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Part of it is on Hoke.

  • elmn12 said...

    It's so weird that when it comes to Michigan basketball we are talking about a national championship because now Michigan has "big time talent" that can win it all. But when it comes to football that same principle doesn't apply.

    Eh, when was the last time we won a Big ten title. That's the last time I felt we had any right to talk about national championship possibilities.

    Elderpanda ●

  • elmn12 said...

    It's so weird that when it comes to Michigan basketball we are talking about a national championship because now Michigan has "big time talent" that can win it all. But when it comes to football that same principle doesn't apply.

    That's cuz a lot of young posters think denard is the greatest qb ever to play the game. We were limited with him at qb. Are best years are ahead of us.

    lestat

  • Elderpanda said...

    Eh, when was the last time we won a Big ten title. That's the last time I felt we had any right to talk about national championship possibilities.

    Michigan won the B1G championship last year for basketball. For football I think the last one was in 2004. My point is that for some reason people realized that Michigan basketball wouldn't compete for a NC until they had good enough players, but that same idea is unacceptable for football. Michigan doesn't have the talent to win a NC in football yet and people don't seem to recognize that. I'm not saying that there isn't any talent on this team, but it's uneven which can lead to inconsistent performances imo.

    hownowbrowncow ●

  • lestat said...

    That's cuz a lot of young posters think denard is the greatest qb ever to play the game. We were limited with him at qb. Are best years are ahead of us.

    Michigan was limited, but I also think he gave Michigan the best chance of winning his sophomore and junior years. It didn't appear that Gardner passed him in terms of productiveness until Denard was a senior.

    hownowbrowncow ●

  • I completely agree with the original post. I want to hear Hoke say that this game was the coaches fault and that he was responsible. But what are you going to change going forward to make things better?

    signature image signature image signature image

    Awink2

  • lestat said...

    How many people were screaming for brian kelly's job a year ago. How foolish do they look now? Look in the mirror! For anybody to say Michigan is heading in the wrong direction is foolish.

    First of all, you need to settle down. Because practically *nobody* is calling for Brady Hoke's job, in fact the very post of mine you quote makes it very explicit. I by the way never ridiculed Brian Kelly and in fact defended him in those seasons.

    What I *am* saying is that we need to step our game up because, to put it brutally, anyone who thinks Lloydball is going to cut it just because RR was much worse is wrong. It's a call against "it's a good season, we only lost to good teams" complacency, the beginnings of which I can already see creep in here. It's a call to recognize the failure of offensive coaching we saw yesterday, a failure so immense that national commentators talk about how bad Al Borges was, and accepting that such failure in big games against rivals isn't going to cut it either in the long run.

    Hoke deserves more time and he will get more time, no doubt about it, but the 10 win plateau needs to be the standard and routine at Michigan. 8-4 is not a good season.

    UMSkeletor

  • i don't know if the headset would matter.

    The playcalling is problematic because they haven't been able to get the OL to perform acceptably all year long. If Michigan could pull off any sort of under center run game, then the constant play action and 3rd and 4th down playcalling wouldn't seem so absurd.

    Borges seems to revert back to his lizard brain and goes back to what he knows in the face of defensive adjustments, even when it doesn't suit the personnel AT ALL. Hoke just needs to reel him in sometimes, and maybe just scream into his assistant's headset, "Run the F***in VEER!"

    bkp1883 ●

  • UMSkeletor said...

    First of all, you need to settle down. Because practically *nobody* is calling for Brady Hoke's job, in fact the very post of mine you quote makes it very explicit. I by the way never ridiculed Brian Kelly and in fact defended him in those seasons.

    What I *am* saying is that we need to step our game up because, to put it brutally, anyone who thinks Lloydball is going to cut it just because RR was much worse is wrong. It's a call against "it's a good season, we only lost to good teams" complacency, the beginnings of which I can already see creep in here. It's a call to recognize the failure of offensive coaching we saw yesterday, a failure so immense that national commentators talk about how bad Al Borges was, and accepting that such failure in big games against rivals isn't going to cut it either in the long run.

    Hoke deserves more time and he will get more time, no doubt about it, but the 10 win plateau needs to be the standard and routine at Michigan. 8-4 is not a good season.

    ^^^^^^^^this

    signature image

    LEXwolverine1 ●

  • UMSkeletor said...

    Notre Dame is two years removed from getting embarrassed by Navy and Tulsa and they are in the National Championship game.

    I know what you are saying, but you gotta understand that it's a cut throat world out there and it's only getting harsher. With Meyer at OSU and Notre Dame legitimately a good team, there isn't much room for error if we want to be relevant again on the national stage (which still is the expectation for Michigan). How many recruits have we lost to Notre Dame while they were a trainwreck, so if those two teams genuinely can compete for NCs in the foreseeable future, we can't be far behind or we will further behind every year.

    Obviously I'm not saying Hoke needs to go and unless next year is a losing season I don't think he should be on the hot seat any time soon, but we also need to understand the scenario. Nobody significant cares how we compare to Rich Rod's Michigan, what matters is how we compare to Urban Meyer's Ohio State, Brian Kelly's Notre Dame and other significant national players. It's maybe unfair but it is what it is.

    That same ND was 8-5 last year. That was Kelly's year two. And we've all known from day one that our offense was going to be a bit of a duct tape and superglue job until Hoke can get pro style players in to replace all the spread players recruited by RR. Is 8-4 a disappointment? Yes, but a minor one. Preseason we were listed by Vegas as undereogs in four games ... Bama, ND, UNL and OSU. All are good teams and all four games were on the road. Would it have been nice to win one or two of them? Yes, but we didn't. You people are acting like we lost four home games to teams we clearly should have beaten. Get a grip. We beat who we were supposed to beat and lost to who we were supposed to lose to. Hoke is working with the players recruited by RR for an entirely different system. Give him enough time to at least get some WRs and TEs and RBs and FBs on the field who he recruited. Oh, yeah, and a QB.

    MrWoodson ●

  • MrWoodson said...

    That same ND was 8-5 last year. That was Kelly's year two. And we've all known from day one that our offense was going to be a bit of a duct tape and superglue job until Hoke can get pro style players in to replace all the spread players recruited by RR. Is 8-4 a disappointment? Yes, but a minor one. Preseason we were listed by Vegas as undereogs in four games ... Bama, ND, UNL and OSU. All are good teams and all four games were on the road. Would it have been nice to win one or two of them? Yes, but we didn't. You people are acting like we lost four home games to teams we clearly should have beaten. Get a grip. We beat who we were supposed to beat and lost to who we were supposed to lose to. Hoke is working with the players recruited by RR for an entirely different system. Give him enough time to at least get some WRs and TEs and RBs and FBs on the field who he recruited. Oh, yeah, and a QB.

    It's like you guys read one thing and then process it as another thing. You basically repeat the same things I responded to in the post you quote.

    I will nevertheless respond to a few things you say. One, you aren't ever supposed to lose to anyone. That's a loser's mentality. If Michigan is "supposed" to lose in Columbus, we can cancel football and be the University of Chicago.

    Two, one can't have it both ways. If you read my posts through the last two seasons (and further back on GBW if it's possible) you will find that I am anything but a Denard Robinson fanboy or ever had any illusions about what he brings to the table. But even I can't help but think that it's a bit funny how quickly the guy who people talked about as a Heisman candidate and the guy mostly responsible for the media having us at #8 in the preseason poll has become an excuse for our offensive coaches. You don't need to tell me that Al Borges finds it hard to coach a guy like Denard Robinson, but one can't go from viewing Denard as an asset when we win to considering him a burden when we lose. Denard had a skillset that if properly utilized would make for a pretty explosive offense. Again, we both know Borges didn't do that but then maybe that is just a tiny bit on Borges, too?

    UMSkeletor

  • UMSkeletor said...

    First of all, you need to settle down. Because practically *nobody* is calling for Brady Hoke's job, in fact the very post of mine you quote makes it very explicit. I by the way never ridiculed Brian Kelly and in fact defended him in those seasons.

    What I *am* saying is that we need to step our game up because, to put it brutally, anyone who thinks Lloydball is going to cut it just because RR was much worse is wrong. It's a call against "it's a good season, we only lost to good teams" complacency, the beginnings of which I can already see creep in here. It's a call to recognize the failure of offensive coaching we saw yesterday, a failure so immense that national commentators talk about how bad Al Borges was, and accepting that such failure in big games against rivals isn't going to cut it either in the long run.

    Hoke deserves more time and he will get more time, no doubt about it, but the 10 win plateau needs to be the standard and routine at Michigan. 8-4 is not a good season.

    Agreed

    signature image signature image signature image

    J Wil23 ●

  • lestat said...

    Ok good comparison. Carr was 16-8 after 2 years. With a team he helped recruit. Hoke is 19-6 with a game left. He didn't recruit any of the senior leaders. Would you say you guys are rushing to judgment! Just a tiny bit! Well I will! You people are rushing to judgment & you look foolish.

    Lloyd actually won on the road against good teams....end of story.

    JRoss24 ●

  • Hoke is what his record says he is period.......that is a big enough sample of work.

    N E Buck

  • The fact is, Michigan is operating w/ minimal talent right now. The loss yesterday was tough, and it definitely felt like the game was given away. But Hoke isn't the one who fumbled 3 times, or couldn't get push for 1 yard.

    How many Juniors/Seniors on this Michigan team are going to be NFL players? Guaranteed in 2 years (with Hokes classes) that number will be doubled, and 10x better coached. He has some adjustments & improvements to make as a coach, but I think last year's season inflated everyone's expectations of what could/should happen this year. Nebraska was the only loss where the other team didn't obviously have more top-end talent.

    thevictor_11

  • sircharles11 said...

    You people do realize that the Big Ten sucked this year right?And we still missed the game.

    lol at some of you giving Hoke 4-5 years. Next year is must win

    Must win what?

    xxmgobluexx

  • UMSkeletor said...

    I will nevertheless respond to a few things you say. One, you aren't ever supposed to lose to anyone. That's a loser's mentality. If Michigan is "supposed" to lose in Columbus, we can cancel football and be the University of Chicago.

    One way I try and look at it is, those teams aren't expecting to lose either. What MrWoodson points out is taking the homerism out of it with the Vegas lines.

    Last year Michigan played above expectations, this year they played to expectations.

    xxmgobluexx

  • UMSkeletor said...

    It's like you guys read one thing and then process it as another thing. You basically repeat the same things I responded to in the post you quote.

    I will nevertheless respond to a few things you say. One, you aren't ever supposed to lose to anyone. That's a loser's mentality. If Michigan is "supposed" to lose in Columbus, we can cancel football and be the University of Chicago.

    Two, one can't have it both ways. If you read my posts through the last two seasons (and further back on GBW if it's possible) you will find that I am anything but a Denard Robinson fanboy or ever had any illusions about what he brings to the table. But even I can't help but think that it's a bit funny how quickly the guy who people talked about as a Heisman candidate and the guy mostly responsible for the media having us at #8 in the preseason poll has become an excuse for our offensive coaches. You don't need to tell me that Al Borges finds it hard to coach a guy like Denard Robinson, but one can't go from viewing Denard as an asset when we win to considering him a burden when we lose. Denard had a skillset that if properly utilized would make for a pretty explosive offense. Again, we both know Borges didn't do that but then maybe that is just a tiny bit on Borges, too?

    Wrong. There is a probability of winning and losing every game. No team has a 100% probability of winning every game. That's delusional. And like it or not, we are going to play some games in which the probability we will win is below 50%. That is just a fact. If you have trouble with that concept, you should find a different past time ... one you actually can comprehend. Football is not for everyone.

    MrWoodson ●

  • N E Buck said...

    Hoke is what his record says he is period.......that is a big enough sample of work.

    And Urban's a douche who will be less successful in Columbus than the Vest and who will come up with an excuse to bow out early as that fact becomes apparent. He peaked years ago and has a mediocre staff, one nowhere near as talented as the one he had in Gainesville.

    This post was edited by MrWoodson on 11/25/2012 at 9:32 AM

    MrWoodson ●

  • MrWoodson said...

    That same ND was 8-5 last year. That was Kelly's year two. And we've all known from day one that our offense was going to be a bit of a duct tape and superglue job until Hoke can get pro style players in to replace all the spread players recruited by RR. Is 8-4 a disappointment? Yes, but a minor one. Preseason we were listed by Vegas as undereogs in four games ... Bama, ND, UNL and OSU. All are good teams and all four games were on the road. Would it have been nice to win one or two of them? Yes, but we didn't. You people are acting like we lost four home games to teams we clearly should have beaten. Get a grip. We beat who we were supposed to beat and lost to who we were supposed to lose to. Hoke is working with the players recruited by RR for an entirely different system. Give him enough time to at least get some WRs and TEs and RBs and FBs on the field who he recruited. Oh, yeah, and a QB.

    I agree with you, but that is not an excuse to call plays that obviously do not put your players in position to succeed. IMO he needs to wear a headset and study some offensive football in the off-season because Borges is not competent enough to just have full reign over the play-calling.

    Amazinglyblue78

  • xxmgobluexx said...

    Must win what?

    Big Ten

    signature image signature image signature image

    sircharles11

  • MrWoodson said...

    Wrong. There is a probability of winning and losing every game. No team has a 100% probability of winning every game. That's delusional. And like it or not, we are going to play some games in which the probability we will win is below 50%. That is just a fact. If you have trouble with that concept, you should find a different past time ... one you actually can comprehend. Football is not for everyone.

    Well thanks for explaining that, buddy. I think I understand football just fine. I have a problem with your choice of words and your attitude as well. You said we were supposed to lose, that's not what having a lower probability of winning than the other team means.

    Before the first snap is taken the odds, the probabilities are all academic as the real odds of two teams playing are only becoming obvious as you see them compete head-to-head. This is of particular importance in college football where so much is perception and schedules are so uneven that all judgment of quality is highly subjective.

    And the reality of the situation was that yes Alabama was clearly a class above us, but it also is reality that if we score just one touchdown in the 2nd half in Columbus we win the game. If we score a touchdown at all vs Notre Dame we win. That's the numbers. That's on Coach Borges.

    I may also add just as an explanation of the concept that bookies obviously factor coaching into their appraisals, so really what you can say is that the team - coaching included - performed as the bookies expected. That doesn't really excuse the coaches, does it? Because there is a good chance that if our coach was Urban Meyer or Jim Harbaugh the odds would have looked different. Again, I am saying this only to illustrate how useless bookies' odds are in this discussion about coach Borges and the level of performance we hope for with regards to Michigan football.

    UMSkeletor

  • Amazinglyblue78 said...

    I agree with you, but that is not an excuse to call plays that obviously do not put your players in position to succeed. IMO he needs to wear a headset and study some offensive football in the off-season because Borges is not competent enough to just have full reign over the play-calling.

    I don't want to get into the headset debate. IMO it's optics. And Mitch Again has the facts correct. As for bad play calling, OCs and DCs are human. They are going to make mistakes. Same with players. Why is no one criticizing Mattison for the totally wide open WRs that led to TDs in the first half? It was Gerg 2.0. The fact is that this is a team effort. Coaches can call the perfect plays but players sometimes screw up. And coaches sometimes call awful plays but players find a way to bail them out. No one is perfect and there are plenty of reasons we lost this game. Borges didn't fumble twice or throw a pick in the second half. Just like he didn't throw five picks and fumble the ball in the red zone against ND. And just like he didn't cause Denard to get knocked out of the game with a weird ulnar nerve injury in Lincoln. These were all destined to be close games from the start. We are not so uber talented that we can make mistakes and absorb key injuries and win anyway. And I am not saying Borges doesn't share some of the blame. But so does Mattison and so does Hoke. Hoke made a very questionable call to go for it on 4th and 3 and no one is calling for his head over that. Football is a team game. It's never one coach or player who is responsible for a W or a L. I know many want to put this L on Borges. It's simple. It's easy. And it makes it seem as if everything else is ok. But it's not. This team is still a work in progress. Give the staff time to get the pieces they need and upgrade the talent from the RR years. After that, if we are still losing four games a season, I will be the first person to start calling for heads. Today is too soon.

    This post has been edited 2 times, most recently by MrWoodson on 11/25/2012 at 10:13 AM

    MrWoodson ●

  • MrWoodson said...

    I don't want to get into the headset debate. IMO it's optics. And Mitch Again has the facts correct. As for bad play calling, OCs and DCs are human. They are going to make mistakes. Same with players. Why is no one criticizing Mattison for the totally wide open WRs that led to TDs in the firsf half? It was Gerg 2.0. The fact is that this is a team effort. Coaches can call the perfect plays but players sometimes screw up. And coaches sometimes call awful plays but players find a way to bail them out. No one is perfect and there are plenty of reasons we lost this game. Borges didn't fumble twice or throw a pick in the second half. Just like he didn't throw five picks and fumble the ball in the red zone against ND. And just like he didn't cause Denard to get knocked out of the game with a weird ulnar nerve injury in Lincoln. These were all destined to be close games from the start. We are not so uber talented that we can make mistakes and absorb key injuries an win anyway. And I am not saying Borges doesn't share some of the blame. But so does Mattison and so does Hoke. Hoke made a very questionable call to go for it on 4th and 3 and no one is calling for his head over that. Football is a team game. It's never one coach or player who is responsible for a W or a L. I know many want to put this L on Borges. It's simple. It's easy. And it makes it seem as if everything else is ok. But it's not. This team is still a work in progress. Give the staff time to get the pieces they need and upgrade the talent from the RR years.

    No one blames Mattison because the defense kept us in the game by forcing those field goals....after Hoke and Borges decided to go for it and give ball up on our own 48!

    signature image signature image signature image

    sircharles11

  • Last year, no one was expecting him to go 11-2 with a BCS bowl appearance, which elevated expectations for this season despite the fact that it was clear our roster was still thin at positions that Borges/Hoke needed to have depth on offense.

    This year before the season, everyone was predicting an 8-4/9-3 type season, but now that we've finished 8-4, people want serious changes. Again, I think our expectations were elevated based off of last season, and the fact that we were so close in the ND and osu games to winning those. Regardless, we finished RIGHT WHERE WE THOUGHT WE WOULD.

    If Hoke is a defensive guy and defers to his offensive coordinator, then that's what he does. No one accuses Chip Kelly of being a bad coach at Oregon despite the fact he's gone on record and said he has no idea what the defense is doing during games.

    One thing I love about Hoke is he beats the teams he's supposed to beat. He hasn't yet had a "WTF" loss where he loses to a team that, on paper, he should beat. I can't tell you how much I hated Lloyd's random ass losses to teams he should have beat. As the roster evolves, and he builds depth on the lines and (hopefully) at the skill positions, there will be more of those games where, on paper, we should beat the opposition. This year, Alabama, ND, and osu were just flat out better teams than we were, and we were still in a position to win 2 of those.

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    vcmarsh1

  • sircharles11 said...

    No one blames Mattison because the defense kept us in the game by forcing those field goals....after Hoke and Borges decided to go for it and give ball up on our own 48!

    Carlos Hyde ran for 146 yards against us yesterday. The only team he ran for more against all season is Indiana (156 yards). Mattison is in charge of the defense isn't he? And BM completed a 52 yard pass to a wide open Devin Smith in the first half that set up OSU's first TD. Was that Borges' fault, too? We lost by five points on the road to a team with as much or more talent than we have. And there are reasons why on both sides of the ball.

    This post has been edited 4 times, most recently by MrWoodson on 11/25/2012 at 10:31 AM

    MrWoodson ●

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