Brady Hoke's Life After Michigan Football

The world is upside down for Brady Hoke.

In his 34 years of coaching football—whether at Grand Valley State or Western Michigan, Toledo or Ball State, San Diego State or even Michigan—this has always been his favorite time of year. Fall camp. The start of a new season. All that time, 24/7, just coaching kids.       

But Hoke's on the outside now, spending quality family time, traveling with his wife, going on 8-mile walks in the morning, working out.

"We've been able as a family to do some things we haven't been able to do," he says. "Spend time together."

This is the next phase for Hoke, life after Michigan. And yet, when you hear him say it, you get this feeling that maybe not everything has changed. So you test him. Hoke started a new gig this week on Sirius XM College Sports Nation with co-host Mark Packer. He'll be on radio twice a week. He is supposed to have some level of objectivity now, and not just carry a Michigan bias.

So you test him:

I don't believe you are capable, as a Michigan Man, of saying that Ohio State is the best team in the country.

"You know, they're an awful good football team," Hoke says. "The one thing, though, is they have to play the games. From all accounts, they're the reigning national champs and they have a good team coming back, but it will be about how they compete.

"Is that hard for me to say? No."

Um. Is what hard for you to say? The challenge was to see if you can say Ohio State is the best team.

You did not.

"They're the reigning national champs."

Jay LaPrete/Associated Press

Let's come back to that, because the way Hoke talks now, something sounds so different from how it did last year—and yet, somehow, exactly the same. He seems so blunt and plain-talking. And I guess that's what he was doing last year, too, when he was under so much fire. But back then, it came across as defensive and maybe even a little dense. Now, those same kinds of words remind you of what Michigan liked about him in the first place.

He talks about "the day I got fired" and doesn't gloss it over or say anything about "mutually agreed upon" or anything like that. He admits he still "has sensitivity toward" being fired. But he says it without sounding bitter toward Michigan. In fact, he wishes beloved new coach Jim Harbaugh luck and thinks he'll do well right away.

Year	W-L	Bowl	Coach
2015			Jim Harbaugh
2014	5-7		Brady Hoke
2013	7-6	Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl-L	Brady Hoke
2012	8-5	Outback Bowl-L	Brady Hoke
2011	11-2	Sugar Bowl-W	Brady Hoke
2010	7-6	Gator Bowl-L	Rich Rodriguez
2009	5-7		Rich Rodriguez
2008	3-9		Rich Rodriguez
2007	9-4	Capital One Bowl-W	Lloyd Carr
2006	11-2	Rose Bowl-L	Lloyd Carr

He talks about his predecessor, too. Rich Rodriguez and his hurry-up offense were brought in to modernize Michigan. After three years of butting heads with fans, as well as former coach Lloyd Carr, he was run out. Rodriguez once told me it was because he wasn't a "Michigan Man." He didn't have the right style. Now, he's winning again at Arizona.

"RichRod is a heck of a football coach," Hoke says. "And the program was going in a direction that was probably going to be pretty positive for him."

RichRod would have won at Michigan? And the Michigan Man says so? But he was run off and Michigan brought back the past with Hoke, a former assistant. And after a good first year, it wasn't long before he came off looking like Fred Flintstone, playing prehistoric football.

"I'd be lying to tell you that no doubt we were disappointed to be fired," Hoke says. "But we live in an age with a 24/7 news cycle. You just want to have the chance to put the foundation together and have the opportunity."

Part of the problem for Hoke was that he couldn't sell the program, couldn't sell his direction or himself. Coaches today have a way of talking coachspeak so they sound like some sort of visionary or genius. Hoke couldn't do that. He tried, but he isn't stylish.

For example, Hoke talks now about his vacations this offseason with his wife. Paris? London? Rome? Nope.

"Well, we saw some friends," he says. "San Diego. We went down to Key West, where I'd never been before. We went to Charleston. Nashville. Nothing exotic. Most people would say that's really not traveling. For us, when you're a coach and a coach's wife, with the recruiting and everything else, that's traveling for us."

The truth is, for Hoke, there's no fully getting away, not when you've been doing the same thing for so long. Football is an itch he's dying to scratch.

So even if his days aren't about waking up first thing to spend every second, day and night, thinking about Michigan football, he can't totally disconnect. When he's working out, he says, the TV is on ESPN or maybe the Pac-12 Network, and he's trying to study up for his radio gig.

He says of Tuesday's show, his first, "It was like the first day of school for me, doing something I hadn't done before. Radio. I'm trying to be as professional and prepared as I possibly can. [Packer] told me, 'It's like you and I are at lunch at a bar talking college football. You're the expert. I may have some opinions on things, but you have the expertise of being in the locker room and coaching.'

"I still have my job today, so we're doing OK. Moving in the right direction."

But one of the first things Hoke says is that he's missing fall camp. He wants another coaching job.

Tony Ding/Associated Press

He'll get another shot, though not at Michigan's level. It was a smart play to go on radio, keep his name and face out there. At the same time, he might be moving a little too fast, without enough time to get over being fired.

Hoke, who's 56, said a little break from coaching could be good for him. At the same time, it could kill him he misses it so much.

As for radio, Hoke hasn't been the smoothest talker publicly. This radio job could go either way for him. He's going to have to open up and sell bluntness the way Mike Ditka did. Tough and plain-talking. So let's start with his thoughts on Ohio State.

Again, is Ohio State the best team?

"They're reigning national champs."

Let's try it this way: Which team is the best in the country?

"Right now, they're the reigning champ," he says. "So Ohio is."

Ohio? Hoke used to leave off the "State" part when he was at Michigan. It was a way of poking fun at a place that pompously calls itself The Ohio State University.

You still didn't even say Ohio State.

"No," Hoke says. "I didn't."

Greg Couch covers college football for Bleacher Report.