If you follow my Twitter, you read me basically slitting my wrists publicly on the Internet yesterday after the Brady Hoke hire. Wet Owl was also unimpressed. But with a day to decompress and think about things rationally, I figured it was appropriate to lay out a few thoughts that were OMG HEAD ESSPLODE!
First and foremost, I support Brady Hoke, but I also reserve the right to be violently pissed off about this whole situation. As was one of the memes that undid Rich Rodriguez, this fanbase needs to be unified in its support of its head coach. Rodriguez was a martyr to this cause and Hoke will reap the benefits. Regardless, I will support Hoke from the moment he gets on campus and hope that he succeeds. I do however, hold serious reservations about the success of the program under the David Brandon reign. I don't really know how to quantify the FAIL of this coaching searching, but I've made my feelings on Brandon abundantlyclear here.
This was a decision made out of fear. Fear that the thing you love is dying. Bo left a legacy that defined the second half of the 20th century for the Michigan program. It no longer exists, of course, but it was a damn beautiful thing. Rather than accepting its passage or sending it off with a grand farewell a la HST, the men and women of Schembechler Hall are puttering around an empty house making sure that the coasters are on the coffee table just how Bo liked it and that every Thursday pot roast is served just how Bo wanted it. When there are dozens of coordinators and assistants available that are of vastly greater quality (I mean, I just randomly thought of Clemson’s D-Coord Kevin Steele and checked, and yup, he’s loads better than Hoke) and you choose to go with the distant relative, you are a craven organization.
I suggest you read the entire post. He's right, though: Brandon, and more broadly the entire fanbase, was afraid of never returning to Schembechler-like glory and as such, acted rashly and without reason. Now Hoke is the head coach at Michigan.
Hoke had to be the head coach, though. He was always Brandon's choice, and in retrospect, it was obvious. Brandon's criteria (a defense-first coach with head coaching experience and ties to the Midwest) wasn't so much a way to slim the field of candidates as it was to justify his decision. His candidates--Hoke, Miles, and Harbaugh--were all coaches that would appease the masses on the outset, but only one of them was really a reasonable option. Brandon knew this and played to the fear of the masses. After the last three years, few people balked at Brandon's description that was clearly outlining Hoke; or at least a Carr clone, something that the fan base could probably agree that Michigan doesn't need again.
The concern surrounding Hoke is that he appears to have fallen directly below the coaching tree from which he grew. It's difficult to see the upside for Hoke. He doesn't appear to do either offense or defense exceptionally well, settling instead for base formations and hoping to out perform the opposition. This is what doomed the end of the Carr era and why he always lost the big games. Like we saw in the National Championship game a few days ago, a brilliant tactician is supremely important. With Hoke flatly refusing the spread offense and arguing that it can't work long-term in college football, it's clear that Hoke is not such a tactician. As such, it's difficult to see the team ever eclipsing the late Carr years. But for now, this will be enough to appease the masses until a time comes when Hoke has lost enough to Tressel and people demand his replacement.
In the coming days, I'll be reviewing the performance of Hoke's teams through the years. The early returns are fairly promising, but a closer inspection of just how everything breaks down is necessary.
Brady Hoke is the next Michigan head coach. This means the end of Denard Robinson who will transfer in 25 minutes or so. It also means the end of the spread offense and any hope for the future. Michigan is going paleolithic on the Big Ten.
We just hired a head coach that is 47-50 in his career. Dave Brandon should be put in shackles and set adrift. This is unacceptable.
First Jim Harbaugh was a lock. Then Brady Hoke. Then Les Miles. Then Brady Hoke. And now, there's a Dominos plane that's flying to Southern California because, gasp, there's a Dominos presentation in--you guessed it--Southern California.
I've complained about ESPN a lot in the past year. From the Brett Favre waffling to where Lebron would go to various coaching jobs to Michigan's own NCAA violations, all of which they've reported on and been wildly wrong about. And now the Michigan blogosphere, like scorned lovers, are feverishly watching Flight Tracker in the hopes that it will give them some clue as to where Dave Brandon might be going in order to talk to prospective coaching applicants. The world has gone mad, and sports reporting--whether it be through traditional sources or the usually more reliable blogs--is probably the reason for it.
I continue not to have much to say about this coaching search because I'm not watching planes fly around the country and because most of the "sources" that people trust are as flamboyantly wrong as Random Dude on a message board that says his brother is married to Coach X's daughter and she heard through the grapevine that Les Miles is a holy lock to come to Michigan. My sources indicate Wet Owl, and until further notice, I'm sticking with that.
Until the time comes that there's actually real news (and not just the kind of news we got today about Les Miles accepting the Michigan job), I'm not going to have much to say. There's nothing for me to speculate that hasn't already been said. My feelings toward Dave Brandon remain the same, if not become more amplified: For all the talk of trying to unite the fanbase, it's becoming clear that Brandon was one of the partisans. Rich Rodriguez was never good enough for him. And for this public display of incompetence (though not that belief in Bo Schembechler's Michigan), Brandon should probably be put on the hot seat if not fired outright. This is a debacle of unthinkable proportions.
For now, I'll be on Twitter expressing my extreme hatred for everything that's transpired in the last 10 days and badgering Brandon to make a decision that won't further bury Michigan. This is not a good day.
There's very little this blog can report that you can't hear elsewhere. I don't have inside sources and connections to Schembechler Hall. So you've probably already heard that Les Miles is being seriously considered for the head coaching vacancy and will speak with Michigan, likely tomorrow. He made a brief statement on the topic:
Of the things he says, a few are of note:
I'm told that we will speak. That time and place has not been identified...
It's hard for me to speculate the substance of that meeting...
I spent my day today with a number of underclassmen. I want to return right here. I am extremely happy here...
I think it's best left that way. I don't know that there's anything more to say...
There's no more information than what I have just shared with you.
First of all, Miles knows exactly what the substance of the meeting is going to be. We all know what the substance of the meeting will be. But this sounds like a man that's not interested in leaving. He mentions the connection that he and his family have created to LSU and how happy he is there. Sure, this is exactly what coaches are supposed to say shortly before actually leaving, but given the general noises coming from "sources", my guess is that Miles is not an option. All of which is point to one very disturbing trend: Dave Brandon is completely lost.
Commenter Lankownia and I discussed this last week. He (?) was decidedly down on Brandon:
The most fascinating thing about this process is that even though Dave Brandon has shown no evidence whatsoever of being good at his job (at least as it relates to football) people want to keep giving him the benefit of the doubt that he has a master plan behind the scenes.
Here's an idea: He doesn't. If he did he wouldn't have waited till December and he would have a coach in place, or nearly in place when he announced the firing of Rodriguez.
Michigan fans are beaten down and desperate and putting all their hopes in a savior. Dave Brandon isn't who Michigan fans imagine/want him to be.
Brandon has done what he said and said what he's done. I don't know why you'd assume he made headway in coaching negotiations last night when it took him hours yesterday and another meeting today to reach a conclusion that everyone saw as inevitable in November. Brandon said he made the decision last night. I doubt he did that while negotiating a contract for the new coach.
I have qualms about some of the things Lankownia says here, as well as later in the discussion, but I'm coming around to the sentiment. In Brandon's first real test as Michigan's athletic director, he is doing an exceptionally poor job. The NCAA violations were handled well, but he did little more than present a good front. Like President Obama ("He's such a good speaker"), I don't care if he can speak well in public; I want him to be good at his job. Brandon's process and ineptitude are really starting to worry me.
During the onset of the coaching search, Straight Bangin' sent an open letter to Mary Sue Coleman regarding the situation:
Instead, David Brandon insisted on pursuing his own timeline and perpetuating the charade that he only could conduct an evaluation of Rich Rodriguez after the Gator Bowl. By wasting so much time, Brandon left Rodriguez in limbo, destroyed the pending recruiting class, and worst all, managed to let Harbaugh slip away. The additional month of waiting forfeited Michigan's time advantage and allowed NFL teams to actively enter the fray once the NFL regular season ended. Brandon's awkward and unnecessary process seems either disrespectful toward his industry's landscape, or worse, completely ignorant of it. Barring an unexpected triumph, such as hiring Bill Bellichick or Nick Saban, this episode will confirm the fear that Mr. Brandon's corporate background left him unprepared for the realities of sports administration, territory previously unfamiliar to him. Michigan fans can only look on with envy at the decisive actions taken by schools like Florida and even, Lord help me, Ohio State, where people with experience in athletics run the industry's best departments.
One word: yeouch. Joey and I have had our disagreements re: Michigan football in the past, but he's 110% right here. Brandon is proving that he has little or no grasp on what he's doing in this coaching search and Michigan is going to suffer for it dearly.
Then you have Brandon's personal blog on MGoBlue which, laughable writing aside, is an awful way to show transparency. Brandon's most recent blog post is a LiveJournal defense of his awkward methods:
I am sure all of the news reports are interesting for our fans, but I am too busy to follow the majority of the news except to hear some pretty wild stories about "where I am and who I am talking to." The last week should be a reminder to everyone not to believe everything you read or hear. Some of the so-called "news reports" over the past week have been simply ridiculous...
Our Michigan Athletic Department e-mail servers have been very busy! I am trying to answer/acknowledge all e-mails we have been receiving from sincere, thoughtful individuals. The department appreciates the messages from those who are simply trying to help. Those that are not trying to be helpful quickly end up in the delete/block sender file!
639: the number of words Brandon spent on this ridiculous blog post. For a man who is too busy to listen to news reports that are consistently portraying his organization as a poorly run joke (no, not Dominos this time), he sure spends a lot of time answering (acknowledging? Really?) e-mails and writing meaningless blog posts.
As time goes on, the chances of Michigan landing a true forward-thinking coach and someone that will bring the program into the future the way we had hoped Rodriguez would become less and less likely. Brandon's own criteria for the next head coach even seem to contradict this sentiment entirely: Brandon was a Schembechler Michigan Man and wants someone to turn Michigan back into three yards and a cloud of dust. Worse than having a head coach that doesn't think the spread offense can work in college football is having an athletic director who thinks the same.
The most disappointing aspect in all of this is that Rodriguez was clearly building toward something and had the program headed in the right direction. Unfortunately, for all of the talk of Brandon uniting the program and fanbase, he's trying to do so in his image. And because of that Rodriguez was not good enough for him. Now, as Michigan stares at a barren landscape of coaching also-rans, they have a recently fired Xs and Os guru who was canned because Brandon didn't include him in his ultimate vision. Sadly, he didn't include any coach in that vision, instead just expected Michigan to win.
Seeing how fruitless this entire process has been is disheartening and makes it difficult to continue caring about a program that's being manned by someone uninterested in or unaware of its best interests. At this point, anything short of Gary Patterson or Gus Malzahn will leave me uninspired and fearful for the long-term future of the program.
I was waiting for the right time to release this information, but I have three sources on good standing that all say Wet Owl will be announced on Monday as Michigan's next head coach. They each mentioned that Dave Brandon is impressed with his resistance to being mercilessly sprayed with a hose, something that the previous regime was used to. Brandon also cited his "ability to fly" as a key attribute.
Wet Owl doesn't bring much experience but he does bring a keen mind and the tools necessary to catch field mice. He's a questionable hire, but depending on who he brings in as defensive coordinator, he may be able to turn the program in the right direction. Perhaps most importantly, he's faster (when wet) than Denard Robinson, something that has reportedly impressed the talented sophomore and may keep him on Michigan's campus.
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