Warde Manuel To Step Down as Michigan AD

Uh, we did kind of put a bow on another colossal mess in college sports, and that's Ward Manuel's tenure at the University of Michigan.

Again, I said it before, I'll say it again, we will get back to SEC football, I promise.

But, uh, too many other things that actually happened.

Ward Manuel was announced that he's out at Michigan, but not until the end of 2026, and that in and of itself has spurred many more questions.

Uh, The $12 million.

Uh, investigation of Michigan resulted in a non-public.

Uh, report that was summarized kinda by the school with some results that said that You know, that we, we couldn't really necessarily say Ward did this, this or this, but things were bad and we're getting rid of him.

Um, Brian, you wrote about this on Monday.

What was your takeaway from Ward Manuel, who lasted from January to July, and again, we'll, we'll go all the way through December 31st, but is on the way out of Michigan.

Or, you know, give, give credit to Ward.

Like, uh, the man knows how to skate on thin ice.

Like, I, I mean, it seems like that's.

sums up his, you know, entire tenure, you know, it seems like he's been out and even, even going back to last week, you know, I mean, you, you talk with folks, you expected some sort of resolution on Thursday, and then, you know, lo and behold, 10 minutes into Greg Sankey's speech, uh, announcing the SEC, you know, the state of the SEC there, he's like, here, here's, here's all this Michigan news and Um, I, I guess that's just kind of par for the course, uh, there in Ann Arbor, given everything that does seem to go on, on their timetable and nobody else's.

And, uh, I, I think there's, there's kind of the, the two sides of, of Ward at this point.

There's the certainly the highs, and like, you, you, you get, you have to give him a lot of credit.

Like he managed the Jim Harbaugh situation that led to the first national title there in, in football.

In ages, and like this was a very underachieving athletic department.

I, I would say on the whole, not just in terms of those big time sports, but like, this is, this is Michigan, you know, like they, they do print money, like they have a great talent base there in the Midwest.

Like this is one of the big brand names in college football, and they just could not get it out of their way, uh, year after year after year, coaching hire.

For coaching hire, and yes, Ward didn't necessarily manage, you know, hired Jim Harbaugh, but he obviously inherited him and had to manage a very difficult personality, which he did, uh, certainly a difficult situation there in COVID in terms of the potential, you know, they, they could have hired Jim Harbaugh and, uh, and gotten rid of him, brought him back on a pay cut.

Like that was not something that was like, you know, mind-blowing at the time, at time, you know, just to, to see, um, them do that and then it leads to some great success and also, obviously, some Quite, quite a few scandals as well, including some NCAA's, uh, scandals, the Connor Stallion thing, like the actual management of things beyond kind of the, you know, the, the bigger picture, um, it's kind of why Ward is no longer gonna have a job at the end of this.

Hired Dusty May, uh, you know, as, as we mentioned before in the show, you know, ahead of Ohio State, ahead of Indiana.

Like, I mean, it was, it was a coup to land that and we, we saw, uh, certainly one of the better hires in terms of the last, uh, you know, decade or so, uh, in men's basketball leading to a national title and, and ending a long drought in that sport.

So like, this is just kind of the, the, the bifurcation of, of Ward's tenure there.

Um, you know, the, the highs were high, uh, but in terms of the scandal, it just kind of added up and There was no necessarily smoking gun from the actual investigation which was provided orally, um, you know, to a number of board members, like there was no say, here's, here's why you can get rid of Ward at this point, you know, I think this is kind of just, uh, everybody understood.

All right, this is, this has run its natural conclusion, is it, we're gonna have a new president soon, um, it's time to hit reset and that is going to include.

You know, awards, uh, saying goodbye and, uh, although it's probably sticking along, sticking around longer than a lot of people expected, um, you know, in terms of potentially to the end of the year, uh, a lot of that is probably just gonna give Michigan, uh, time to kind of identify some, some good candidates for what could be one of the best athletic director jobs out there.

Yeah, Brian, you mentioned the possibility of a, a legal segment with a sponsor.

Um, I, I, I think that the Chicago law firm of Jenner and Block that just procured $12 million from Michigan to, uh, release an outline of the investigation, they've, they've come into some capital, so they might be our first target if, if either of you guys have a connect there.

I mean, I'm in Chicago.

I might go knock door to door, say, hey, yeah, just a, just a few, yeah, give us $10,000 you know, we'll sponsor a segment, do something, you know.

This pocket change.

It's, uh, no, it, it's, it's astounding to me, like, like the price tag for this, and as you guys mentioned, for a non-report.

Um, that I, I'm trying to think exactly the, the wording here.

Uh, Neither the investigation nor the culture review found that misconduct was widespread throughout the department.

OK.

Well, the whole Q&A was like full of dichotomies like that, you know, like they were, well, it's not this, but there was a lot of buts in that.

There were, uh, Connor Stallions, Matt Weiss, Sharon Moore, Jim Harbaugh, 10-year show cause.

I mean, like, what, what are we talking about if, if there's not widespread problems there?

So their, their, their ability to just declare that they're not widespread.

Oh, but by the way, we are getting rid of the AD.

Uh, they could have, you could have just simply on the face of things, in January, said, you know, or there's just been a little too many messes, we're gonna make a change.

And you could have saved yourself how many million dollars?

$12 million minus whatever it costs to buy out Ward manual, you would have, you would have saved a lot of money.

If you've just done that.

So, the leadership at Michigan has uh confounded me in many different instances in the last 4 or 5 years, and this is clearly another one of those.

So, um, we'll see who the new idea is.

I still maintain it's a top 7 at worst athletic director job.

Um, you get a new football coach who could do really well.

But if he's not, he's also near the end.

I mean, he's 66 years old, Kyle, Kyle Whittingham.

You get Mike Boynton on a two-year contract, which is really a one-year contract.

If it doesn't go well, you can move on from him for a relatively manageable buyout.

So, I, there's a lot to love other than just the intrinsic fact that Michigan's a great job.

So, the, the, the next guy will have a chance to put his own imprint on a Cadillac.