What Could Warde Have Done Differently?

After weeks of being bombarded by questions of "What will happen?," one can't but be impressed  by the board's almost immediate sidestepping of closure, through an ingenious repackaging of the previous speculation in the mode of "What could have happened?"

(Sorry for the snark.)

In this day and age people aren't happy unless they are complaining.  People always feel like the grass is greener on the other side of the fence when in reality it's brown everywhere.  I have been a JH supporter and wanted him out after watching the debacle against Wiscy, but also believe that there are other factors in play.  He didn't  become a bad coach overnight.....

For #3 - if you intend to fire a football coach, you'd better be sure that the alternative is already lined up.

Look at Texas vs. Auburn

Texas - set a mountain of money on fire but replacement is wrapped up before Herman was fired

Auburn - Fire Malzan, end up with option #4 (or 5)

If the whiny bitches on this board thought it through logically like you, they wouldn't be whiny bitches.  That's the biggest non-starter of all.

1: The AD financial situation is the biggest question in my mind. What would have been the consequences of eating that buyout, on football staff salaries, on other sports, on facilities?

It may be that Warde was pretty stuck, either because there would have been some pretty bad tradeoffs, or because he was getting leaned on hard by the powers that be.  

Warde is a first class administrator.  Most people on this board have no idea what he does behind the scenes, and how much he cares about all programs, especially football.  I have worked in this area for many years as a faculty rep on athletic boards (worked with Warde for a while) and as a consultant to a few other colleges. Warde will be picked up by the most well-known schools the moment he decides to leave UM.  So many athletic dept across the US are total mess -- even before COVID-19 they were a mess.   We are lucky to have him here. 

Look at the terrible process used at Texas or Tennessee to hire football coaches.  Look at big-time BB programs around the country and the cheating that is going on there.  Warde hired a great coach who will run a clean program.

Warde can't keep Harbaugh here without an extension. 

He could have fired Harbaugh. That's a tough move. He was, obviously, unwilling to make it, and he should be evaluated as such.

But, given the choice not to fire Harbaugh (which IS divisive and harder to do in a pandemic year) he had to offer an extension, and I'm fine with how it went. Give Harbaugh the years. Lower salary, low buyout. Harbaugh gets to save face, but is also free to look elsewhere if there is a good option (there isn't). He can be fired if/when things continue to go badly this year.

People want to be angry at Warde for everything, but in real life these are tough calls, especially now. Maybe Auburn can afford to throw millions of dollars around in a pandemic year, but you can't just do that at Michigan. Sure, we all think Harbaugh needs to go, so we're all unhappy. But there are hundreds of thousands of people whose opinion matters who care about things besides how the team performed in a bizarre pandemic year. 

People were mad at Warde for not firing Beilein, for not ignoring the basketball team's desire to play the early game against Illinois the day after the plane crash, for interviewing multiple coaches before hiring Juwan Howard, (how does that hire look?) for not firing legend Red Berenson a year before he retired on his own, for not hiring Mel Pearson more quickly, and now for this. People just want to be mad at Warde. 

I think not showing Harbaugh the door is the wrong decision. But that's easy for me to say. I don't care about larger optics of the university, so it's not my job. Other people do. Warde gave Harbaugh a face-saving way to leave, he's letting Harbaugh clean house and get the assistants he wants, he's doing what he needs to given the situation.

So be it. 

The fact the buyout is a non-starter is why Michigan is falling behind. This wouldn't be true at OSU for an underperforming coach and it damn sure isn't true for a lot of college football. If every word in option one is true then we have no chance of catching OSU, winning the Big Ten, or making a CFP so we might as well quit now.

So either we have decided to no longer be competitive with most of college football in our approach or our AD fucked up with this extension and should have just fired him. Not sure which would make me feel better.

They gave him a lowball offer, the NFL doesn’t want him anymore, so he settles for said lowball offer.

Signed Jimbo Fisher.

It seems to me that a great portion of the online angst was the lack of info. But negotiating and even consulting in the press/online seems to me bad management.

While I too grew impatient, it seems to me that Manuel did at least okay, and maybe a good job, by avoiding online chatter. 

Michigan is all about optics and “doing it the right way.” We were never firing Harbaugh and eating a 10MM buyout in a once in a generation recession.  Even if we could - M was not going to sign up for the negative media that, say, Texas has experienced for throwing money on fire to hire an above average (maybe) coach. It just wasn’t going to happen here.  I’m not saying that’s right or wrong but that’s just the reality. 
 

Given that, I think Warde did about all he could.

Looks like my Saturdays just freed up for a good long while. 

I think the money bit was a major player in this debacle. The admin of this University is OBSESSED with making money and being profitable, especially Schlissel. Why they are like that I haven't the foggiest idea (It's a publicly-funded university and a non-profit after all), but for some reason we are obsessed with continually growing our already disgustingly large endowment at the expense of smarter uses of that money (I could list hundreds of things, but whatever). Bottom line, it seems as the two major reasons why he wasn't straight-up fired were the buyout and not wanting to embarrass JH

People are also dismissing the possibility that Campbell made it clear through back channels that with everything happening in the world and an unanimous All-American running back coming back for his junior season, he wasn’t going to uproot his family to take the Michigan job. Like, can you imagine if Warde fired Harbaugh and then got turned down publicly by Campbell and had to settle for someone like Fickell?

How about not cut harbaughs salary in half basically saying you have no confidence in him...stop delaying the inevitable...this is basically giving up for a season. 

 I get there were alot of factors at play here. Covid, the large buyout, the lack of available home run hires, etc but at the end of day it still is a situation where it looks like neither Jim or the university really wanted each other and are only settling for each other. I don't see a good likelyhood of that working out particularly well. Only hope is it brings out the old Harbaugh again, but unfortunately I think that guy is gone for good.

Warde is doing a FINE job.  Nailed the Juwan hire.  And now Hatbaugh can leave to NFL and the program will be ok.  And mark it down, McDonald will be a major college head coach one day,maybe here.  John wouldn't endorse chopped liver. 

You hit the nail on the head. He handled this as well as you could. UM athletics like all schools is bleeding money this year. Paying him 10 million for a buyout then paying a new coach another 6-7 million is not feasible. 16-17 million for a football head coach for one year is not possible to take on 

He has to show stability with an extension and now with a low buyout if things don’t work out next year cut him loose and go after who you want  Plus he saved the department about 5 million next year 

Almost everything.

I would have offered a simple contract.

$0 salary per year

$750K paid per win

$0 paid for a loss

$1M for B1G championship

$2M for National Championship

If Warde really cared about Michigan football he would have pulled out the magic wand that he keeps in the special locked case inside Bo's statue and use it to bring Nick Saban in as head coach, Urban Meyer as Offensive Coordinator, Brent Venables as Defensive Coordinator, Lincoln Riley as QB Coach, Ed Orgeron as DL Coach, and Dabo Swinney as Recruiting Coordinator/Bag Man. 

The fact that he did not take this easy step shows that he sucks and should be fired.

Nothing really. While everyone is disappointed in the results so far, there is no homerun hire on the horizon (Fickell or Campbell are just the best of a mediocre bunch) and nothing that wouldn't only add to instability of the program and cause a regression in progress back to FSU or Tennessee levels. Frankly, I don't think it just comes down to good recruiting or X's and O's, though that is undoubtedly a part of it. What we really need is an inspiring and outstanding motivator.

Say what you will about Lou Holtz, but he knows how to work a room and get the best out of group of young men. I heard him some years back at an athletic awards banquet dinner that he spoke at. Definitely one of the most charismatic and convincing speakers I have ever heard. After hearing him speak I understood why his teams would run through walls for him.