Let me preface this by saying that Danny Hope is a good football coach.
If he wasn't, he'd never had the distinction of earning one of the just 11 (at the time) head football coaching position in the Big Ten. You don't just fall into these jobs, you know. You have to earn them. It wasn't a conventional path, but Hope earned his chance.
If Hope weren't a good football coach, he'd never have had the chance to accept not one, but two, dream jobs, first Eastern Kentucky, then Purdue. As I wrote the day of his hiring, we should all be so lucky.
From here, I don't know where Hope will go, but if he's going to be a head coach again, a small school outside the mainstream, situated in the Southeast, would suit him well. If not, any SEC or ACC program would be smart to hire him to coach its offensive line and recruit Miami and concern himself with nothing more.
Danny Hope is a good football coach.
He was not, however, a good head football coach at Purdue, try as he might. Trust me: No one worked harder than that guy. No one poured more of himself into his job.
What transpired during the weekend very nearly transpired one year ago, when Hope's contract situation reached critical mass. The bizarre and contradictory timing of his contract extension was suggestive, especially in light of what we reported, that Purdue had been evaluating its open-market options for weeks, if not months, before issuing Hope an extension just before Christmas.
As Chris Rock says in a much different context, "You're only as loyal as your options," and last December, a whole bunch of could-have-been Purdue coaches got other jobs and ? voila! - Purdue extends its coach. I'm not saying anything's wrong with that: It's just business, nothing personal.
Hope was brought in in 2008 to be Joe Tiller's pre-appointed successor, a situation, looking back, that was not a good one, but a reasonable move at the time. It worked at Wisconsin and it can work anywhere, but you have to get the right guy.
It didn't take all that long to figure out Purdue didn't.
Contrary to what you might have heard, the cupboard was not bare, even as the Boilermakers came off a 4-8 season in Tiller's finale.
Look at the 2009 team that lost four straight games by a total of 18 points as part of a five-game losing streak that ruined the season and tell me that team wasn't good enough to at least go to an irrelevant bowl game.
That team was talented enough to beat Ohio State; to win in Ann Arbor, a feat no matter how badly Rich Rodriguez had mucked up that program; and came within an eye-lash of winning at Oregon in a game played during infomercial hours, ET. But it wasn't talented enough to get to the Sun Bowl?
From that point on, it's almost been a matter of when and not if this day would come, with the 2010 season being stricken from the record due to the supernatural-ish injury epidemic. The 2011 season brought just enough success, but just barely enough, as it were. In 2012, expectations were every bit as much Hope's adversary as was bad tackling or inconsistent quarterback play during Big Ten play. This was the season that was built toward; the schedule was as manageable as it's ever going to be in this league; and the issues at Ohio State and Penn State afforded Purdue a chance to super size its bowl bid.
Using Purdue imagery, the train wrecked.
In the big picture, where did Hope go wrong?
Well, first off, in his defense, you cannot separate his record and injury. You can't. They are inextricably linked. The man never had the benefit of normalcy at the quarterback position and never had a chance to really establish an offensive identity because of it. And as I'll elaborate on at a later time, there's simply no telling what might have happened had Robert Marve not gotten hurt and become the signature star ? the billboard guy ? Purdue hoped he would be and he was talented enough to be.
When Marve signed with Purdue, I called him the most important recruit in program history and I stand by every word. It just didn't work out until it was too late, for reasons that were no one's fault.
But back to our original question here: Where did Hope go wrong?
To name a few:
Culture: Hope liked to say, "It's all about the players in our program" and often talked of being a player's coach.
A lot of coaches will tell you: "Player's coach" is not always a compliment.
Whether it was the kid-glove treatment of players in the program or the pumping-up of each and every "difference-maker" in the recruiting process, the line has been blurred as to who exactly runs things around here. Anecdotal evidence abounds, but there is no sense in piling on.
Discipline was an issue for a coach who's a pretty, shall we say, visceral guy, known to embrace the importance of his guys getting the full college experience, so to speak.
Staffing: Hope surrounded himself with his guys. A lot of coaches do. That's perfectly reasonable as long as your guys are good. Loyalty is noble. But loyalty can also get you fired.
When Hope ascended to head coach, he brought an Eastern Kentucky contingent with him. That's a major jump.
As for how ? and how shall we put this? - empowered this staff was, one thing that was very clear was that this has been a Danny Hope- and Gary Nord-steered ship all the way.
(Note: Understanding what popular opinion is now, I have always thought highly of Nord.)
Sensitivity: There's this great dichotomy in Danny Hope.
On one hand, he's a straight-talking, what-you-see-is-what-you-get man of humble roots, utterly void of pretense.
On the other, there's the coach consumed by perception, keenly focused on what people thought about him, his decisions and his program.
Right or wrong, if there was a moment where Hope lost hold of public opinion, it came in 2009 when he called the timeout against Notre Dame.
Look, if you actually listened to his reasoning and thought about it critically, it was understandable at the time. You didn't have to agree with it, but it wasn't like he scored the touchdown for Notre Dame, either.
But it didn't play well, either locally or nationally, at the time.
When Hope came out to talk with us the next day, he'd clearly been enveloped by that story, showing up before practice the following Sunday with a detailed breakdown of every potential scenario to justify the call, 18 hours or so after it was made.
The point being: It was over. Move on.
In a larger sense, as you know and as we certainly know, there was frequently a pretty substantial gap between what we were told and what we saw on Saturday afternoons. No one should ever, ever, ever take issue with a coach being unabashedly positive, but there comes a point in time where credibility comes into question. That bridge was crossed years ago.
Now, mind you, there is nothing wrong with such tendencies.
Bill Snyder's carved a Hall of Fame career out of being a paranoid, unpleasant mess. Nick Saban would rather decapitate a sideline reporter than take that 45 seconds to issue a couple banal non-answers before halftime.
But in jobs the magnitude of these ones, the ability to focus on what's important is typically a prerequisite to success.
In the grand scheme of things, media scrutiny, in a market where there is pretty much no media scrutiny relative to other Big Ten programs, doesn't matter. Message boards don't matter. Newspapers don't matter.
In the end, Hope was fired as much because he lost the fan base than because he lost games, a cautionary tale for coaches and a reminder that you have to get people to believe you before you can get them to believe in you.
Hope, though, had plenty of "redeeming qualities," to steal one of his go-to phrases, during his time at Purdue.
When he was hired in 2008, Purdue needed new energy. That, Hope brought in abundance. He's been a live wire, with a passion for the rigors of coaching, an absolute immersion in the visceral highs of football and a total and undying loyalty to his players, who he seemed to love dearly, one of \ the reason your heart had to ache not only for Sean Matti and his family last year, but also for Hope. As Boilermaker coach, Danny Hope was all in as a promoter of the program. He was always eager to come on our silly little Internet TV show to talk directly to "Boilermaker Nation" and, by every account I've gathered, a more-than-willing participant in any endeavor designed to get said "nation" behind the program.
Further, he connected with his kids. They loved him. And he got young men to buy in academically, kids who might otherwise have not have. He promised mothers he'd take care of their sons and he did everything in his power to deliver. For that, he should be admired.
I guess there's a bit of irony there, that a coach so eager to attract the masses leaves this place having been fired every bit because of empty seats than wins and losses.
And so ends the Hope Era, one defined by really high highs; really low lows; a never-ending string of surgeries and a constant parade of quarterbacks; plenty to talk about; and the ultimate bottoming-out when expectations hit their highest point.
In the end, it just didn't work.
But we can say this: It was never uninteresting.
On a personal note, I do want to take a moment to publicly wish Danny Hope well in whatever is next for him.
His relationship with the media was, shall we say, never a terribly comfortable one, but with any coach we cover, we do appreciate their time and cooperation along with whatever access they permit to their players and coaches. Dealing with the media is a significant portion of a head coach's job at this level, and again, we do appreciate their cooperation.
To sum this up, no one wishes any ill on Danny Hope. He tried his best at Purdue. No one can question that. No one worked harder than that man.
Somewhere out there there's another good job waiting for him and after five years at Purdue, he'll be a better coach in 2013 than he was in 2008 because of his time here.
Someone will be the beneficiary.
Yeah, somebody's going to get a good football coach out of this.
Good luck, Danny.
Copyright, Boilers, Inc. 2012. All Rights Reserved. Reproducing or using editorial or graphical content, in whole or in part, without permission, is strictly prohibited. E-mail GoldandBlack.com/Boilers, Inc.
This post was edited on 11/26 12:10 AM by Brian_GoldandBlack.com
If he wasn't, he'd never had the distinction of earning one of the just 11 (at the time) head football coaching position in the Big Ten. You don't just fall into these jobs, you know. You have to earn them. It wasn't a conventional path, but Hope earned his chance.
If Hope weren't a good football coach, he'd never have had the chance to accept not one, but two, dream jobs, first Eastern Kentucky, then Purdue. As I wrote the day of his hiring, we should all be so lucky.
From here, I don't know where Hope will go, but if he's going to be a head coach again, a small school outside the mainstream, situated in the Southeast, would suit him well. If not, any SEC or ACC program would be smart to hire him to coach its offensive line and recruit Miami and concern himself with nothing more.
Danny Hope is a good football coach.
He was not, however, a good head football coach at Purdue, try as he might. Trust me: No one worked harder than that guy. No one poured more of himself into his job.
What transpired during the weekend very nearly transpired one year ago, when Hope's contract situation reached critical mass. The bizarre and contradictory timing of his contract extension was suggestive, especially in light of what we reported, that Purdue had been evaluating its open-market options for weeks, if not months, before issuing Hope an extension just before Christmas.
As Chris Rock says in a much different context, "You're only as loyal as your options," and last December, a whole bunch of could-have-been Purdue coaches got other jobs and ? voila! - Purdue extends its coach. I'm not saying anything's wrong with that: It's just business, nothing personal.
Hope was brought in in 2008 to be Joe Tiller's pre-appointed successor, a situation, looking back, that was not a good one, but a reasonable move at the time. It worked at Wisconsin and it can work anywhere, but you have to get the right guy.
It didn't take all that long to figure out Purdue didn't.
Contrary to what you might have heard, the cupboard was not bare, even as the Boilermakers came off a 4-8 season in Tiller's finale.
Look at the 2009 team that lost four straight games by a total of 18 points as part of a five-game losing streak that ruined the season and tell me that team wasn't good enough to at least go to an irrelevant bowl game.
That team was talented enough to beat Ohio State; to win in Ann Arbor, a feat no matter how badly Rich Rodriguez had mucked up that program; and came within an eye-lash of winning at Oregon in a game played during infomercial hours, ET. But it wasn't talented enough to get to the Sun Bowl?
From that point on, it's almost been a matter of when and not if this day would come, with the 2010 season being stricken from the record due to the supernatural-ish injury epidemic. The 2011 season brought just enough success, but just barely enough, as it were. In 2012, expectations were every bit as much Hope's adversary as was bad tackling or inconsistent quarterback play during Big Ten play. This was the season that was built toward; the schedule was as manageable as it's ever going to be in this league; and the issues at Ohio State and Penn State afforded Purdue a chance to super size its bowl bid.
Using Purdue imagery, the train wrecked.
In the big picture, where did Hope go wrong?
Well, first off, in his defense, you cannot separate his record and injury. You can't. They are inextricably linked. The man never had the benefit of normalcy at the quarterback position and never had a chance to really establish an offensive identity because of it. And as I'll elaborate on at a later time, there's simply no telling what might have happened had Robert Marve not gotten hurt and become the signature star ? the billboard guy ? Purdue hoped he would be and he was talented enough to be.
When Marve signed with Purdue, I called him the most important recruit in program history and I stand by every word. It just didn't work out until it was too late, for reasons that were no one's fault.
But back to our original question here: Where did Hope go wrong?
To name a few:
Culture: Hope liked to say, "It's all about the players in our program" and often talked of being a player's coach.
A lot of coaches will tell you: "Player's coach" is not always a compliment.
Whether it was the kid-glove treatment of players in the program or the pumping-up of each and every "difference-maker" in the recruiting process, the line has been blurred as to who exactly runs things around here. Anecdotal evidence abounds, but there is no sense in piling on.
Discipline was an issue for a coach who's a pretty, shall we say, visceral guy, known to embrace the importance of his guys getting the full college experience, so to speak.
Staffing: Hope surrounded himself with his guys. A lot of coaches do. That's perfectly reasonable as long as your guys are good. Loyalty is noble. But loyalty can also get you fired.
When Hope ascended to head coach, he brought an Eastern Kentucky contingent with him. That's a major jump.
As for how ? and how shall we put this? - empowered this staff was, one thing that was very clear was that this has been a Danny Hope- and Gary Nord-steered ship all the way.
(Note: Understanding what popular opinion is now, I have always thought highly of Nord.)
Sensitivity: There's this great dichotomy in Danny Hope.
On one hand, he's a straight-talking, what-you-see-is-what-you-get man of humble roots, utterly void of pretense.
On the other, there's the coach consumed by perception, keenly focused on what people thought about him, his decisions and his program.
Right or wrong, if there was a moment where Hope lost hold of public opinion, it came in 2009 when he called the timeout against Notre Dame.
Look, if you actually listened to his reasoning and thought about it critically, it was understandable at the time. You didn't have to agree with it, but it wasn't like he scored the touchdown for Notre Dame, either.
But it didn't play well, either locally or nationally, at the time.
When Hope came out to talk with us the next day, he'd clearly been enveloped by that story, showing up before practice the following Sunday with a detailed breakdown of every potential scenario to justify the call, 18 hours or so after it was made.
The point being: It was over. Move on.
In a larger sense, as you know and as we certainly know, there was frequently a pretty substantial gap between what we were told and what we saw on Saturday afternoons. No one should ever, ever, ever take issue with a coach being unabashedly positive, but there comes a point in time where credibility comes into question. That bridge was crossed years ago.
Now, mind you, there is nothing wrong with such tendencies.
Bill Snyder's carved a Hall of Fame career out of being a paranoid, unpleasant mess. Nick Saban would rather decapitate a sideline reporter than take that 45 seconds to issue a couple banal non-answers before halftime.
But in jobs the magnitude of these ones, the ability to focus on what's important is typically a prerequisite to success.
In the grand scheme of things, media scrutiny, in a market where there is pretty much no media scrutiny relative to other Big Ten programs, doesn't matter. Message boards don't matter. Newspapers don't matter.
In the end, Hope was fired as much because he lost the fan base than because he lost games, a cautionary tale for coaches and a reminder that you have to get people to believe you before you can get them to believe in you.
Hope, though, had plenty of "redeeming qualities," to steal one of his go-to phrases, during his time at Purdue.
When he was hired in 2008, Purdue needed new energy. That, Hope brought in abundance. He's been a live wire, with a passion for the rigors of coaching, an absolute immersion in the visceral highs of football and a total and undying loyalty to his players, who he seemed to love dearly, one of \ the reason your heart had to ache not only for Sean Matti and his family last year, but also for Hope. As Boilermaker coach, Danny Hope was all in as a promoter of the program. He was always eager to come on our silly little Internet TV show to talk directly to "Boilermaker Nation" and, by every account I've gathered, a more-than-willing participant in any endeavor designed to get said "nation" behind the program.
Further, he connected with his kids. They loved him. And he got young men to buy in academically, kids who might otherwise have not have. He promised mothers he'd take care of their sons and he did everything in his power to deliver. For that, he should be admired.
I guess there's a bit of irony there, that a coach so eager to attract the masses leaves this place having been fired every bit because of empty seats than wins and losses.
And so ends the Hope Era, one defined by really high highs; really low lows; a never-ending string of surgeries and a constant parade of quarterbacks; plenty to talk about; and the ultimate bottoming-out when expectations hit their highest point.
In the end, it just didn't work.
But we can say this: It was never uninteresting.
On a personal note, I do want to take a moment to publicly wish Danny Hope well in whatever is next for him.
His relationship with the media was, shall we say, never a terribly comfortable one, but with any coach we cover, we do appreciate their time and cooperation along with whatever access they permit to their players and coaches. Dealing with the media is a significant portion of a head coach's job at this level, and again, we do appreciate their cooperation.
To sum this up, no one wishes any ill on Danny Hope. He tried his best at Purdue. No one can question that. No one worked harder than that man.
Somewhere out there there's another good job waiting for him and after five years at Purdue, he'll be a better coach in 2013 than he was in 2008 because of his time here.
Someone will be the beneficiary.
Yeah, somebody's going to get a good football coach out of this.
Good luck, Danny.
Copyright, Boilers, Inc. 2012. All Rights Reserved. Reproducing or using editorial or graphical content, in whole or in part, without permission, is strictly prohibited. E-mail GoldandBlack.com/Boilers, Inc.
This post was edited on 11/26 12:10 AM by Brian_GoldandBlack.com
