Michigan athletic director Dave Brandon got his man, hiring Brady Hoke on Tuesday as Michigan’s 19th football coach.
And one of his favorite parts of the process was telling the team at a 4 p.m. EST meeting at Schembechler Hall.
“”It was great. The team broke into an ovation; there was hugging going on,”” he told the Detroit Free Press on Tuesday night. “”I’m relieved because it’s a rigorous process, but I’m satisfied we got the right coach, and I know how excited he is to come.””
The week since he fired Rich Rodriguez has been different than anything Brandon could have anticipated, though. During his years as a Fortune 500 CEO, none of his hires involved people sticking microphones in his face, asking about what he was doing.
“”It was circuslike,”” he said. “”It’s unfortunate people irresponsibly throw out information. It’s counterproductive, misleading and, in some cases, hurtful, and unfortunate. But that’s the way the world works.””
He spent his time wisely, he said, doing extreme background checks to find out all he could about Hoke and become satisfied he was the right choice.
“”I talked to a lot of people,”” Brandon said. “”People that Brady has coached with, people that Brady has coached against, people that played for him. I talked to a lot of coaches who praised him. There was a lot of (positive) feedback.
“”He loves his players. He’s a players’ coach, and he gets players to play for him. They love playing for him, and that’s a great strength.””
As for the process itself and the many reports of candidates and offers, Brandon refused to get into it.
“”I offered the job to Brady this morning, and he accepted,”” Brandon said. “”I had discussions with other people, and the nature of those discussions, I’m not going into — to protect them. But there were a lot of discussions with a lot of people.””
One of those was Louisiana State coach Les Miles, but Brandon would not disclose whether an offer was made.
The process “”was not complete without talking to coach Miles, and it was very helpful,”” Brandon said.
