If Hoke was the choice

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loki

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would you be happy? I for one would not. We have gone from Glen Mason, a coach who won at Kansas and was offered a job at Georgia before coming to the U and putting up a decent record to Tim Brewster, a tight ends coach who didn't know what he was doing to Hoke, a mid major coach with a below 500 record (45-58). If he is our candidate we are in trouble. I know this is premature and we need to play this out but in a year that there are few job openings I think we should be able to do better. Sorry for the grim assessment but this is how I feel. We need to spend the money and get a big time coach or at least get one with a good record who has great potential.
 

With Hoke it's all about the improvement curve. Prior to getting to Ball State, the Cardinals had, in order, 5,1,0,5,5,6 wins. He had 4,2,4,5,7,12. Prior to getting to SDSU, the Aztecs had 6,4,5,3,4,2 wins. He had 4 last year, and probably has a decent shot at 8 this year (with woeful UNLV left on the schedule). I'm not crazy about the hire either, but I'd be OK with it.
 

I would not be dissatisfied with Hoke. I think he is a very good coach & would be able to recruit well enough at Minnesota; especially with his midwestern ties. I believe his experience as a Head Coach would translate in to player development & wins. Brew recruited well but did not develop the players to reach a higher level. Mason was able to develop some good players but was content to reach a middle of the pack level. I don't think that would be the case with Hoke; of course this is all speculation, as it would be with any candidate until they are actually able to put their product on the field.
 

The coaching circuit is such a racket.

You can be a sub .500 coach and suddenly find yourself angling for millions of dollars with one nice season.

I guess this is reality now. But is it not....messed up?
 

loki said:
would you be happy? I for one would not. We have gone from Glen Mason, a coach who won at Kansas and was offered a job at Georgia before coming to the U and putting up a decent record to Tim Brewster, a tight ends coach who didn't know what he was doing to Hoke, a mid major coach with a below 500 record (45-58). If he is our candidate we are in trouble. I know this is premature and we need to play this out but in a year that there are few job openings I think we should be able to do better. Sorry for the grim assessment but this is how I feel. We need to spend the money and get a big time coach or at least get one with a good record who has great potential.
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45-50 (Wikipedia can't add). While you're at it why don't you compare conference records. Keep in mind that as a coach of a mid-major you tend to be the cupcake that guys like Mason (or better) use to pad their records.
 


Hoke was also coaching in the MAC, which appears to me to be a conference of great parity...so his record may not fully account for his success at Ball St. In the Mountain West San Diego State has been behind the 8 ball and he has managed to turn them into a successful team. based purely on record Hoke probably should not be hired, but the truth is that record does not tell the whole story.
 

= Dirk Koetter failed at ASU and Hawkins failed at Colorado. Peterson has a Conference schedule that looks a LOT like a Mason or Brett B., Non-Conference schedule. Could he make it with a Big Ten schedule? Can he get his California kids to move to Minneapolis?

- Wacker who had success at lower level football and some success at TCU couldn't get many decent Texas kids to follow him up here even with his FCA connections. Could Patterson, who has had great success at TCU get those his Texas kids to head up here? He also would be making a big leap in schedule.

- Rich Rod had great success at WV, how's he doing at Michigan?

- Kragthorpe did well at Tulsa, bombed out at Louisville.

- Richard Gerald "Rick" Neuheisel, Jr had only one losing season at Colorado, won a Rose Bowl at Washington and is not doing much at UCLA.

- Dennis Erickson at Idaho, Washington State, Oregon State and Miami? Will take it, Dennis Erickson at Wyoming or ASU not so much.

- Even Holtz would had a lot of success in his career was a major failure at the Jets. Here the Weasel lost 4 out his last 5 and ended-up with a losing record.

The point is unless a coach takes over a program with long term success it's all a crapshoot. All that said, I will be very happy if Hoke is hired and wins and very unhappy if he doesn't.
 

Seems to be a solid football guy. Recruiting and development would be the areas of concern.

I agree that the MAC is very balanced and teams really go in cycles in that conference. Seems to be a lot of turnover at the top in the conference. Miami has pretty much stunk this entire decade and is now sitting at the top of one of the divisions.
 

I agree with the other posters who said you have to look at more than the overall record.

Have his teams improved?
Does he have a record of turning things around?
Does he have Midwest/Big Ten ties?
Can he recruit in Minnesota?
Does he have a strong and consistent philosophy of how to run a football team?
Does that philosophy fit with the inherent advantages and disadvantages of playing in Minnesota?

These kinds of questions are more important to me than overall W-L record.
 




The reality is that if we can't/won't get Richt/Bellotti/Leach or Fulmer we're going to end up with a mid-major guy and that's always something of a crap-shoot. I like the fact that Hoke's done it multiple places. That makes it less likely it was circumstantial and more likely that he knows how to go about the rebuilding process.
 

Tweet from Marcus:

"Not a good sign when the coach that replaed Hoke at Ball State, Parrish, was fired after two years. Didn't Hoke leave him with some talent?"

Go Gophers!!
 

BleedGopher said:
Tweet from Marcus:

"Not a good sign when the coach that replaed Hoke at Ball State, Parrish, was fired after two years. Didn't Hoke leave him with some talent?"

Go Gophers!!
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Or, it's a really good sign that Hoke can coach even the "bad" players to win. I don't think anyone expects Ball State to have all-world players, no matter how good the team performs.
 



BleedGopher said:
Tweet from Marcus:

"Not a good sign when the coach that replaed Hoke at Ball State, Parrish, was fired after two years. Didn't Hoke leave him with some talent?"

Go Gophers!!
Click to expand...

That tweet makes no sense. You could just as easily say that Hoke knows how to coach up bad players.
 


Gopher07 said:
Or, it's a really good sign that Hoke can coach even the "bad" players to win. I don't think anyone expects Ball State to have all-world players, no matter how good the team performs.
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But Ball State did have an all-world player: quarterback Nate Davis, perhaps the best player in Ball State history. Ball State averaged 34.93 points per game (#5 nationally) and 442.50 yards per game (#17 nationally) in 2008. Davis then departed for the NFL and practically the entire offense graduated -- four offensive linemen, their #1 receiver, and stud tight end -- and the offense, not unexpectedly, went completely into the crapper, averaging just 19.17 (#108) points and 293.83 (#114) yards per game the following year.
 

Hoke was at Ball State from 2003 to 2008, thus one would think every single one of the players that were on that 2008 team that won the conf. title (Hoke was coach of the year) was recruited by him and his staff - he didn't inherit anything.
 

A Hoke hire would make me nervous. I think he would be an improvement over Brewster, but I don't know if he would be better than Mason. I think this hire has to produce a coach with a better national profile than what Mase had when he got here or left here (whichever you think is better).
 

Silvio said:
A Hoke hire would make me nervous. I think he would be an improvement over Brewster, but I don't know if he would be better than Mason. I think this hire has to produce a coach with a better national profile than what Mase had when he got here or left here (whichever you think is better).
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I'm absolutely not nervous about Hoke for this reason.
He's a better coach than Brewster and a better assembler of staff and recruiter than Mason.
National profiles come and go, you win, you get a national profile, you lose, you fade into obscurity.

Hoke would install a fundamentally sound and aggressive defense here and would utilize the offensive talent available wisely(no square pegs in round holes)
Look at how his team has played this year, all of their losses are to either ranked or bowl teams, and none of them were by more than 5 points.
He can coach, he can win.
 

Ole said:
I'm absolutely not nervous about Hoke for this reason.
He's a better coach than Brewster and a better assembler of staff and recruiter than Mason.
National profiles come and go, you win, you get a national profile, you lose, you fade into obscurity.

Hoke would install a fundamentally sound and aggressive defense here and would utilize the offensive talent available wisely(no square pegs in round holes)
Look at how his team has played this year, all of their losses are to either ranked or bowl teams, and none of them were by more than 5 points.
He can coach, he can win.
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I don't know how many wins are acceptable to you if you are willing to accept losses to either ranked or bowl teams. That would usually be 7 or 8 BigTen Teams.

This year Hoke has only had one victory over a team with a winning record, Air Force.
 

The problem with the guys who appear to be in the lead (Golden, Hoke and Calhoun) is that they aren't going to do a thing to energize the fanbase. The diehards (like most of us on here) will look for positives with the hire and find reasons for optimism. It's that middle tier of fan-people who like the team but don't make the effort to go to or watch every game that the program needs to reach out of and pull them in. A big time hire will help do that. A solid coach from a lower tier program won't. Winning trumps everything though. Might have to sit through a season or two of TCF being a ghost town before the place is packed to the gills again.
 

Breakin' The Plane said:
The problem with the guys who appear to be in the lead (Golden, Hoke and Calhoun) is that they aren't going to do a thing to energize the fanbase. The diehards (like most of us on here) will look for positives with the hire and find reasons for optimism. It's that middle tier of fan-people who like the team but don't make the effort to go to or watch every game that the program needs to reach out of and pull them in. A big time hire will help do that. A solid coach from a lower tier program won't. Winning trumps everything though. Might have to sit through a season or two of TCF being a ghost town before the place is packed to the gills again.
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Doesn't matter to me at all, as long as the team is playing well and winning.
I'm SO tired of the Minnesotan sports fan, SO fairweather, SO fatalistic.

IMO thin out the crowd, get rid of the morons who openly cheer for the other team in TCF because they hate the coach. Win and reward those who support the program through thin times.
Fill it with new alumni and students, rinse, repeat.

Seriously though, get the right guy in here to build the program, not a PR bump to sell tickets for another year.
 

loki said:
would you be happy? I for one would not. We have gone from Glen Mason, a coach who won at Kansas and was offered a job at Georgia before coming to the U and putting up a decent record to Tim Brewster, a tight ends coach who didn't know what he was doing to Hoke, a mid major coach with a below 500 record (45-58). If he is our candidate we are in trouble. I know this is premature and we need to play this out but in a year that there are few job openings I think we should be able to do better. Sorry for the grim assessment but this is how I feel. We need to spend the money and get a big time coach or at least get one with a good record who has great potential.
Click to expand...

I am reposting the following to show how misleading the overall record for a mid-major coach can be:

Year Team Overall Conference Standing
Ball State (Mid-American Conference) (2003–2008)
2003 Ball State 4–8 3–5 T-4th◊
2004 Ball State 2–9 2–6 6th◊
2005 Ball State 4–7 4–4 5th◊
2006 Ball State 5–7 5–3 T-3rd◊
2007 Ball State 7–6 5–2 2nd◊
2008 Ball State 12–1 8–0 1st◊
Ball State: 34–38 27–20 ◊ MAC West Division

San Diego State (Mountain West Conference) (2009–present)
2009 SDSU 4–8 2–6 7th
2010 SDSU 7–4 4–3 5th
San Diego State: 11–12 6–9


Look at his SDSU record, obvious improvement from year 1 to year 2 in a VERY competitive conference, but his record there is already skewed way downward simply because year 1 was rough.
 

andy said:
I am reposting the following to show how misleading the overall record for a mid-major coach can be:

Year Team Overall Conference Standing
Ball State (Mid-American Conference) (2003–2008)
2003 Ball State 4–8 3–5 T-4th◊
2004 Ball State 2–9 2–6 6th◊
2005 Ball State 4–7 4–4 5th◊
2006 Ball State 5–7 5–3 T-3rd◊
2007 Ball State 7–6 5–2 2nd◊
2008 Ball State 12–1 8–0 1st◊
Ball State: 34–38 27–20 ◊ MAC West Division

San Diego State (Mountain West Conference) (2009–present)
2009 SDSU 4–8 2–6 7th
2010 SDSU 7–4 4–3 5th
San Diego State: 11–12 6–9


Look at his SDSU record, obvious improvement from year 1 to year 2 in a VERY competitive conference, but his record there is already skewed way downward simply because year 1 was rough.
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I don't know how competitive the Mountain West Conference actually is. They two nice teams and after that it is a bit of a crap shoot. Only looking at the records and not knowing any other information his last year at Ball State was the statistical outlier, not his first year at SDSU.

I like the fact that his conference record has shown steady improvement with the exception of his second year at Ball State. That said his being hired would still leave me quite nervous.
 

I will let everyone know in 2 to 3 years but right now "Tubby Smith" Hoke doesn't excite me.
 

loki said:
would you be happy? I for one would not. We have gone from Glen Mason, a coach who won at Kansas and was offered a job at Georgia before coming to the U and putting up a decent record to Tim Brewster, a tight ends coach who didn't know what he was doing to Hoke, a mid major coach with a below 500 record (45-58). If he is our candidate we are in trouble. I know this is premature and we need to play this out but in a year that there are few job openings I think we should be able to do better. Sorry for the grim assessment but this is how I feel. We need to spend the money and get a big time coach or at least get one with a good record who has great potential.
Click to expand...

I agree 100% I really am not impressed with him at all. All of his wins are cupcake wins. I feel we're a step up from Brew and a step below Glen Mason with this guy.
 

Breakin' The Plane said:
The problem with the guys who appear to be in the lead (Golden, Hoke and Calhoun) is that they aren't going to do a thing to energize the fanbase. The diehards (like most of us on here) will look for positives with the hire and find reasons for optimism. It's that middle tier of fan-people who like the team but don't make the effort to go to or watch every game that the program needs to reach out of and pull them in. A big time hire will help do that. A solid coach from a lower tier program won't. Winning trumps everything though. Might have to sit through a season or two of TCF being a ghost town before the place is packed to the gills again.
Click to expand...

I had this same discussion with a friend of mine yesterday - do you really think we're going to draw less than 40K, which is where we have been at for most of the games this year? Even during the Wacker years, they still drew high-30s, low 40s for even the biggest dog games of the year.

Point being - there is a base of diehards here already that aren't going away regardless. It's the peripherals that we need to get, but we're no different than anywhere else - if you win, they will come.

The way I see it, we could hire any one of these candidates, and the same 40K that were in the building at the start of the South Dakota game and every other game and are going to show up for the first season. Thereafter will depend on wins.
 

Ole said:
Doesn't matter to me at all, as long as the team is playing well and winning.
I'm SO tired of the Minnesotan sports fan, SO fairweather, SO fatalistic.

IMO thin out the crowd, get rid of the morons who openly cheer for the other team in TCF because they hate the coach. Win and reward those who support the program through thin times.
Fill it with new alumni and students, rinse, repeat.

Seriously though, get the right guy in here to build the program, not a PR bump to sell tickets for another year.
Click to expand...

Why can't it be both?
 

Silvio said:
A Hoke hire would make me nervous. I think he would be an improvement over Brewster, but I don't know if he would be better than Mason. I think this hire has to produce a coach with a better national profile than what Mase had when he got here or left here (whichever you think is better).
Click to expand...

See above! We need a big time coach to fill our big time stadium. Settle for a tier 2 coach, and you may well have a half empty TCF bank stadium. Let's go get the BYU coach!
 


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