What Warde Manuel's Departure Means for Michigan Football and Basketball

News broke on Monday that Warde Manuel's time at Michigan is almost over. What does that mean?

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Warde Manuel is out as Michigan's Athletic Director — almost. News broke on Monday morning that Manuel will be stepping down as the University's AD after the calendar year and the Wolverines will begin looking for a replacement.

This comes after Manuel publicly said he had no intentions of leaving Michigan in the near future. Apparently, the near future means five months. This also comes after Michigan released some findings from the Jenner & Block investigation that began last November. Michigan will not release all of the findings of the $12 million report.

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As for what Michigan did release, it was a Q&A answering questions regarding the report. And when it comes to Manuel, the Wolverines' statement was that Manuel demonstrated great leadership, but did not act quickly enough when wrongdoings came about.

"The culture review found that Warde Manuel demonstrated important leadership strengths, particularly his commitment to student-athletes. At the same time, it identified failures to quickly and effectively act on allegations of wrongdoing by Athletic Department employees," Michigan said.

With Manuel stepping down after 10 years of being the Wolverines' AD, how might this affect Michigan's two big sports: football and basketball?

Should have zero impact on football

While Michigan is coming off a men's basketball championship, it's football that rules king in Ann Arbor. And the Wolverines have a fresh start after they fired Sherrone Moore back in December and opted to hire long-time Utah head coach Kyle Whittingham.

It's been a breath of fresh air for the Michigan football program, and Whittingham has brought belief back inside the program, and you best bet it's going to be run clean and smoothly. That's what the Wolverines needed after two seasons under Moore.

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Whoever Michigan opts to hire to become the new Athletic Director should fall right in line with Whittingham and how he's running the ship. The Wolverines won't need to publicly announce a hiring until December, but they will likely have gotten a good glimpse of what Whittingham is about and what he brings to Michigan.

Barring a catastrophic season in Year 1 of Whittingham, after inking a five-year deal with an average of $8.2 million a season, Whittingham will be around for a few years, even with a new AD in place.

Makes Mike Boynton Jr.'s hiring interesting

While the football program won't be impacted by Manuel's departure from Michigan, it could make the hiring of Mike Boynton Jr. even more interesting than it already is.

Let's off by stating that Boynton Jr. has done a fantastic job since Dusty May departed for the Dallas Mavericks. He retained all but one player from the roster and he's already hired a proven coach as an assistant.

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But Michigan signed him to a two-year deal with some heavy benchmarks he has to meet in Year 1 to even see a second year as the head coach. With Michigan bringing in a new Athletic Director, a lot of times, they want a say in who the head coach is.

While Boynton Jr. is well respected, an avid recruiter, and someone the players love, could a new AD feel otherwise? Obviously, Year 1 is going to tell you everything you need to know about Boynton Jr. and his ability to coach at a program like Michigan. He didn't have the best success at Oklahoma State, but there were other reasons for that.

There was already a chip on Boynton Jr.'s shoulders, with a lot of pressure, and now that microscope likely got bigger when watching how Boynton Jr. handles becoming the new Michigan head coach.