To All: Internet
Explorer 10 was installed here at work and for about 3 days, I was unable to
access my Blog Editor. Luckily, with
some technical assistance from a loyal follower, I installed Google Chrome and
I’m back! So, if anyone is having
difficulty with IE 10, try Chrome. What
a whacky web world we live in….
Okay, I’ve had a week to digest what happened over the
weekend and during the week. I’ve decided that there’s a couple of things that
need more review and or discussion. In
no particular order:
Should
Hoke Get Canned?
There’s a lot of evidence to support the fact that Brady
Hoke’s tenure at Michigan should be limited based on the performance of this
team AFTER this season. It makes no
sense to can him today, folks. It just
doesn’t. So stop texting me and
e-mailing me that Michigan needs to can him.
I agree, they just might have to.
But not now. After the ohio game,
there should be a pretty good body of evidence from this season and you can add
that evidence to all of the following:
1. When was the last time Michigan won a truly meaningful game? And by that I mean they beat someone in the top 10, won a big bowl game, or just beat someone that had it coming?
The Sugar Bowl doesn’t count. Yes BCS and all, but still…Va Tech.
Suckeyes
of the same season – But, yeah, they should have won that game as
the suckeyes finished 6-6, I think
Last
year’s Domers – no.
Again, I think Michigan was favored and should have won. And Ditto to Under the Lights I.
So what I’m trying to say
is: Hoke isn’t a giant killer. He is O-fer in Top 10 games. He’s not getting the job done. He hasn’t won
a game of significance according to what I’m looking at over the last three
seasons. Alabama would have been a
statement. Even beating South Carolina 2
years ago in the bowl game would have been something. Losing to K-State last year? Dreadful…. Michigan used to go on the road
and beat teams. Hoke isn’t doing it.
2. Michigan is 3-8 in its last 11 games with victories over Northwestern, Indiana, and App State. That’s pathetic. And makes my stomach hurt….
3. It’s not all Devin Gardener. Devin has played two games in a new system. But why hasn’t this staff been able to put together an O-line? Michigan has never looked like this when it comes to offensive line personnel. I’m thinking back to some of the Rich Rod years here as well.
4. The tailback situation is atrocious. Where are all the playmaking tailbacks we used to have and why can’t the clowns we have hit the holes vs. running into the line?
5. When was the last time Michigan was ranked in the Top 25? I’m not sure they get there this season.
6. A losing record to all major rivals, with the exception of the Domers….
7. Hoke and Michigan LOST to a decimated Penn State Squad in his first meeting against them….
But
Hoke does say and have all the Michigan-Man lingo down to a science. He talks toughness, he talks goals and he
talks motivation. You can find anything
on the internet and with apologies to the late, great Chris Farley, this is
friggin’ hilarious!
Motivational Speaker Hoke living in a
van down at the riverside….
All
that being said, Michigan has another problem:
David Brandon(e).
I’m not sure HE’S the right guy for the job, either. Let’s face it, DB screwed up the Rich
Rodriguez thing royally. By letting
Rich hang around for the most important recruiting time from December 1 through
the holiday, Michigan lost key guys. I’m
not saying it would have made a difference, just sayin’. And with his 30 minutes or less pizza
background, you’d think he would have pulled the trigger the minute he knew it
was time. But here’s the thing: Hoke was DB’s choice and he may not want to
admit failure. Let’s face it, I’m not
sure that Hoke was one of the Top 5 coaches on the list. And if you fire Hoke, we go back to the
question of: Who are you going to get? Forget Harbaugh…He’s not coming. And DB probably doesn’t want to eat that
feces sandwich at this moment in time.
Who would?
IF
that’s true, that you have to get rid of DB first before
any of this is fixed, assuming Michigan has an insolvable problem. 31(7) to 0 at the hands of the domers is the
kind of bed-shitting that should at least get you brought into the office and
talked to. If DB isn’t having that
discussion, then shame on DB because his golden goose is going to stop laying
those golden eggs and people will stop watching, going to games and caring
about Michigan Football. Tickets on Stub
Hub for Saturday are down to $15!!!!!
That’s lludicrous….
DB’s
favorite saying is “Find something that isn’t broke and break it.” Well, he might be doing just that.
Not
only that, but Brandon(e) didn’t have a plan of who to hire until after he
fired Rich Rod. That alone should be
enough to get a referendum on DB. I
think there’s a mountain of evidence to suggest that DB hasn’t done a great job
since he’s been the AD. There will be
some that disagree with me. But
not many. And if DB does make
the decision, that means DB hires the next guy.
Does anyone want to see that? I’m
not sure I do.
So,
if you want to can someone, can DB.
Hoke will follow if necessary.
The
B1G – Where to from here?
This
B1G thing is really getting on my nerves. Yes, it is a dumpster fire as I suggested on
Monday. But, it has me wondering about
a couple of teams and questioning: Why aren’t teams in the B1G getting better? The B1G was relevant to the National Title
Picture in 2006, the last time anyone from the conference really made any
“National Title” noise. Yes, I know, a 1
loss Sparty in the Rose. Wiscy with a
one loss team in the Rose… Big deal…All the talk is a 1 loss
B1G team won’t get a seat at the 4 Team Table, and that bothers me a great
deal.
There’s
PLENTY OF MONEY rolling into the B1G’s programs and they should all be able to
spend on their football programs and have enough left over to still spend like
drunken sailors on the rest of their athletic department. All the B1G’s have great fan bases and some
of the largest stadiums in the USA. So,
what else is it? Climate? Really?
I’m sort of seeing that but sort of not.
Let’s
look at it from a coaching perspective and see where it takes us:
The SOLID Tier 1’s
Penn State: Great hire in Franklin and I believe PSU
football will be back to mattering a lot sooner rather than later.
Ohio: Urban Crime will eventually get the job
done. But I’m sure the pressure is
mounting with a couple of losses to what suckeye fans believe are inferior
opponents, even with the loss of their starting QB.
Sparty: Sparty finally got it right and has a great
coach (God, that’s hard to type) in Dantonio
Wisconsin: Andersen is keeping the Beliema train rolling
down the tracks. But can he sustain it?
Tier 1 Iffies…Tradable?
Michigan: Hoke. No B1G title and hasn’t even sniffed at one,
really. Yes, 2011, but 2nd in
the Legends Division. Recruits
like a monster, but apparently can’t get what’s needed out of the
players come game time.
Iowa: Ferentz hasn’t put it all together in a long
time and he may be part of what’s wrong with the B1G overall…It may be time to
move on in Iowa, but he has a contract through 2020.
Nebraska: Pelini.
I don’t think Nebraska nation is in love with him and he, for whatever
reason, can’t land the recruits that Nebraska used to get. He needs a big season….
Tier II’s
Kill in Minnesota
looked like a good hire. He’d done
pretty good things at Northern Illinois.
But now that he’s coaching the Gophers, I’m not so sure.
Northwestern: Fitzgerald is a fixture and Northwestern has
just had some incredibly bad luck.
Indiana: Kevin Wilson.
I like this guy and he’s got a great pedigree. It’s just hard to get good football kids to
go to a basketball school. But, then I
look at Duke.
Maryland: Randy Edsall.
Hot prospect has not been able to make it happen at Maryland, yet. But I still like and respected what he did at
UCONN and I believe he can make it work at Maryland as well.
Rutgers:
Kyle Flood is not Schiano, but he may pan out to be okay….But it’s a work in
progress.
Tier
III’s
Purdue: Hazell is a disaster. He’s out of his league and should be
dismissed.
Illinois: Beckman.
This guy has a decent resume, but I think he’s out of it, also.
So, if we line up all those guys against the other
conferences, what do you get? Let’s
look. I threw together a spreadsheet and
compared the coaches of the Power 5.
Hopefully you can see it. (If not, click on it and it will enlarge in a new window)
Based on track records or performance over period of
time, I called out coaches that I thought were “Tradable”; meaning I would
trade Hoke for the guy shaded in Green RIGHT NOW if given the option. Yellow
means I would need to think about it REALLY HARD before making the trade. No color, not enough info or no trade.
Based on that and all of this being my subjective
opinion, we can see that there are really only 2 tradable coaches in the
ACC. Surprisingly, the Big XI has 6
tradable and 2 questionable (Snyder – Age, Holgorsen – Iffy) that might
work. The B1G only has 3 tradable and
four maybes (yes, Hoke is a maybe.
Again, he recruits great. That’s
a big piece of the puzzle). The Pac 12
and SEC are also sitting with 6 tradable coaches, each.
What’s it all mean?
If you’re thinking about this from a “conference strength”
perspective, I believe it starts with coaching.
And the B1G needs more of it. A
Lot More. But, it also tells you that if
you’re looking for a good coach, they aren’t easy to come by, either. With only 23 tradables in the power 5, the
selection pool is slim….
Another interesting fact was that the average tenure in
the SEC was older than that of the Pac12 and the ACC!!! In fact, The B1G has a pretty new set of
faces if you take out Ferentz…So, while we talk about the SEC Carousel, the
good coaches stay in the SEC and schools stick with them once they have
them. But they aren’t afraid to kick one
to the curb if necessary.
Simply put, it would seem that your conference should
have 6 tradable coaches and another 2 or three maybe’s that other schools would
look at and say, “Yeah, I’d rather have him over what I’ve got.” Granted, it only works if you’re looking at an iffy coach
to begin with. If you were starting with
a Saban, well, tradables drop WAY DOWN and you end up with a lot more no color
and maybes.
Any useful conclusions in any of this? The B1G needs to hire some better coaching,
period.
NCAA
Blinks? REALLY? HONESTLY???
For all of you that have read me for a while, I think you
all know where I stood on the NCAA’s handling of the Sandusky case. And the Grand Standing Mark Emmert making a
scene about this issue so that when the final Miami verdict came in, it would
simply be noise on the back burner and the NCAA wouldn’t be embarrassed by its inability
to punish a University that had truly “Broken Rules” and more or less throw a
pretty decent University into the fires of Hades for something that was not
necessarily athletics related.
Look – I don’t like the Sandusky thing more than anyone
else. But it was WAY BIGGER than Penn
State. Yes, there was clearly an
enabling atmosphere present under Joe Pa and in the football program and
administration, and for that, the University should (and has been to the tune
of $60M clams) be punished. But, all the
people surrounding those events that occurred over a decade ago have either
been arrested and put in jail, are awaiting trial, or have passed on (RIP
Joe.) It’s time for the students who are
there now (and who were in 7th or 8th grade at the time
of the incidents) live their college lives to the fullest. Small kudos to the NCAA for righting what was
a terrible wrong for Penn State.
Ray
Rice, Roger Goodell and the NFL
I don’t normally get into the NFL, but Jesus-Tap-Dancing-Christ,
what a circus freak show this has been….What did everyone think BEFORE they saw the
video? That Rice tapped his wife on the ole noggin’ and
she went unconscious? And if in
fact the NFL received the video in April (and it certainly appears that it DID)
is Roger Goodell gone for lying to us? Let’s
face it, the NFL commish is there to do one thing: Be the scapegoat for the millionaire –
Billionaire owners. And he’s doing just
that. IF he can whether the media shit-storm,
he’ll remain the commish…if not, the owners will find a new face to put on
display and pay Roger a handsome retirement package and continue doing what it
does – make money. Say, NFL: I have a suggestion.
DAVE
BRANDON(E) would make a great NFL Commissioner!!!
Wish
the MMQ a Happy 500th Birthday!
A momentous occasion has come and gone. I thought everyone would get a kick out of
knowing that the Blog turned 500 with last Friday’s post. Yes, some of them are long and some are
short, but 500 postings none the less. I
don’t know if that’s good or bad….time well used or wasted time? I’ll think about it some more and get back to
you!
The
Picks
I know this is why you all read on Friday, and sorry it
took me so long to get here!
UCLA
(-7.5) @ Texas: Texas
may actually be more of a train wreck than Michigan right now. Scratch that, THEY ARE more of a train wreck
and they have pulled a kid of an intramural team and are suiting him up for the
game Saturday! IF he sees playing time,
Texas will run Strong out on a rail….Just sayin’.
Take
UCLA and lay the 7.5 for $30
USC
@ BC (+17.5): I
like BC here…I don’t know why. Yes, they
are the envogue upset pick, but Addazio to date has not impressed me. Still, USC didn’t look that great and I like
the points here.
Take
BC and the 17.5 for $30
Syracuse
@ Central (+7): I
know several people that are going to like this pick. If the Chippies can beat Purdue by three
scores, they can hang with the ‘Cuse at home.
Take
the Chips and the 7 for $40
Louisville
(-7) @ Virginia: I
like Louisville here even if Virginia’s Defense is that good. I’m not sure they match up well with
Louisville’s Offense….
Take
Louisville and lay the 7 for $20
Wyoming
@ the Ducks (-43):
Letdown, schmetdown…Take the Quack Attack and lay the points.
Take
the Ducks and lay the 43 for $30
PSU
@ Rutgers (+3): Rutgers
could be better than previously advertised.
And the Blue Kitties may have problems that are as yet not exposed.
Take
Rutgers and the 3 for $20.
Tennessee
(+21) @ Oklahoma: I
wanna take the points….I wanna take the points…Do I believe in the power of the SEC? What the hell…
Take
Cremesicles and the 21 for $20
Miami
(not that one) @ Michigan (-31): I saw SOME things I liked against the domers…not
many, mind you….But some. If Michigan
fixes those things, it could be a long afternoon for the Red Hawks.
Take
Michigan and lay the points for $30
PARLAY!!! 3-way
pays 6 to 1.
Take Central – BC – Ducks for $20
Starting
Bank: $1,006
Total
Bet: $240
Bank: $766
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