My main concern was being too 'air raid' .. but that was just me not knowing much about Arizona State. They threw for a little over 2500 yards, and rushed for almost 2300 yards. I can't really find too much on their D tho. We gotta stay tough on that side of the ball too.
Apparently he's a great recruiter. Kids love him. Offensive mind. I've read multiple people already call him a Dan Lanning clone because of age/experience. He's coached with some great coaches and schools.
Apparently he's a great recruiter. Kids love him. Offensive mind. I've read multiple people already call him a Dan Lanning clone because of age/experience. He's coached with some great coaches and schools.
Yes there's a sizable and loud faction within the university family that dislikes him, but that's not close to every donor. Being AD is a precarious position, it's not hard to piss people off and make enemies for reasons that have nothing to do with how well you're doing your job. Doubly true when you're black and they resent you having authority. If you reject someone's stupid NIL collective scheme in favor of more sound proposals, then you've just made an enemy.
Zavier is friends with Warde's son and it was the son's car. Yes, legally (title and insurance) it was Manuel's car but in a practical sense it wasn't. Let's not act precious about college kids loaning their cars to their friends.
As No1 stated the NCAA investigations are linked to Jim who, amusingly, is the golden child of the anti-Manuel faction. The Pearson and the Howard stuff were internal (or outsourced). Now I generally dislike Manuel's management style, I think feel the AD was too lax when it came to vetting, and too hostile when it comes to being forthcoming about information. However, blaming him because Jim Harbaugh lacked institutional control and was uncooperative with the NCAA is unfair unless your remedy was to fire Jim.
The investigation into the hockey program was being conducted by a third party, WilmerHale, so Michigan wasn't going to act before that concluded and by the time it was finished the season was over. I don't think it's accurate to he let anything slide up to that point, he had allowed the investigation run it's course.
The mishandling was what he didn't do after receiving the report and I don't know when he actually read it. It had been a couple of months of inexplicable inaction, so it was reasonable for people to ask questions. Pearson's contract wasn't renewed, but no statement about his employment hadn't been issued and he continued to work as an at-will employee. If he was supposed to be fired, Manuel was well past that point and at the one where a conducting a national search for a replacement was implausible. Manuel unequivocally handled this poorly which is why MSC (interim president) and the reagents got involved. I think it was more negligence than anything else.
Howard was disciplined for his misconduct and terminated when he didn't have a plan to turnaround the program. My wife thought he should have been fired after the Wisconsin incident and that was a common sentiment among people at our alumni association chapter as well. So maybe he should have been fired at that point, but he was obviously given more latitude because of his standing as a former player. With Sanderson, Jon was being insubordinate with his comments and was correctly removed from the men's basketball program. Now I thought his comments were factually correct but that's not how hierarchy works, you don't get to disrespect/undermine your boss and maintain your association.
Denard had one incident several years ago but nothing in between that and what happened at Michigan. If you find an old DUI to be disqualifying, that's fine but it's not the standard most employers have unless driving is a core function.
The only thing from sign-gate that you can blame Manuel for is firing Chris Partridge. Partridge filed a lawsuit for wrongful termination, which I think he either won or they settled. In any case, he was fired based on a lie and Manuel acted before having all the facts.
You can investigate rumors and "open secrets" but if the subordinate denies there is a relationship--that you can't otherwise verify--and has filed no harassment complaint, there's little that can be done. The BOR hired a third party to investigate this and they found nothing up until the subordinate came forward the day Sherrone was fired. It's reasonable not to trust Manuel to properly vet things, but it so far it appears that nobody had actionable information until that happened.
However, his actual mishandling seems to be firing Sherrone 1-on-1, which broke university protocol. They're trying to add more color to this, but it was a genuinely a dumb move regardless.
The NFL guy that Jim hired from his brother with no priors to indicate he'd be hacking into female student-athletes' personal accounts? This one is nobody's fault...
I'm not even saying Manuel should keep his job or there aren't legitimate criticisms and grievances, but you need to understand this is politics and people are weaponizing noise to push other agendas. Just listing names without context doesn't show cause for why he should lose his job. However, when Manuel does leave the racists and the dullards thirsty to push him out better pray his successor is as fiscally responsible as he is. There's a reason a peer program like OSU wanted that "private equity" deal while Michigan didn't. Making a lot of money just means you have more to spend, it doesn't mean you're good at managing it. This wasn't the case under Gene Smith...
You brought up Bakich in another post, so I'll address that here.
Big Ten baseball is a mid-major conference, the ACC is high major baseball. You want to go dollar-for-dollar with Clemson, a college baseball power, for a non-revenue sport coach that has ties to them? Baseball's success wasn't reflected in an increase of attendance, so what's the financial justification? Simply because you "want to?" You can't manage a department based on "want to", Michigan doesn't have unlimited money for non-revenue sports. Bakich wasn't the best or most accomplished non-revenue coach in the department. If you pay him above budget, then you're upsetting the balance with other non-revenue coaches. You no longer can point to success, revenue generation, fan support, average conference salary, or any other metric to justify not granting the more successful non-revenue coaches their requests wrt salary and resources. Once you make it about "want to", not "wanting to" bruises egos and results in coaches leaving for other jobs. You don't put the department at risk because causal fans don't understand the actual landscape, it's not like that guaranteed he stays or stays long-term. I know people like to claim he would have, but they sound like every other mid-major fan who thinks their super special awesome coach is a lifer.
I'm just posting this to clear some things up, I realize it's a lot of text.
Yes there's a sizable and loud faction within the university family that dislikes him, but that's not close to every donor. Being AD is a precarious position, it's not hard to piss people off and make enemies for reasons that have nothing to do with how well you're doing your job. Doubly true when you're black and they resent you having authority. If you reject someone's stupid NIL collective scheme in favor of more sound proposals, then you've just made an enemy.
Zavier is friends with Warde's son and it was the son's car. Yes, legally (title and insurance) it was Manuel's car but in a practical sense it wasn't. Let's not act precious about college kids loaning their cars to their friends.
As No1 stated the NCAA investigations are linked to Jim who, amusingly, is the golden child of the anti-Manuel faction. The Pearson and the Howard stuff were internal (or outsourced). Now I generally dislike Manuel's management style, I think feel the AD was too lax when it came to vetting, and too hostile when it comes to being forthcoming about information. However, blaming him because Jim Harbaugh lacked institutional control and was uncooperative with the NCAA is unfair unless your remedy was to fire Jim.
The investigation into the hockey program was being conducted by a third party, WilmerHale, so Michigan wasn't going to act before that concluded and by the time it was finished the season was over. I don't think it's accurate to he let anything slide up to that point, he had allowed the investigation run it's course.
The mishandling was what he didn't do after receiving the report and I don't know when he actually read it. It had been a couple of months of inexplicable inaction, so it was reasonable for people to ask questions. Pearson's contract wasn't renewed, but no statement about his employment hadn't been issued and he continued to work as an at-will employee. If he was supposed to be fired, Manuel was well past that point and at the one where a conducting a national search for a replacement was implausible. Manuel unequivocally handled this poorly which is why MSC (interim president) and the reagents got involved. I think it was more negligence than anything else.
Howard was disciplined for his misconduct and terminated when he didn't have a plan to turnaround the program. My wife thought he should have been fired after the Wisconsin incident and that was a common sentiment among people at our alumni association chapter as well. So maybe he should have been fired at that point, but he was obviously given more latitude because of his standing as a former player. With Sanderson, Jon was being insubordinate with his comments and was correctly removed from the men's basketball program. Now I thought his comments were factually correct but that's not how hierarchy works, you don't get to disrespect/undermine your boss and maintain your association.
What do you think you know about his situation?
Addressed in the earlier comment.
Denard had one incident several years ago but nothing in between that and what happened at Michigan. If you find an old DUI to be disqualifying, that's fine but it's not the standard most employers have unless driving is a core function.
The only thing from sign-gate that you can blame Manuel for is firing Chris Partridge. Partridge filed a lawsuit for wrongful termination, which I think he either won or they settled. In any case, he was fired based on a lie and Manuel acted before having all the facts.
You can investigate rumors and "open secrets" but if the subordinate denies there is a relationship--that you can't otherwise verify--and has filed no harassment complaint, there's little that can be done. The BOR hired a third party to investigate this and they found nothing up until the subordinate came forward the day Sherrone was fired. It's reasonable not to trust Manuel to properly vet things, but it so far it appears that nobody had actionable information until that happened.
However, his actual mishandling seems to be firing Sherrone 1-on-1, which broke university protocol. They're trying to add more color to this, but it was a genuinely a dumb move regardless.
The NFL guy that Jim hired from his brother with no priors to indicate he'd be hacking into female student-athletes' personal accounts? This one is nobody's fault...
I'm not even saying Manuel should keep his job or there aren't legitimate criticisms and grievances, but you need to understand this is politics and people are weaponizing noise to push other agendas. Just listing names without context doesn't show cause for why he should lose his job. However, when Manuel does leave the racists and the dullards thirsty to push him out better pray his successor is as fiscally responsible as he is. There's a reason a peer program like OSU wanted that "private equity" deal while Michigan didn't. Making a lot of money just means you have more to spend, it doesn't mean you're good at managing it. This wasn't the case under Gene Smith...
You brought up Bakich in another post, so I'll address that here.
Big Ten baseball is a mid-major conference, the ACC is high major baseball. You want to go dollar-for-dollar with Clemson, a college baseball power, for a non-revenue sport coach that has ties to them? Baseball's success wasn't reflected in an increase of attendance, so what's the financial justification? Simply because you "want to?" You can't manage a department based on "want to", Michigan doesn't have unlimited money for non-revenue sports. Bakich wasn't the best or most accomplished non-revenue coach in the department. If you pay him above budget, then you're upsetting the balance with other non-revenue coaches. You no longer can point to success, revenue generation, fan support, average conference salary, or any other metric to justify not granting the more successful non-revenue coaches their requests wrt salary and resources. Once you make it about "want to", not "wanting to" bruises egos and results in coaches leaving for other jobs. You don't put the department at risk because causal fans don't understand the actual landscape, it's not like that guaranteed he stays or stays long-term. I know people like to claim he would have, but they sound like every other mid-major fan who thinks their super special awesome coach is a lifer.
Funny enough, outside of a comment or two, I really don't disagree with anything you've said here. It all goes back to 'optics' like I mentioned before. Michigan takes pride in being squeaky clean in every aspect of their reputation. Whether it be athletics or education. Repeated black eyes in the athletic department eventually has eyes looking at the department head. Racist or not, it is what it is. You're 110% right. It's politics. But perception in this case.. with a school like Michigan gets magnified tenfold. That's why I think (rightfully or not, IDK) Warde will get his walking papers shortly after we hire the new football coach.
You add in all the black eyes, the racism, and the favoritism with the reagents/donors/alumni .. and this is where we are.
Edit: I don't have an opinion on the Hart situation because not much came out after his abrupt exit. Just that writers went all in with their theories. Some painting him in a bad light. I added that in there because I basically added things that weren't a good look for UM.
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