Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder
January 22, 2011 3 Comments
David Goricki has an article out today about Hoke and Dantonio speaking to Michigan high school coaches. It’s a gem.
Lakeview coach Patrick Threet stated the following:
Rich Rodriguez spoke two years ago (at Kellogg Arena in Battle Creek). I think Coach Hoke said it’s not about the coach, but the program and the school and what we’re going to do instead of what I’m going to do which happened in the past. There was a little bit of arrogance (with Rodriguez). And, I liked the part about the Blackberry. A lot of coaches, we’re blue collar guys and we just want a phone to talk to someone. We don’t need all that other stuff.
“The part about the Blackberry” was that Hoke returned his UM issued Blackberry and asked for a simpler phone so he could just call recruits.
Really? This is all about perception. Does it really matter if Hoke uses a Blackberry compared to a phone that someone gives to their 8 year old? The ideal answer is yes and no. No, because a phone doesn’t make a coach it doesn’t make a program and if you seriously think that is a distinguishing thing between Rodriguez and Hoke then it is obvious to me that Rodriguez was simply never given a chance by some instate coaches. Who cares what his phone is. It is absolutely insane to me that this is a sticking out point for a coach. Granted, if it works than Hoke is saying the right things, so I’ll take it.
But in another sense, I actually would prefer Hoke does use a Blackberry. A lot of stuff is done nowdays via email. I want the coach of my program to understand all of that. I want him to be able to understand that a lot of high school recruits have a Blackberry or a smart phone. If he doesn’t effectively use Twitter, Facebook, etc., or understand them, it’s not going to be the greatest way to relate to kids. So, in a sense, that actually is a little disappointing to me.
Then there is John Herrington’s (Farmington Hills Harrison) quote:
I thought Rodriguez was a very good coach, an offensive genius. I think it will be different where Brady will recruit Michigan harder and not just go to Florida and California (like Rodriguez), so I think he and Dantonio will have a good battle for a lot of our good kids in Michigan.
All this proves is being a good high school coach doesn’t mean you actually know what is going on in college football recruiting. During his tenure at Michigan Rodriguez got one recruit from the state of California. That’s one during the 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011 classes he recruited. That one recruit (Forcier) has now left the program. There’s also an argument to be made that Forcier was a necessity recruitment since he was more ready to run the offense as a true freshman than most QBs coming out of high school. Had Michigan not been desperately searching for a QB to starting 2009 with, I’m not even sure Forcier comes here. But that’s just speculation. Just take a look at the comparison of recruits from California between Carr and Rodriguez:
| Carr | # | Rodriguez | # |
| 2002 | 1 | 2008* | 0 |
| 2003 | 1 | 2009 | 1 |
| 2004 | 1 | 2010 | 0 |
| 2005 | 4 | 2011 | 0 |
| 2006 | 1 | ||
| 2007 | 4 | ||
| 2008* | 0 |
Once again, this is all about perception. Rodriguez came in and people thought “he’s not going to recruit Michigan” or “he’s not going to recruit the Midwest” and therefore it’s other big states, like Florida and California. Rordriguez put in some effort in California, but the old coaching staff recruited California much more heavily than Rodriguez ever did. But the perception was that Rodriguez went out of state for his recruits.
And to some extent that is true, as I wrote a few days ago, Rodriguez did rely much more on Florida, but for the most part his classes where actually filled with more recruits from the Midwest (Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan) than Carr’s classes where. Now maybe the 2011 class would have filled up with out-of-state players and dropped that percentage, but I would suspect it would have been similar to Carr’s classes or still ahead of them.
Hoke’s quote – “We’re going to recruit the hell out of the state of Michigan” – isn’t a bad thing. Rodriguez’ 2009 and 2010 classes where definitely filled with less in-state talent than MSU’s, but we’re really talking the difference of one kid from a Carr class. By the 2011 class (before he was fired) he actually had a class that remarkably resembled a Carr class.
Take a look at Dantonio’s current commits (courtesy Rivals):
And compare it to the remainder of the 2011 class for Michigan:
The instate recruiting simply isn’t that different. Midwest, well, MSU has a much larger class, so it’s a bit deceptive, but yes, Dantonio has been strong.
I suppose it’s not a bad thing that coaches are jumping on Hoke’s bandwagon and supporting him. What is so frustrating is that it just shows how much Rodriguez was treated like an outsider and how much he had working against him. Yes, I realize that horse has been beaten repeatedly, and yes, Rodriguez made mistakes and did not recruit effectively instate the first two years, but it surely wasn’t helped by this “he’s an outsider” mentality.
About Nick
It is unfortunately indicative of a coach that is out of touch and the perception of a fan base that is out of touch with reality. The people that wanted RR gone from the start are the same people that would look at the blackberry as a newfangled and unecessary tool, rather than actually the bare minimum of what the coach should have.
The entire concept of fighting over in-state recruiting is ludicrous given that Michigan does not consistently produce a huge amount of top-level talent, so to suddenly focus a huge amount of effort there and fight MSU for recruits only shows that we do not endeavor to compete on a national level. Period. We now are happy to reconcile ourselves to MSU level talent and therefore likely MSU level results.
I think high school coaches in Michigan had much the same reaction to RR and his ‘newfangled ways’ that a large segment of our fan base did, that being some perceived slight at his wholesale overhaul of things and a ‘what’s so wrong with what you are doing that you feel you need to dump it all’ type thing. Now everyone is back on board with a known, comfortable and still outdated philosophy that will produce the same known, but ‘uncomfortable’ results in steady 9-3 seasons with some 10-2/8-4 outliers and lots of out-of-conference losses. The Alabama game in 2012 is going to be a blood-letting of epic proportion. A Nick Saban lead team heading into a national spotlight game with a huge amount of time to prepare for the almost certainy of a Hoke/Borges offensive scheme where they are certainly not going to get ‘blown off the ball’ is going to show exactly where this program is headed over the next X years. The days of road-grading anything but the more obvioualy inferior teams are long over, just ask Wisconsin how that TCU thing worked out.
OSU endeavors to compete on a national level and builds, plans, recruits and schemes to be able to do so. We are not, at any time in the near future going to be blowing their NFL-level talent off the ball in any way, shape or form and to believe that you are going to compete with them by doing so is delusional, and if we can’t beat them consistently, we weill never recruit at their level and we will never compete ontheir level.
It is an interesting double-edged sword of “need the talent to win, need to win to get the talent” which Michigan seems to be faced with. I was critical of the Hoke hire because in the short term because I don’t think it was a big name, but over the long haul I think there are a few more positives than you see. Of course, I could be wrong.
100% agree that Michigan simply doesn’t have enough talent to act as a “base” – people who think that dominating Michigan means a great recruiting class are dead wrong. Carr’s classes on many times where taking FOUR guys from the state! So you can’t simply rely on Michigan. Michigan needs to be in the running for the Top 5 guys in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Pennsylvania. You’re not going to get all of them, that’s fine, but THAT is your “Midwest” base Hoke refers to, and that’s a good thing. But Michigan was also good because it could go to California, or Florida, or New York, or South Carolina (or back in the day, Texas) and pull a 4* kid to come here and play.
I’m hoping that this will be the case again. Rodriguez, for all the criticism he took, was doing a decent job in the Midwest in 2010 and 2011. His 2011 class would have been really promising had there been no job security issues when you consider that guys like Zettle, Frost, Hart, and Fisher were all probably going Blue before the firing.
Finishing this class (2010) will be interesting to watch, but I don’t think we can get a true feel until we start to see how Hoke & Co. respond in 2011. Michigan has a solid in-state crop of talent and Michigan needs to lock them up while going for the remainder of the Midwest and targeting other recruits they want from the rest of the county. Time will tell…
Don’t think “recruiting the hell out of Michigan” necessarily means Hoke looks at Michigan as his recruiting base. It may mean focusing more effort on getting the top players instead of losing them to MSU and other schools.