WTKA Roundtable 1/12/2023: Mike Hart But Fast
Things discussed:
- Moving the Comerica Park fences: fine, but why do it AFTER Cabrera?!
- Blake Corum's return: Thank NIL that it's possible. Gonna be a Denard/Gardner/Braylon/Hart/Marlin whose name is etched in history.
- Jim Harbaugh's contract negotiation.
- Warde Manuel: Brian goes off. Sam clarifies it's a message board post that USA Today picked up on, and not everything in that contract negotiation timeline is correct.
- Seth: They're probably not arguing about the money but the buyout because Michigan needs a long-term commitment and Harbaugh wants a chance to take an NFL job.
- Solution: MAKE A DAMN DECISION!!!! You're all just losing value the longer this goes on. If Harbaugh's not going to say it's his last job, name a successor so when it does happen the program rolls on.
[Hit the JUMP for the player, and video and stuff]
You can catch the entire episode on Michigan Insider's podcast stream.
There was no Segment 2 because we wouldn't shut up. You can watch the video here:
MGoBlog Roundtable https://t.co/jPsNSGR3xC
— Sam Webb (@SamWebb77) January 12, 2023
The Usual Links:
- Helpful iTunes subscribe link
- General podcast feed link
-
Direct download link (right-click/save as)
- What's with the theme music?
I don't think he's a big enough idiot to think he can win in Denver.
January 12th, 2023 at 10:44 AM ^
Let's Ride!
January 12th, 2023 at 10:55 AM ^
Is this Broncos country?
January 12th, 2023 at 10:53 AM ^
Warde needs to fucking go. Obviously he has issues with Harbaugh. This shit started in 2016 when he failed to support Jim over the OSU screw job. GTFO Warde and don't let the door hit you in the ass! Brian, organize the march!
January 12th, 2023 at 11:00 AM ^
I believe that last year Michigan won 13 of the 33 B1G championships. OSU won another 9. So Michigan won more championships than the other twelve schools combined. Just the facts.
January 12th, 2023 at 11:03 AM ^
So if your house is on fire but your drapes still look nice then everything's cool huh?
January 12th, 2023 at 11:39 AM ^
I'm wholly ignorant as to the details of the situation but the comparison shouldn't be our level of success vs others but instead our level of success versus where we could/would be under other available options.
January 12th, 2023 at 1:35 PM ^
Brandon had two of three full school seasons where the athletic teams earned Michigan a top ten finish in NACDA Directors' Cup. Not bad. How was he as an AD?
January 12th, 2023 at 2:54 PM ^
Nobody cares about your quidditch trophy, football is and always will be king, with basketball the queen. I would gladly see the school win zero more championships in all the rest of the varsity sports for the next 100 years if it meant maintaining the current level of success in football.
January 12th, 2023 at 3:36 PM ^
Is Warde on third base because he hit a triple?
January 12th, 2023 at 5:33 PM ^
No, he actually worked his way up from Associate AD at UofM to AD at Buffalo, and AD at UConn.
January 12th, 2023 at 10:54 AM ^
How are people mad at Warde for trying to keep Harbaugh under a large buyout? He’s literally doing his job to ensure stability in the program. Tell Harbaugh to make up his fucking mind and stop harming the momentum.
January 12th, 2023 at 11:46 AM ^
They're blaming him, and with good reason, for the handling of Pearson, being blindsided by Beilein leaving, and letting Bakich go. But the biggest problem I think people have is it seems that Manuel is the biggest hold up on effective NIL.
January 12th, 2023 at 12:04 PM ^
He didn't let Bakich leave. Bakich left because it was a program who gave him his start and provides a real chance to compete for national championships year in and year out. We are a mid-major in baseball.
January 12th, 2023 at 12:07 PM ^
I'm not 100% in disagreement on that, but when you add all of them up together, it looks like a pattern.
January 12th, 2023 at 2:34 PM ^
Three events wouldn't make a pattern even if they were at all similar. Which they aren't. I'm not even a Warde defender, to me he has failed in the two most important pieces which is completely refusing to deal with the legacy of Bo and the Anderson case and trying to protect Pearson. I would love for Warde to be fired. But its not because two coaches moved to higher levels of their sport for more pay or because Harbaugh clearly wants to be in the NFL.
January 12th, 2023 at 4:26 PM ^
This is what I said on the show.
January 12th, 2023 at 12:50 PM ^
How exactly can Warde hold up NIL - considering it's done by outside groups with no university affiliation, and requires no permission from the university at all?
January 12th, 2023 at 1:46 PM ^
Exactly Cube. Warde is doing everything he can including trying to get some long term stability. It’s Harbaugh who won’t commit to UM long term
January 12th, 2023 at 1:54 PM ^
Having Harbaugh here as our coach is almost certainly preferable to not having him. IF that buyout is the sticking point, then we shouldn't be insisting on it.
January 12th, 2023 at 2:07 PM ^
The large buyout is asking Harbaugh to totally give up on the NFL - as well as removing basically his only leverage for demanding anything from Warde in the future.
Is Warde offering sufficient value/concessions to make that a worthwhile deal for Harbaugh?
January 12th, 2023 at 11:13 AM ^
Fascinating discussion about what exactly might be holding up the Harbaugh negotiations. Sam's point that Harbaugh obviously deserves ~$9.5M+ but the contract must include a significant buyout is provocative. My question is, what leverage does Michigan really have if Jim says No to the buyout clause?
I guess I think that Harbaugh has all of the leverage and if he wants to leave for the NFL at some point there's nothing Michigan can do to prevent that. In the meantime he might be damaging his team's chances by dilly-dallying with the NFL each off-season but from my vantage point Michigan has no counter-move.
Maybe, as Craig says near the end of the discussion, we should just accept that Harbaugh will in fact return to the NFL at some point in the foreseeable future and name a coach/staff in-waiting. As long as Harbaugh stays we've got one of the best coaches in the country and assuming he leaves as soon as he gets an NFL opportunity that he likes we've got Plan B in place.
January 12th, 2023 at 11:27 AM ^
Coaches who go to Cleveland to coach basketball or football arrive with their professional obituary already written.
All NFL teams currently communicating with JH are leading him on…
January 12th, 2023 at 12:26 PM ^
Michigan's leverage is just that the current contract stands if JH fails to get an NFL job this year and refuses a new contract with a higher buy-out. Ideally, the AD takes that as a sign that this is a short-term arrangement and figures out the succession plan, but apparently planning is difficult.
January 12th, 2023 at 11:41 AM ^
After hearing this. Fire Warde Manuel.
January 12th, 2023 at 11:52 AM ^
What am I missing with this Comerica business? They're bringing in the fences for 2023, and Cabrera intends to play 2023 as his final season...
January 12th, 2023 at 12:02 PM ^
At this point in his career, you could bring the fences all the way in to the infield and Cabrera would still only hit about 4 homers. In his prime, though, he was probably robbed of 6-8(?) dingers a season at Comerica.
January 12th, 2023 at 12:09 PM ^
They're only bringing in the center field fence (was 422'; will be 412') and lowering the fence height all the way around to 7' (most of it was 8 1/2' except for 13' in right center). Otherwise, the dimensions remain unchanged; I feel they should have brought the corners in a bit.
As Miggy's career winds down, I doubt he benefits from the change in CoPa's dimensions. Hindsight says the Tigers should have made these changes two decades ago.
January 13th, 2023 at 3:55 AM ^
Same. When Seth said that I asked myself “Cabrera retired?” I didn’t follow that team that closely last year but I don’t remember him retiring.
January 12th, 2023 at 11:57 AM ^
Sam's example for the "best thing Warde has done as AD at Michigan" is incredibly weak. Brian's main complaint about Warde was that he has been indecisive and reactive rather than proactive. The re-signing of Harbaugh in 2020 is a furthering of Brian's point and not a shining example of what Warde has done well. Signing Harbaugh to that lower contract extension was basically Warde weaseling out of actually making a difficult choice.
Warde could have either fully backed Harbaugh, choosing to believe that 2020 was an aberration, and just extended Harbaugh's contract or re-sign him to a big contract that would have kept Harbaugh as one of the highest paid coaches and given the man a vote of confidence. Or he could have fired Harbaugh, choosing to believe the program had fully slipped back into the doldrums, and then conducted a national coaching search. Instead of making one of the difficult choices, he just punts the decision down the road by a few years.
The lowered contract extension seemed like a genius maneuver after the 2021 renaissance. But now, it seems there is some truth to the idea that Harbaugh was genuinely insulted by the slashing of his pay and that is, at least in part, motivating his NFL exploration.
I don't really care one way or another if Warde is let go, but he doesn't really seem to make very many important decisions. And when he's come to crossroads as an AD and been forced to make decisions (2020 Harbaugh extension, Pearson saga, NIL expansion) he seems to choose rather poorly.
January 12th, 2023 at 12:16 PM ^
Your point is interesting but, with respect, I wonder how much of it seems clearer in hindsight? The fact that Harbaugh may still feel insulted by the post-2020 contract that he chose to sign is not Warde Manual's responsibility IMHO. Harbaugh didn't have any other options (besides retirement) after either the 2020 or 2021 seasons. So he bet on himself and signed an incentive laden contract that paid him as much as he would have made in 2021 if he had signed an extension of his prior deal.
And we're all glad that he accepted and signed that incentive laden deal and Jim should be too. He's now got all of the leverage, whether we like it or not, and can stay as long as he wants or leave whenever he wants. The fact that he might still harbor some resentment due to the deal he was offered post-2020 is Harbaugh's own responsibility and IMHO was unforeseeable by Warde Manual at that time. Especially in light of two consecutive B1G championships and playoff appearances.
I don't dispute that Manual has waffled on other decisions that he's faced as Michigan's AD--in fact I don't follow Michigan baseball or hockey closely enough to know or even care. But in the case of the ongoing saga with regard to our current football coach, I think Manual's done us all a solid and we have the results to show for it. Going forward the ball is in Jim's court and other than having a Plan B if/when he decides to leave I'm honestly not sure what else Manual can really do differently.
January 12th, 2023 at 12:02 PM ^
Brian has a massive blind spot whenever he talks about the NFL and NBA because he doesn't care about pro sports. 99% of people in sports see the NFL and NBA as the pinnacle of their respective sports. Its pretty clear a guy like Harbaugh agrees and that is why the lure is there. Any NFL job is attractive regardless of your relationship. Just like the Cavs were attractive to any college basketball coach. Harbaugh wanted to go to the NFL last year coming off a good year and didn't get any jobs despite wanting it bad, if he turns down an offer this year there isn't some guarantee he gets an nfl job after next year even if its another good year. He's going to take an NFL job if he gets offered it.
Also naming a coach in waiting basically never works. Its a bad plan. If Harbaugh leaves you see who is willing to come.
January 12th, 2023 at 12:20 PM ^
You all can babble on and on about this as much as you'd like. It's simple for me. He leaves....he leaves. He stays and I seriously question his devotion.
So. B4 you respond, re-read it AND understand it.
January 12th, 2023 at 12:21 PM ^
100% true. This is applicable to any field except medicine where the prestigious jobs at universities lowball the shit of your pay.
January 12th, 2023 at 2:43 PM ^
The problem I have (mainly) with what Harbaugh is doing here is the indecision. If he was truly committed to being a college coach, the buyout clause wouldn't matter at all to him. And I disagree completely with Sam that "it's fine to have a parallel dream" of winning a Super Bowl. This isn't like having parallel dreams of writing a book and climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro in your lifetime. You can certainly accomplish both. But, IMHO, wanting to be a national championship-contending college coach and winning a Super Bowl is a choice in his career he should have made by now. Both are incredibly difficult accomplishments that take huge amounts of hard work and commitment. You can't be fully committed and immersed in one while constantly having one eye on the other. The lack of focus will probably result in you (or Jim in this case) achieving neither. As Brian said, what he's doing now, will make achieving either goal more difficult - not less.
January 12th, 2023 at 12:19 PM ^
The Tigers should have made Comerica as close a replica of Tiger Stadium as possible, with the same dimensions. They threw away 90 years of history to build a completely different park that every power hitter despised.
January 12th, 2023 at 2:20 PM ^
the initial plan actually was to retain Tiger Stadium dimensions, but they discovered that they didn’t have enough room for center field. then they made it huge, left field fence was in Windsor i believe, and Juan Gonzalez took the first train out of town. even after moving the bullpens it’s still deep.
January 12th, 2023 at 4:51 PM ^
Center field at Tiger Stadium was never actually 440'. It was closer to 420', which is where Comerica was before bringing the fence in. But, you're correct that left field is huge. When it first opened one of the Detroit sportswriters dubbed it Comerica National Park.
January 12th, 2023 at 5:06 PM ^
I remember hearing that about center field at Tiger Stadium. Regardless, 420 is still pretty deep. But the park compensated with the short porch in right and the shallow power alleys (365 in left-center, 370 in right-center). Comerica made it hard to hit a homer everywhere.
January 12th, 2023 at 12:26 PM ^
>Blake Corum's return: Thank NIL that it's possible. Gonna be a Denard/Gardner/Braylon/Hart/Marlin whose name is etched in history.
I love DG, but he's a bit of a puzzling addition to this list.
January 12th, 2023 at 12:38 PM ^
Weird Idea: Let Harbaugh go coach in the NFL "on loan", akin to European soccer clubs, with the promise that he comes back after winning a Super Bowl. Give him 4(?) years to win one, if he wins one sooner than that, great, he comes back sooner. In the meantime, hire Sherrone Moore or Mike Hart or someone young as an interim coach/program caretaker who can also serve as a "coach in waiting" for when Harbaugh retires for good. It would scratch Harbaugh's itch to win a Super Bowl and hopefully not disrupt the program too much.
I understand there is no precedent for this in American sports and therefore impossible. But it's fun to think about!
January 12th, 2023 at 1:27 PM ^
With the team we have coming back for 2023, the idea of having a rookie coach is not too fun to think about.
January 12th, 2023 at 12:46 PM ^
That was a feisty podcast
January 12th, 2023 at 2:51 PM ^
I'm not a big fan of the plan put forth to name Sherone Moore as head coach in waiting for two reasons:
First, Moore has no head coaching experience. Why on earth would a history rich, blue blood program like UM want to roll the dice on a totally unproven coach. Notre Dame did this with Freeman and I thought that they were absolutely nuts; Freeman (and, by extension, Moore) might end up being a great HC but they had no data to back that up.
Two, you are basically closing the door on the possibility of Harbaugh coaching at UM for more than another year or two. What if Harbaugh has a change of heart and realizes that he wants to spend the rest of his coaching career at UM? What if no NFL teams are willing to hire Harbaugh in the next few years? Are you going to renege on your promise to Moore (or whomever they appoint as HC in waiting)? That would be a PR disaster.
January 12th, 2023 at 3:01 PM ^
And people called me crazy for saying we should be getting out the torches and pitchforks for Warde’s mishandling of these contract issues...
January 12th, 2023 at 4:15 PM ^
The buyout is really not the point. It matters only to other college football programs, and not at all to NFL team owners*. Does anyone seriously believe that Harbaugh would go to a different college program?
Neither do I.
So, what's the purpose of a buyout in this contract negotiation? It doesn't have one. Warde should drop the issue because it's irrelevant to the actual, underlying risk that he's trying to mitigate.
*There's an absolute limit, obviously, but that's not what we're talking about here.
January 12th, 2023 at 4:31 PM ^
It matters because if an NFL team wants to spend $20 million on a buyout that's actually a pretty large amount of money that changes a lot of what Michigan can do as far as hiring a new coach, or finding an offensive coordinator if they move up Moore. Or they could use the money for Ops and ask donors to divert $20M to NIL. That could buy you 20 good players, or 1.7 Florida QBs.
January 12th, 2023 at 4:36 PM ^
I agree, but I don't think that's why the buyout is being included in the contract language. At its core, it's about creating a barrier to other schools poaching a successful coach. The NFL doesn't have an Administration and Board of Governors/Regents/Trustees to satisfy, so an owner can look past a financial poison pill.
January 13th, 2023 at 7:52 AM ^
And Michigan gets the money.
January 12th, 2023 at 4:40 PM ^
Brian at the 31 minute mark is not making any sense.
January 12th, 2023 at 7:02 PM ^
Two points:
1. Craig is correct that non-insiders lack complete information and should really hold back the hot takes.
2. Brian wanted to fire Harbaugh after the COVID year. Thus, Brian lacks credibility in his criticism of Warde Manuel renegotiating Harbaugh's contract at that time.
Comments