It hard to find words to explain this season. The best thing I can say is: it's almost over. A week from today, we will hopefully have step 2 complete towards a new program.
Saturday was another example of "how to beat yourself". Remember when Michigan used to do that against good teams? This program has dropped so low, we are now doing it against bad teams. .
People talk about upsetting OSU, stranger things have happened, but I wouldn't bet on it. This is a beaten team, a team that can't take another punch. When "Fleet" returned that punt that was called back, the game was over. This team is tired of taking punches and went to a knee. I wouldn't be surprised if this locker room wasn't that interested in playing another bowl game.
So now what?
Option 1: Is what I expect to happen. Michigan gets beat in CBus this weekend. Hoke resigns/gets fired on Monday. There are some folks that believe a "separation agreement" might already be in place. You could tell by looking at Hoke on Saturday, this was his last game in the Big House.
Option 2: Michigan elects to "Earl Bruce" Hoke and fires him today. This basically is a motivational tactic as the team gets to travel to CBUS for one last game for coach. I doubt this will happen, unless Hoke wants to announce he has resigned at the end of the season.
This nightmare will be over a week from today. Then another type of season will start: hunting season for a new head coach.
I sure hope Jim Hackett has spent the last month paving the road to the next Michigan coach and not trying to find paperclips. Please have had contact with Jimmy's agent and not a big box of paperclips on your desk.
A week away............................
Side note: How distracted are the Michigan coaches going to be this week? Are they thinking about moving? changing kids schools, who might be interested in hiring them? It's only human nature.
Monday, November 24, 2014
Michigan Monday: Now What?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
11 comments:
Responding to yesterdays comment from Scot K on Nus's failings. In my opinion he was screwed - I've been thinking the same thing regarding his competence, but came to the conclusion that it isn't Nus's fault. Looking at the offensive line they just plain can't generally get a push, and can't open holes, execute schemes, etc....Even though there role has been dummied down - Given that they are highly touted recruits, I think that there is a major problem with the O-Line coaching (Funk from SDSU), and possibly the S&C work with the O-Line (Wellman from SDSU). Also the highly touted running backs don't seem to be able to find holes, make the right cuts, etc. (I really don't think that Jackson is a great RB coach). And then there are all of the drops by highly touted recruits and bad route running (WR coach Hecklinski from SDSU). And why hasn't Devin developed into a guy making better passes and decisions (no QB coach - wow - all good QB's (Cook, Hackenburg, etc. have great QB coaches dedicating their time exclusively to the QB-s - WTF)). So, though Nus could be a great coach, he's dummied things down, obviously, but he was set up for failure. The blame definitely falls on Hoke though for not hiring top 50 assistants at every position and then throw on top of that his terrible pathetic clock mgmt, decision making, coordination between units, etc....wow! Furthermore, at the few practices I have watched 80% of the players are just standing around. So in any hour of practice that would mean that they are really getting 12 minutes of actual learning....Hoke runs terrible practices, very poor practice time utilization. RR ran great practices with everyone moving all of the time by dividing into smaller groups, etc.
It makes one wonder if brady is a bit of a control freak and micro-coaches..
I have nothing other than speculation, just trying to sprinkle some common sense on this mess.. Could you get away with that in the MAC and Mountain West and still win, maybe... is that why a mountain west coaching staff (plus mattison) was kept intact and expected to be good enough to turn Michigan around?
Although Brady didn't set the world on fire at Ball State and SDSU, he did show improvement year after year. Clearly Michigan gave him better recruits, better facilities and more resources... Clearly none of that was enough.
RR is knocking on the top 10.... His only two losses are to USC and UCLA. A win away from playing in the Pac 10 Championship. RR wasn't a good fit in A2, and he isn't a 'Michigan Man', Brady was a good fit and a 'Michigan Man'... look where they are now!
Lets get the best coach available this time.... In 40 seasons Michigan only had ONE 6 loss season... Since Carr retired, we've had 5 in 7 seasons!
Let's PLEASE quit making excuses for Nussmeier. He's successfully made Al Borges look like a good play caller this year. He's been as big of a failure as the rest of the offense....
I don't know that it is fair to judge Nuss one way or another.... He was given a shitbox that hasn't worked well, and was expected to make it dynamically better in just one season.
If we judged Brady on his first year, he'd be one of the most successful coaches in Michigan history, we all see how that played out.
I agree with Scott....Hard to judge Nus. That will come in the future somewhere else. The Michigan stop sure didn't do his reputation any good. But, I think that he'll get a pass....he was sort of like one cork to plug a hole in a sinking ship with many leaks, a drunk caption, and no working compass.
On the bright side.... Basketball season is on.... and Coach B, who develops talent as fast as anyone, has a promising group of young ballers again this year.
I thought I would mention (maybe it has already), that we lost to Utah 26-10... The hated, no-good, despised Rich Rod beat them 42-10. Is there something I'm missing here... a quote from a female "beat" reporter who does not like to be called "Angel" can be quoted to saying she thought, Rich Rod would knock Michigan back 10 years, so I guess when we lose 100 -0 in another six years to Utah, it's Rich"s fault. A few weeks ago, she even wrote that she was not so sure Hoke would be gone... I was off with my thinking once, but I had an excuse, I was hit by a car going 45 miles an hour, I was walking.
We still are arrogant, I remember reading hoards of comments across all blogs; we are weakening the conference with Maryland and Rutgers. Were the only team to lose to both.
This year we were not even in a bowl yet, and people were complaining about a crappy bowl, guess what . we do not have one now.
I like the comment someone made about poor practices, I'm sure an expert can tell you of give a lists of reasons why we failed...starting with Hoke.
That is an interesting hypothesis--"micromanaging." One factor is that Hoke isn't real attentive and quick thinking (e.g., Shane incident, Nuss calling timeout against MD, etc. etc.) As a coach he seemingly has never/seldom been in that playcalling/react immediately role. But more importantly are his communication skills. He is a look-you-in-the-eye people person, sort of a salesperson, schmoozer, "You know..." guy. The press conferences, interviews, etc. are slow and BORING (like the games!). I think about the super-modern auditorium they use for team meetings and presentations--can you imagine sitting there for two hours listening to Hoke? And hearing the same thing day after day? In games he frequently calls timeouts to discuss... I think he has a hard time relating to high-energy athlete, smart-student kids. And now that his spiel is old and has worn thin he's just lost them (the team). He doesn't have the ability (or trust) to say "Do this and we'll win." Who would believe him?
mgoblogging.blogspot.com
Good article today in the Det News. Mattison really selling the fact that next years team will be loaded with experienced older players....he is probably right. So just like Hoke taking over for RR and got ALL of the credit for 11-2. Our next coach will probably do really well next year and get ALL of the credit....lol
Jeff,
Lets hope so... and lets hope, unlike brady, the next coach is equipt to take that team, add to it, build on it and get this program back to a contender.
Speaking of Utah, do you know where we open next year? Utah on a Thursday night.
Post a Comment