As you can see from pictures MVictors.com took at Michigan's spring game last Saturday, Brady Hoke looks good in a dark blue windbreaker. But Hoke has always seemed to favor dark colors in his sideline attire, as ESPN.com's Adam Rittenberg noted in a blog post on Thursday.
↵Yet Hoke's previous head coaching stops, Ball State and San Diego State, both had red in their color scheme. For the Cardinals, it was their primary color. Less so for the Aztecs.
↵So what's the story? Black tends to be a slimming color. (That's what I'm told, anyway.) Is Coach Hoke just trying to look sleek and svelte when he's coaching his team? Maybe, but there's also something more to it.
↵↵↵↵Hoke's red rejection had nothing to do with Ball State or San Diego State. It had everything to do with Michigan and its archrival, the school Hoke refers to only as "Ohio."
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Ohio State wears scarlet on Saturdays, and a Michigan man like Hoke, a Wolverines assistant from 1995-2002, would be damned if he'd enter the same color palette.
That is hardcore, Coach. I mean, I generally feel the same way about wearing red, for much the same reason. I also have a maroon hooded sweatshirt that I believe suits me well, but that's maroon, not red.
↵But Hoke takes his rivalries seriously. Maybe the refusal to wear red was the first thing he mentioned when interviewing with Dave Brandon. That would've been a powerful icebreaker. Especially compared to the perception that Rich Rodriguez didn't understand the importance of the rivalry with the Buckeyes.
↵There's plenty more in Rittenberg's post, including quotes from defensive end Ryan Van Bergen about the teasing Hoke took from his players about not wearing red, those countdown clocks for the Ohio State game that are mounted all over the football complex, and Hoke's curious refusal to include the word "State" when talking about "Ohio."
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