Sam Webb says that Gattis would’ve been under consideration for HC had Harbaugh jumped to the NFL
Listened to The Michigan Insider this morning on WTKA and Sam Webb stated that rumors about Gattis floating around the internet were completely false(I’m assuming that is including the one about inappropriate behavior on the recruiting trail). Even mentioned that if Jim had a choice in who would’ve been selected as his successor, he would’ve endorsed Josh for the job. Mentioned that Gattis’ beef might have more to do with compensation and the fact he was not making the amount of money that Don Brown or Mike Macdonald made when they were Coordinators at Michigan.
February 7th, 2022 at 8:40 AM ^
Well this is in contradiction to what Gattis just texted his former players, allegedly.
Is this Sam once again doing his athletic department damage control, me thinks yes.
February 7th, 2022 at 8:44 AM ^
Yeah, Sam's take here kind of stinks....
February 7th, 2022 at 8:46 AM ^
Except that he said he wasn't appreciated by the administration and that could easily mean underpaid.
February 7th, 2022 at 8:54 AM ^
Exactly this completely goes in line with what he texted the players. He thinks he was underpaid which leaves him thinking he’s not wanted. Look most coaches at this level have huge egos and their salary stokes that ego. Sounds like Miami is stoking his ego with a huge salary one UM didn’t think they should match
February 7th, 2022 at 9:20 AM ^
I think maybe you mean stroking? You can stroke someone's ego by offering a large salary.
Stoking is what you do to a fire.
February 7th, 2022 at 9:22 AM ^
Getting stroked makes me stoked.
February 7th, 2022 at 6:52 PM ^
Stoke me stoke me?
February 7th, 2022 at 9:27 AM ^
But he would've known that he had been underpaid this whole time. The salaries are public knowledge. His text to the players made it sound like it was something that had just come up. And anyway, what did he think? He was an unproven OC who hadn't had a great year until this past season.
February 7th, 2022 at 9:54 AM ^
The obvious answer here is that he wanted a pay bump commensurate with winning the Broyles award. Since that was not forthcoming and then Harbaugh's shenanigans, he bolted.
February 7th, 2022 at 10:25 AM ^
Hard to negotiate a new deal if you don't know who the head coach is. Suppose you could do it with contingencies, but seems like the AD would be spending their time contingency planning. Seems sort of petulant considering he knew all of the moving parts.
February 7th, 2022 at 6:25 PM ^
February 7th, 2022 at 10:13 AM ^
Or it could have been that he began looking around when Harbaugh was flirting with the NFL and realized he could make more elsewhere. He could have went to administration asking for a pay raise and not got what he wanted. Easily fits this timeline.
February 7th, 2022 at 10:40 AM ^
Combination of things. This might be part of it. Stew Mandel observed that Christobal waited a while to hire his OC; I think it’s quite possible that Gattis was frustrated (pay, whatever) but chose to stay in place during the Harbaugh search in case he became a candidate for the HC job. When Harbaugh came back, he was gone in short order.
Whether other stuff is true or a factor, no idea. But it fits with the timeline.
February 7th, 2022 at 11:44 AM ^
This seems logical. The chronology indicates same. If Gattis was pissed about money, absent the Harbaugh drama, he probably would have left earlier. Seems like he was just seeing how the HC thing played out.
My question is: Was he really dramatically underpaid in comparison to McDonald? That does seem unfair on the face of it. And I could see how he'd find that offensive, all things considered. Were they indirectly pushing him out?
February 7th, 2022 at 12:29 PM ^
According to https://michigan.rivals.com/news/salaries-for-all-of-michigan-football-s-2021-assistant-coaches the 2021 salaries were:
MacDonald $1M + $400k bonuses
Gattis $900k + $400k bonuses
everyone else $600k or below.
So McDonald returns to the Ravens, making Gattis the highest paid UM Assistant by A LOT.
February 7th, 2022 at 12:51 PM ^
I thought I read a report saying Miami is going to pay him 1.9 million. My guess is UM wasn’t willing to bump him up that high and it makes sense. Staying here he is probably one year from becoming a HC and leaving. So if we feel we have the coaches in place now let him move on and UM go to it’s succession plan
February 7th, 2022 at 12:53 PM ^
Right, but it was reportedly only going up from $900k to $1m. After our 3rd place finish, and his winning the Broyles award, you'd think his market value is more than $1m...
February 7th, 2022 at 11:25 AM ^
I've found that when someone says it's not about the money, it's always about the money.
February 7th, 2022 at 1:24 PM ^
As J.P. McCarthy used to say, "it is not about the money. It is about the amount of money."
February 7th, 2022 at 1:27 PM ^
You are assuming he gave UM a chance to match Miami. If he's pissed enough about his pay and/or about not feeling he was a serious candidate for the HC job, he might just take the Miami money and leave.
February 7th, 2022 at 9:05 AM ^
Yes, a lot of people equate being “appreciated” by their employer to how much that company is willing to pay them. The Don Brown comparison is not a good one because he had extensive Coordinator experience when he was brought in. On the flip side I could see how Mike M. making more than him could lead to some hard feelings by Gattis.
February 7th, 2022 at 9:36 AM ^
Mike Macdonald brought more to the table in terms with his extensive knowledge of NFL defenses. Josh Gattis has only coached at the college level. That justifies the gap in pay between the two.
February 7th, 2022 at 10:14 AM ^
Gattis had two years of coordinator experience that McDonald did not have. I can understand why Gattis had a problem with that.
February 7th, 2022 at 10:49 AM ^
How did those two years of coordinator experience go? Does this look like Gattis’s offense, or JH’s offense in 2021? Who do you suppose taught whom? ?
February 7th, 2022 at 9:29 AM ^
I agree King Tot. I know for me, anytime I feel "Under Appreciated" at my job it is almost always tied to financial compensation.
February 7th, 2022 at 9:49 AM ^
One of the highest paid OCs in the game is underpaid?
February 7th, 2022 at 9:56 AM ^
You compare to people closer to you. MacDonald hadn't coordinated D before and was paid more. I can see that being a sore spot. If the AD wasn't willing to up it more after he won the Broyles, would add to that feeling of being underpaid, whether accurate or not
February 7th, 2022 at 10:05 AM ^
Love the name you use.
My experience suggests there are a lot of things that go into value comparisons when a company (university) is assigning a monetary worth to the position. Complexity, responsibility, organizational value, market conditions, etc. When you are looking at comparable titles within an organization, these are even more nuanced. In this situation, I wonder if Gattis was provided a great deal more support and assistance with the overall accomplishment of the positing (passing coordinator, run coordinator, etc.) that reduced his "value" to the organization. McDonald may have had a great deal less support around him that resulted in the organization placing different values to comparable job titles.
February 7th, 2022 at 11:09 AM ^
You also compare apples to apples. Both guys had vastly different resumes, coached on opposite sides of the ball, and Gattis had two years of previously mediocre results. Not sure why he’d realistically compare himself to anyone except other OC’s.
February 7th, 2022 at 4:50 PM ^
$1.4 million vs $1.3 million doesn't seem dramatically different. Does anyone know how many OCs earned more than $1.3 million last year?
February 7th, 2022 at 9:58 AM ^
I'd venture to say Sam is probably doing some damage control given what the former UM athletes are saying on Twitter re: Gattis going to Miami... seems to be an inside joke with former and current M football players regarding the rumors that have been floating around as of late.
February 7th, 2022 at 12:38 PM ^
Curious about what they're saying--I haven't seen anything.
February 7th, 2022 at 1:35 PM ^
Sure, but if he's underpaid and not appreciated by the admin, then how can he be the front runner for the HC job if Jim leaves? Seems like if the admin sees him as the heir apparent, then they give him a raise and show him some love.
February 7th, 2022 at 8:46 AM ^
This seems like the opposite of damage control. Saying we wouldn’t pay him more just feeds into the already negative narrative that our AD is still stuck in the 1980s.
February 7th, 2022 at 9:02 AM ^
Except that it doesn't (necessarily) mean we wouldn't pay him more, but that we weren't paying him more. Word from Seth and others was that Harbaugh would need to look to raise staff salaries as a first returning order of business. Not saying that you are wrong, just that we don't know. These fine points seem to get lost in our continual rush to judgement.
It may also be that with the Broyles behind him, Josh now expected to be treated with more respect/remunerated better; maybe the signs were too slow in coming. But again, we have so little concrete detail to go on. And the sense of due respect accorded often can turn on subtle things--Harbaugh and Manuel might be full of praise for Gattis publicly, but buddies evenings with someone else; everyone reads the tea leaves, and how comfortable people end up being with one another ends up being both huge and hard to put a finger on; culture and geography play roles. The large discrepancies between what even the people closest to the action tell us tend to emphasize how many key features of this saga have unfolded out of sight.
Tell you one thing: If Gattis was really in line for the head coach job--with a sense that no one was shitting him--does he decamp for Miami? I doubt it. I wish him well, though, and also hope he really has the reins; I'd like to see what his unfettered vision of speed in space looks like.
February 7th, 2022 at 9:30 AM ^
We now know that JH was planning to take the Vikings offer, Warde had to know that at the time. Was a new salary even presented by Warde prior to the interview? If so, was there any talk about money for assistants? I doubt that was all hammered out already. Why wouldn't Gattis wait to see what kind of deal JH could get for him before departing? Unless the decision to leave was already made.
February 7th, 2022 at 12:21 PM ^
Yeah, this is what's odd. There's no way the administration would have done anything with Gattis' pay before they knew who the head coach was (because that dictates who the coordinators even are) so I don't know how he could even expect the admin to show it's appreciation, other than flat out naming him coach in waiting.
And he knew that if Harbaugh stayed, Jim was going to try to get him a raise. Odd that he didn't see what happened there, before taking what is clearly a worse job. And I can't imagine being butthurt about not being name the coach in waiting would cause him to leave...for another place where he is not the coach in waiting either.
There seems to be something else going on.
February 7th, 2022 at 12:39 PM ^
I think Gattis has been butthurt since Macdonald came in and got paid more than him.
February 7th, 2022 at 9:47 AM ^
I think if we are to assume there is a kernel of truth in the various sources we’ve heard from a valid explanation is that these signals that Gattis wanted to see (whatever they are) were taking too long for his liking.
Whether he was going to be considered for the HC job becomes much less relevant once JH returns though. I think even if he was told he was going to be next in line, that could be 5-10 years from now. At that point, a fat Miami offer that Michigan hasn’t yet matched or exceeded seems to be much for relevant.
February 7th, 2022 at 9:10 AM ^
Just listen to it, instead of making stuff up:
https://omny.fm/shows/michigan-insider/004-josh-gattis-leaving-for-miami-020722
Part 2: https://omny.fm/shows/michigan-insider/005-more-on-the-gattis-leaving-story-020722
February 7th, 2022 at 9:24 AM ^
February 7th, 2022 at 9:26 AM ^
I read it the opposite way. Gattis is using Sam to tidy up the worst of the spin that paints him in a bad light.
February 7th, 2022 at 10:04 AM ^
"Gattis is using Sam to tidy up the worst of the spin that paints him in a bad light."
LOL. Sam said repeatedly this morning that Gattis's email was damaging to Gattis's aspirations of becoming a head coach.
How in the flying fuck is that "Gattis using Sam"?
February 7th, 2022 at 11:04 AM ^
It's interesting that Sam said that Gattis only texted 20 - 25 offensive players. I am curious as to 1.) why he, as an OC, would only text 20 - 25 players, as opposed to ALL offensive players, and 2.) Who were the 20 - 25 that he texted. Maybe someone will do a Schlissel/FOIA thing and find out the names of these players.
February 7th, 2022 at 9:34 AM ^
How is it in contradiction for Sam to say Gattis felt under-appreciated by administration because he was paid less than the DC's, and for Gattis to text the players he was under-appreciated by administration?
February 7th, 2022 at 9:39 AM ^
I mean of course he's under consideration. There probably was a ton of people ahead of him though. We all know the rumors that went out of like a dozen different names that we were "targeting" for head coach. The problem with Gattis is he has 3 years at Michigan and he was only good on his third year....with Moore as Co-Offensive Coordinator. He was a receivers coach from 2011-2019 and well...did we have great WR's while he was here? DPJ, Nico, Tarik were good but we so improperly used. I seriously think that Gattis is getting all the credit for the offensive turnaround we had when it was actually Moore who had the greater impact. Our O-line allowed the RB's to have as great of the seasons as they had, which I do get where the love for Hart comes from.
It seems like we should promote within UNLESS there is a candidate that meshes well with current staff and maybe has worked with some of them in the past. A new coordinator will want to bring his own staff, and we really don't need to be doing another full staff shuffle again.Weiss has floated around on both sides of the ball, and seems like a guru type. However, he's only been assistant coaches and has a few years as position coaches. If he had a big impactthough, I'd be fine naming him co-o with Moore, if Hart wans the AHC title then give it to him to keep him, then hire another Offensive coach(WR?).
February 7th, 2022 at 1:14 PM ^
I don’t know who deserves credit for this year. We still weren’t exactly an air raid offense. We had an elite D that always helps. I also don’t know who was to blame for Gattis first two years. There really hasn’t been enough consistency (good or bad) to make any huge decisions. Gattis was overpaid in 2019 and 2020 based on results, so in 2021 he wins the Broyles, now he’s grossly underpaid? If he would’ve done well in 2022 and established the trend of success, then I say you double his salary. The AD didn’t make a knee jerk reaction in 2020 after 2-4, so they didn’t in 2021 after 12-2 either. I have no problem with that.