Michigan Wolverine Football: Dead Coach Clapping

Oct 11, 2014; Ann Arbor, MI, USA; Michigan Wolverines head coach Brady Hoke on the sidelines during the fourth quarter against the Penn State Nittany Lions at Michigan Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Andrew Weber-USA TODAY Sports

Posted at 5:30am — 11/7/2014

Michigan Wolverine Football: Dead Coach Clapping

On a rare frigid afternoon for the first day of November in Ann Arbor, the Michigan Wolverines were enforcing their will on an outmatched opponent, an equally rare feat this tumultuous football season. It was the early stages of the third quarter, and the Indiana Hoosiers, behind their third-string quarterback, were attempting to put a drive together and chip into the Wolverines’ 17-0 lead.

Nov 1, 2014; Ann Arbor, MI, USA; Michigan Wolverines head coach Brady Hoke during warmups before the game against the Indiana Hoosiers at Michigan Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY SportsSome coaches use moments like these to fly into a carefully scripted rage over something trivial, sending a message to their players to maintain intensity. Others lose themselves in headset chats with assistants in the press box. But the man who has called the western sideline of Michigan Stadium home for 12 years—seven as a position coach, one as associate head coach the last four as head honcho—felt his time was best spent getting in the faces of key members of his team. Patting backs, slamming shoulder pads, and doing what he does best: clapping with encouragement and yelling, “Come on, let’s go!”

Such is a game in the life of Brady Hoke, point man of Michigan football version 135.0.

Martin Luther King, Jr., once said that the ultimate measure of a man’s character is not in moments of comfort and convenience, but during times of challenge and controversy. You’d think he’d been a long-time season ticket holder at the Big House. After four comfortable decades of convenient victories, this recent downturn has challenged the character of faithful Wolverine follower everywhere. None more so than Hoke.

“I’ve never been concerned about a job, ever, and I never will be. I never will be because if I get concerned about a job then (I’d) get distracted from it,” Hoke explained during his weekly press conference. “If I get distracted then I’m not being fair to those kids who haven’t been distracted. I’ve never, ever worried about employment.”

Not many of us can imagine the specter of going to work every day knowing your job will be terminated in a matter of weeks. Only a select few know what it’s like to have newspapers, web sites, a full stadium of fans, a half million living alums and an entire active student body calling for your firing.

The sad truth is, all the clapping in the world can’t erase the fact that Hoke is in over his head with his current employer. It’s no secret that the trajectory of Michigan football has dropped steadily since his heroic first season as coach. So much so that the successful 11-2 campaign has in hindsight been more representative of where his predecessor Rich Rodriguez was heading than where he himself had gone.

In the two and three-quarter seasons since 2011, Hoke’s Wolverines are 19-16 including a 13-16 record against top 5 conference competition. Choose your matrix, the numbers are unacceptable by any measure. Even if they win the two winnable games on their schedule—this Saturday at Northwestern and November 22 against Maryland—and qualify for a bowl berth. Even if they travel to sunny Wherever this holiday and win the Whatever Bowl over Whomever University.

Even if they rise up on November 29 and upset their bitter rivals in Columbus.

The Hoke Era has already been written. It is one of progressively diminishing returns. Surprisingly undeveloped players. A surprisingly inconsistent coaching staff, making surprisingly few adjustments within or between games. But most of all, it is one symbolized by teams that, despite his determination and support, have not performed to everyone’s expectations.

Nov 1, 2014; Ann Arbor, MI, USA; Michigan Wolverines head coach Brady Hoke during the fourth quarter against the Indiana Hoosiers at Michigan Stadium. Michigan won 34-10. Mandatory Credit: Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY SportsSo the inevitable axe will fall when the curtain falls on the 2014 season. Perhaps an announcement will come the Monday after the Wolverines’ home finale (also known as the beginning of Ohio State Week), or immediately after the team bus returns from central Ohio, should they arrive without a sixth win. Hoke has done nothing to merit being the first Michigan coach ever to be fired in mid-season. If he inspires his men to a postseason berth he may even be allowed to coach the Wolverines’ bowl game, although recruiting season being what it is, that is an unlikely scenario.

When it does happen, he will surely move on and coach elsewhere, and not as an assistant. Make no mistake, Brady Hoke is a head coach, one many schools would be fortunate to land. It’s not difficult to envision a situation similar to Rodriguez, a successful coach currently bringing gridiron success to success-starved Arizona. Maybe Hoke will land at a school in a major conference without the burden of a tradition to uphold. Maybe a mid-major university on the level of UCF or Marshall will come calling, or even a smaller school on the east coast. Tommy Amaker left the Michigan basketball program after six seasons and has since taken Harvard to the big dance twice. He found a better fit for his style, scope and ability, and Hoke will as well.

While he no longer controls whether he will be leaving, how he will leave is all his doing. He has chosen the only way he knows: by staying true to himself, working hard, believing in the young men who committed themselves to him, and maintaining the character that made him the man he is. Let’s hope the University of Michigan maintains a similar standard as it searches for a successor to return the Wolverine football team to conquering heroes status.

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Written by GBMWolverine Writer — Chris Hill

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