What were the ways in which the Michigan athletic department—which was then helmed by Fritz Crisler—did not support Oosterbaan?

Its pay for play.

You know how, in the wake of Harbaugh's departure, a lot of people were big mad at Warde for fumbling the ball and a lot of other people, myself included, were pushing back and pointing to the ample indications that Harbaugh was going to leave for a Super Bowl opportunity anyways, regardless of how well he did or didn't get along with Warde, and that it's dumb to blame every Bad Thing that's happened, including 9/11 and the Kennedy assassination, on Warde's passive-aggressive inaction?

Well, you can totally blame Warde for operating in a pre-NIL paradigm in this day and age and I am completely good for consciously uncoupling with him for that.  (to say nothing of sitting on the Pearson allegations)

• Michigan's culture doesn't have to be these 1930s ideas. Hunter Dickinson would be here if we had this working right.

Was it just an NIL issue, and not also the chance to play for a national title contender?   Dickinson saw his two most talented teammates go pro from a team that was already not good enough to make the tournament.  If he were still here, we'd obviously not be as bad as now, but would we be any better than we were last season?

There's a part of me that thinks the end game here is a splitting off of football and basketball from the university, making them separate legal and economic entities, and then forming a league of such entities, with players contracted to play.  Not all universities will do this, but the big-time programs will (eventually), and we'll have the "super-conference" alignment so many have spoken of.

Sam is way off on pay for play. He is acting like Bama wasn't just the best program of the last 20 years. Why were they the best?? Pay for play. 

I have a few friends who are creatives and/or adjacent to others in that space and so I've heard a lot of them bemoan the umpteen number of times they're asked to photograph an event or make a painting or perform a musical set and are fed the bullshit line that, while they can't be given monetary compensation for their work, they will get exposure that helps to build their brand, and that's EXACTLY how "transactional vs transformational" comes across.

Can we have a conversation about what exactly NIL actually is? Is that a stupid question?

It seems to me it's used as a catchall for everything - but what, specifically, about M's NIL approach is worse than say, Notre Dames? 

What should NIL be? What is it actually? I don't even think the NCAA knows.

Here's my totally uninformed stab at the dark:

• Some schools, ie Tenn, are actually funneling AD money/donations into collectives that are then going to players. So, they can say, for example, we have a budget of $12mil - Coach, go do what you want with it.  This is pay for play and is currently illegal.
• Other schools, ie Michigan, seperate their own AD money from collective money.  Collectives have to raise their own money third hand. So, theoretically, Sherrone Moore can't tell recruit X we have a set amount of money promised to him, because he isn't working with the collective. Sherrone can point the recruit to the collective, who can then dole out the cash. But, without the AD support, these collectives don't have the financial resources to compete with the former.

What I can't figure out is how player's individual agents come into play here and/or how national brand contracts play a role. I cannot believe your local truck dealership is putting in hundreds of thousands of dollars into the piggy bank - I imagine the big money is coming from national brands. In JJ's case, this was Alo Yoga. Others, like Caleb Williams, have inked deals with Wendys, Dr Pepper, etc. Kyle McCord had some major sweatpant apparel company.

It's clear that M's established players did well with NIL, but it sounds to me the collectives can't afford to also funnel that money to the recruits / non-established entities.  But M also has a major brand that could attract companies, that these other schools can't offer.

What would M need to do right now to improve it's NIL? Put the backing of the AD behind these collectives - thereby breaking NCAA rules? 

There are too many moving pieces.

• NIL collectives are, by rule, not part of the athletic department or the domain of a coach or athletic director.
• The NCAA does not enforce its own rules. (All NIL collectives violate NCAA rules for pay for play and inducements.)
• The NCAA rules (which they generally don't enforce) may very well violate anti-trust laws, and will be determined in court.
• Title IX exists.
• Other education and employment laws also exist.

It's a lot to reconcile.

The most straightforward thing that a school can do right now is support collectives in fundraising (since the NCAA has shown it doesn't care about them) and then help connect their players to the NIL collectives, which is explicitly permissible under NCAA rules.

And isn't that exactly what we're doing? The problem is some or all of the following:

• We have poorly run collectives.
• The athletic department does not do enough to help support and promote the collectives.
• The fan base, no matter how large and well off, isn't motivated to donate. There could be a number of factors, one of which is the Michigan exceptionalism mindset that still permeates much of this board and the athletic department. Relatedly, our exceptionalism has proven successful on the football field.

But with all that being said, given that Michigan is doing generally the only thing it can do, I don't really understand what larger point Warde is even trying to make when he talks about transactional versus transformational. He doesn't object to collectives, and that is "transactional."

Dammit, Bowden is staying at ND. Seemed like a long shot but that would have been a huge get. 

I'll again push back against the idea that paying a lot to players is the only way to go.  Michigan barely has any transfer losses in football and brought in some high-profile guys because they looked like one of the best teams in the country and paid well enough that guys were happy.  Texas A&M and Miami pay out way more than most schools but guys leave in droves because they're varying degrees of tire fires on the field.

Dickinson left UM because they didn't look close to contending for a title; I doubt the money difference between KU and UM was so vast that had UM looked like a top-15/20 outfit he'd have bolted.

I again ask for this site, which constantly harps on the shittiness of the NIL program at UM, to provide some evidence for it.  Do some investigations, get some guys off the record to provide quotes, get some really numbers, etc.  Because it's been years of these claims and yet whenever pressed for details they don't appear.  I'm sure UM isn't at the cutting edge of the NIL race but the narrative around them being at the ass-end of everyone else needs to have more evidence than "trust me, bro."  I'd be fine proven wrong with evidence they are lagging behind everyone but hell, they nearly got Caleb Love to attend UM from UNC and that, I'm sure, wasn't cheap.

NLI in theory was a good concept but it was implemented with awful explanation and governance. In ten years, you will see a somewhat different landscape in college football....I highly doubt private schools like Northwestern, Vandy, BC, Wake Forest, Miami, Duke, USC, Syracuse, TCU, Baylor will keep up in football - they barely are now. Notre Dame will be forced into joining a league and they will only survive longer solely based on their tv deal but it will eventually fade out now that Peacock has the B10. USC's brand and recruiting base will last a bit longer and their move into the B10 will certainly help.

Within 15 years, the complaints from students will grow louder as they crisscross and traverse across the country - I could see more conference shuffling with private schools jumping into the ACC (if it survives) as, public schools exit, as their only way of competing on the gridiron.

Say goodbye to the little guys as the bigger public schools will just pass on the accrued cost to their residents and their fans. 

At some point, it will be just the B10 and the SEC that lives (think AFC/NFC) and they'll start recognizing that they need to regionalize the schools into divisions, especially after a union is formed and complaints come flying in. 

In a way, it is kind of sad it has come to this - this will eventually trickle down to massive high schools that have big time football which are now being televised on ESPN.

How many days is the "special transfer portal" for players of teams that lost their coach?  30 days?  Jim Harbaugh announced Jan 24th so there's 22 days left if that's accurate? 

Should be be keeping a countdown clock on this?  So far it appears that we've fended off Grant to Texas and Graham to Miami. At least I hope so. Wonder how this works, and can we all breathe a sigh of relief at some point?

The last 3 years of UM football were incredible, but were the result of unparalleled talent identification, development and retention.  It took an absolute perfect storm of elite coaches, culture and player development to reach those heights - all done so against a slanted playing field vs. OSU and SEC talent acquisition models.

Thankfully, we won the National Title just before CFB transitioned from pseudo amateur athletics to full on professional minor league athletics - because I have no faith, like Brian, in Ward getting this right.  Beyond Warde, UM has been behind the times since the BCS and CFB playoff eras began, and it's why we needed a generational all-time coach and staff to even remain on the playing field with OSU and SEC.

Let's be honest...what would Harbaugh have accomplished at UM with rosters like OSU, UGA, BAMA?  I'm guessing he would have had Saban like results.  

The danger of the last 3 season run (and I wouldnt give it up for anything), is that UM becomes complacent at the worst time possible - as everything in CFB is changing.  Warde is the definition of inaction, and we are seeing the results with the basketball program already, and hopefully it does not leak over into the football program going forward.

Damn it, I really wanted to hear basketball talk...honestly. Not because it will be fun at all to hear, but it has to be talked about on the radio airwaves. 

It will be painful, but it will be necessary. 


 

"Communist market" is an oxymoron.  College football was a centralized command structure, but the rules have been tossed aside (except for the enemies of the state).