Michigan coach Brady Hoke has been known to take a shot or two at someone else’s expense while coaching the Wolverines. Of course, there’s the whole “Ohio” deal with Ohio State, and earlier this week, Hoke took a dig at Notre Dame for “chickening out” of future game dates.
Here’s what Hoke had to say, via Keith Arnold over at Inside the Irish:“We are fortunate to have unbelievable rivalry games at Michigan,” Hoke said at a booster luncheon in Grand Rapids, Michigan. “The Notre Dame game, that rivalry, which they’re chickening out of, but…” Hoke said, before being interrupted by applause, and pausing to appreciate the verbal haymaker he landed.
“They’re still gonna play Michigan State, they’re gonna play Purdue, but they don’t want to play Michigan. So… ” Hoke continued to an approving crowd. “I don’t know how they made that decision. I really do. But anyway, that’s a great national rivalry game. It’s a great game.”
Not surprisingly, the quotes went viral and Irish nose tackle Louis Nix fired back at Hoke on his Twitter account Tuesday. “Chickened out?
As is almost always the case with scheduling, there’s a lot to consider. Notre Dame will soon begin to play five ACC opponents every year as part of an agreement with the conference. That’s already resulted in some tension between the Irish and Arizona State over future games. Also, the Big Ten will go to a nine-game conference schedule beginning in 2016.
But Arnold did a little bit of digging for his blog today and found something interesting: the decision to put the 2018 and ’19 games on hold was Michigan’s idea (though Dave Brandon disagrees).
The two sides are set to put their rivalry on hiatus after the 2014 season anyway, but neither side wants it to end (despite the words between them). As of today, the series is tentatively set to resume in 2020.