Michigan’s problems surfaced with the basketball team, surfacing much later, andt did not result in sanctions.
Let’s do away with the NCAA, have the pro teams set up farm team schools for those who don’t want an education,
and award scholarships to those who want to be students and receive a quality education. The Titanic hit the iceberg when universities sold out to television and allowed the inmates to run the institution, using Title Nine as the excuse. Title Nine originators failed to recognize that unintended consequences always follow legislation of this type, so here we stand rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic after it hit the iceberg. We are sinking, film at eleven.
I should mention in passing that my prep school football coach had been on Fritz Crisler’s staff and brought his films and playbook with him, with Crisler’s blessing, to our little school in suburban St. Louis. I believe that we were the best coached high school team in the country, and that was the beginning of my love affair with Michigan football.
I think it is worth pointing out that 3 of the teams we lost to have a combined 35-1 record. If you include Nebraska in the mix, it is 45-3, and we lost Denard to injury in that game. We’ll know what this offense is about when Coach Borges is calling plays with the players recruited for his particular style. No panic in my living room, none at all. Nice blog!
Well written and very truthful about fans and society in general. I enjoyed watching this 8-4 team play. I also predicted 8 wins with a “must win” game against Sparty. I think our schedule sets up nicely next year year and hopefully the offensive line improves so we can finally win our division. It is still very important to me that Brady conducts the program the right way even if it means putting his team in a more difficult position to win.
No panic here. I think Beilein has shown how patience and “doing it the right way” can pay off. And it feels sweeter to win this way. I’m not happy with the lost creativity from Borges at times, but am willing to wait for the full install to be complete. Wish we could get Loeffler back to coach QB and groom him to replace Al someday, but that’s probably not realistic. That said, I have no desire for blind stubbornness. I loved Bo – but let’s not forget how hard it could be to go off tackle four times in a row and get stuffed sometimes out of principle!
I, too, enjoyed this season, although the Nebraska game was hard to take. Considering that we put almost all of our eggs in the Denard Robinson basket, it is remarkable that we were able to do what we did this year-kudos to Devon Gardner. I am sorry that the game plan that we executed against Iowa was not used at OSU. However, am I the only one who just loved Denard’s touchdown run, making the OSU players look like Larry and Curly out there? That image will be bringing a smile to my face for a long time. I certainly will miss Denard next year. He has given the fans a lot of great moments, a lot of great games. But I am looking forward to next year, having great confidence in Brady Hoke doing it “the right way”.