Can Wolverines send off Hoke like Buckeyes honored Bruce?
By Doug Lesmerises
Northeast Ohio Media Group
COLUMBUS
History will tell them the story of what happened when a team in the Ohio State-Michigan rivalry had a coach saying goodbye in The Game.
In 1987, Earle Bruce was fired on a Monday, and on a Saturday, the Buckeyes wore headbands to honor their departing coach and beat Michigan 23-20.
“That was satisfaction, seeing how happy he was,” Ohio State All-American linebacker Chris Spielman said 27 years ago after that victory. “We can all look in the mirror and walk out of here proud. For a man to go through what he went through this week, to hold his composure, is the sign of a true man, a true Buckeye.”
Brady Hoke hasn’t been fired yet. But almost everyone expects that the Michigan coach will be done after four seasons. MLive.com wrote this week that even Hoke himself seems to have accepted that fact.
But not every coach says goodbye on the shoulders of his seniors. The current Buckeyes have a little experience with that. In 2011, though in a different way, Luke Fickell went into the Michigan game knowing he’d get only this one shot, at least for now, to lead the Buckeyes against the Wolverines. Wedged between Jim Tressel’s dismissal and Urban Meyer’s almost certain arrival, Fickell spent the week trying to keep the focus on the game.
And the 6-5 Buckeyes almost beat the 9-2 Wolverines. In the end, the 40-34 loss stands as Ohio State’s only defeat in the rivalry in the last 10 years.
“Like I said, it’s about the Ohio State-Michigan game, it’s been about that since Monday and it’s going to be about that always. And that’s the way it is,” Fickell said after that loss, banging his fist on the table at his postgame news conference for emphasis and fighting back tears at times.
That’s what Michigan will face on Saturday with the likely end of Hoke’s four-year run. It should fall somewhere between Ohio State’s emotions for Bruce, the successor to Woody Hayes who wound up with a 5-4 record against Michigan in nine years, and the end to Fickell’s one-year tenure in a chaotic season.
On the field Saturday, could it matter in any way?
“It all depends on how much respect that those players have for their guy,” Ohio State senior linebacker Curtis Grant said. “If they have a lot of respect for him, they’re going to give it all they’ve got. If they don’t, they’re not going to play worth anything.”
By all accounts, the Michigan players do like and respect Hoke, who has been repeatedly described as a good man who just hasn’t gotten it done on the field, with a 31-19 record in Ann Arbor, including a 20-17 mark his last three seasons. There’s a talent issue that must be paired with any emotional impact. But after a trying season in a year when some were waiting for a Michigan breakthrough, the Wolverines could go out on one last high, or they could be beaten down by now.
“You read stuff and you hear stuff, you do,” senior linebacker Jake Ryan, a St. Ignatius grad, said according to MLive.com. “But we’re not thinking about that at all. That’s the last of our worries. As a team, we’re behind Coach Hoke, 100 percent. And all of our focus right now is on Ohio.”
At 5-6, Michigan also needs a win to be eligible for a bowl. But at the end of the 2011 season, when the Buckeyes went to the Gator Bowl, it felt like maybe the team would have been better off letting the season go.
If the Wolverines win Saturday, they’d get that bowl chance. If they lose, it’s over. And it’s probably over for Hoke.
“Any time you have a fear that you are going to lose a coach, obviously if it is your last game with him, it’s going to be emotional,” Ohio State senior Darryl Baldwin said. “So I’m sure they are going through some stuff right now. It is making it that much more important for them.”
There’s a chance Hoke could ride off into history. It also just might end.