Hoke is no one’s “compromise” or “second-tier” coaching candidate. Not if you understand football. Not if you comprehend how he got to the point that he’s even a candidate to be Michigan’s next football coach.
Brady Hoke loves hard. He loves his family, his players, his assistant coaches, Ball State football and Michigan football.
You think winning 12 games and getting into the BCS conversation is difficult at Stanford? Try doing it at Ball State. Try doing it without a coaching office, after the school president has paid the emotionally unstable women’s basketball coach more than you. Try doing it at the place you love that doesn’t love you back.
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Hoke has been honest with his bosses. Michigan is his destination job. He has no interest in auctioning himself off to the highest bidder. He loves Ann Arbor. He’d crawl on hot, broken glass to work inside Schembechler Hall as the head coach.
I’m not speculating. He has an uncanny ability to get kids to believe in him and believe in themselves. He doesn’t do it with smooth words. He’s not smooth. He does it by being the same genuine person day after day. I’ve watched his practices, sat in his meetings, listened to him address his team before a big game, after a tough loss and on a mundane Thursday.
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