In the daily beat reporter business covering college football, the quality of your day is dependent on the responsiveness of your head coach. The sport has those who gift a reporter with quirks and quotes like Steve Spurrier and Les Miles. Others have to deal with coaches who would rather have a root canal than speak to the media.
At least for Notre Dame week, Michigan head coach Brady Hoke has fallen in the latter category. Nick Baumgardner, Michigan football beat writer for MLive Media Group, has become justifiably sassy this week when referring to Hoke and his lack of openness.
The Wolverines’ coach has odd theories about football:
Q: What's the most important play in football? Hoke: "The punt."
— Nick Baumgardner (@nickbaumgardner) September 3, 2014
He apparently isn’t talking about injuries.
Hoke asked if he'll discuss injuries on his radio show: "I'm sure I won't."
— Nick Baumgardner (@nickbaumgardner) September 3, 2014
Hoke then provides dead air after an injury follow up.
— Nick Baumgardner (@nickbaumgardner) September 3, 2014
Hoke's not talking about injuries, Austin. RT @daginganinja28: @nickbaumgardner when does butt come back?
— Nick Baumgardner (@nickbaumgardner) September 3, 2014
Hoke also skipped out on another radio show appearance, but would he have said anything worthwhile?
Brady Hoke "called into a meeting," won't be doing his weekly 97.1 Thursday morning spot …
— Nick Baumgardner (@nickbaumgardner) September 4, 2014
Which begs the question: Is Hoke actually going to be a weekly guest on Thursdays? I guess we'll see.
— Nick Baumgardner (@nickbaumgardner) September 4, 2014
Not that it would have mattered, I suppose. Hoke's made it pretty clear he doesn't want to talk this week. About anything.
— Nick Baumgardner (@nickbaumgardner) September 4, 2014
He doesn’t want to show his hand as far as offensive lineman schemes go, and answers in the most Perd Hapley way possible. This coach says his team possesses an offensive line and they will be doing the blocking when the team is on offense. Baumgardner has thoughts.
Hoke asked about the offensive line … "We have a plan for what we wanted to do. We'll execute that plan on Saturday."
— Nick Baumgardner (@nickbaumgardner) September 3, 2014
If Brady Hoke is shutting it down to create a competitive advantage for ND, fine. But holding your OL rotation close to your vest?
— Nick Baumgardner (@nickbaumgardner) September 3, 2014
Not sure that creates any type of competitive advantage. UNLESS, you're going to use an OL at QB, RB and WR … or something insane
— Nick Baumgardner (@nickbaumgardner) September 3, 2014
And finally, Baumgardner tweets what we all want to say at some point or another.
<sarcasm font>
— Nick Baumgardner (@nickbaumgardner) September 3, 2014
If your subject isn’t going to give you any material to work with, you may as well have some fun with the job for him.
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About Jonathan Biles
Jonathan Biles is a staff writer for Awful Announcing.