CC: Sam and Ira Saying "Balance" Could Keep UM From Landing Harbaugh
So Sam and Ira were discussing ad nauseam Schlissel's comments abount the "Evolution" and "balancing Academics and Athletics" and what that means for UM Football. Being as connected to UM as Sam is, is there reason to believe that the "balance" will keep UM from paying a football coach like Harbaugh "Saban-like" money to come here? Is Sam saying-without-actually-saying that Harbaugh won't happen?
Other things said by Sam and Ira (paraphrased):
- Bringing a big-money coach doesn't show that you are balancing academics and athletics.
- We can succeed with coaches that won't cost as much.
- AD choice may take a year or two.
- Nuss could be interim coach, or if Hoke wins-out he stays.
- We could go after a Pat Fitzgerald-type coach for less pay and he will balance academics with football.
- Maybe UM is no longer interested in being a top-notch football school that annually competes for the B1G.
I personally think that a school like UM can pay a coach a lot of money and still be regarded as a top-notch university. Why not show balance by being the best at both?
Thoughts?
November 3rd, 2014 at 1:58 PM ^
He might end up on Olbermann as
the Worser Person of the Sports World.
November 3rd, 2014 at 12:30 PM ^
That's reading a lot into the meaingless pablum Schlissel was saying at the press conference.
November 3rd, 2014 at 3:19 PM ^
Everything I heard left Schlissel with the maximum flexibility on every issue, including (i) timeframe for selecting new AD (said timeframe would be "reasonable," and that he's looking for "excellence" rather than adhering to rigid criteria or timeline), (ii) whether Hackett would be considered for permanent AD position (said it would be "putting the cart way before the horse" to address this when Hackett had just been named interim AD), and (iii) whether he's going to pursue a "cultural change" in the role of athletics at the University (said he'd like to work with interim and permanent ADs to "contribute to the process of evolution of college athletics," but also acknowledged that "football is extremely important to our community"). With all due respect to Sam and Ira, I don't think they're any more qualified than anyone here to interpret Schlissel's remarks, and those remarks seemed extremely non-committal to me.
November 3rd, 2014 at 6:20 PM ^
Very good points
November 3rd, 2014 at 12:30 PM ^
Being a championship program should always be a priority.
November 3rd, 2014 at 12:43 PM ^
So...Stanford gets so many great students and professors there because of their great athletics?
No, dude -- real knows real. A great academic institution will get plenty of students and professors.
Having a good football team means NOTHING to that. Read again. NOTHING. Has having a good team suddenly made Boise State and Florida State into really great schools? Hahahahahahahahahahahah. Has having crappy football teams hurt top-notch schools like NU, Rice, Vandy, Cal? Or ANY of the Ivy Leagues?
If you picked a school based on its football team, you're a moron. If you go b/c of "tailgates" but not academics, your priorities are a mess and who cares if you don't go -- there are PLENTY of others waiting to get in. Plenty.
November 3rd, 2014 at 12:50 PM ^
November 3rd, 2014 at 12:54 PM ^
of schools seeing a surge in applications after athletic success. It means something. There's no need to be dramatic.
November 3rd, 2014 at 1:13 PM ^
And alumni donations
November 3rd, 2014 at 3:57 PM ^
The formerly unknown Florida Gulf Coast University approves this message.
November 3rd, 2014 at 12:55 PM ^
I mean this is nice thought but it is well documented that after schools win national championships in football and basketball their application numbers increase. Its free publicity and gets people to think about the school. Maybe the decision to attend Michigan isn't because of football but the reason they ever thought about it was.
Just look at this article http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebasketballnation/post/_/id/53175/tournam…
Butler had a 41% increase in applications after their trip to the national championship and George Mason had out of state applications increase by 54% after making it to the final four.
November 3rd, 2014 at 1:16 PM ^
I'm an out-of-stater whose decision was based in part on football. Without a prominent football program, I'm not even sure it would've occured to me to look at UM. Ultimately I based my decision on the quality of academics and opportunities I would have after graduation, but the quality of athletic tradition at UM definitely helped set it apart from places like, say, Northwestern or Wash U.
Also, another thing that separates the schools you mentioned from UM is enrollment. Their enrollment is a fraction of UM's. If UM wants to continue to keep enrollment at its current level without sacrificing quality of the students it admits, the football program needs to be healthy.
EDIT: Also, Penn State was not considered a very good academic institution until Joe Pa got there, and now it's considered one of the better public universities in the country.
November 3rd, 2014 at 1:19 PM ^
November 3rd, 2014 at 2:54 PM ^
November 3rd, 2014 at 1:20 PM ^
Were none of the schools you mentioned. With the exception of Notre Dame and Maybe OSU no other school is known around the country and revered like Michigan is. And it's not cause of the academics first it's cause of the Football program. The academic side would take a huge hit if we decided to just become a also ran athletically. If you don't believe this than you're in some sort of denial of the food chain in Ann Arbor. It's 1.Football 2. The Hospital and than at number 3. The schools academics. If you think not than you for sure don't live here or understand the dynamic's of Ann Arbor.
November 3rd, 2014 at 3:11 PM ^
Business School, MBA program consistently rated top 3
Law School consistently Tier 10
Hospital USN&WR consistently mid teens
Engineering school consistently astronauts.
Research/Library consistently cutting edge tech partnerships.
There's more where that come from, and none of it would (or did) take a hit because of a weak football program. Football's just the frosting. Delicious, delicious frosting - but frosting nonetheless.
November 3rd, 2014 at 1:57 PM ^
with regular students. Before Bowden, it was basically a clown college. Now it's in the top 100 on the US News and World Report. That's not a majestic accomplishment compared to Michigan or Northwestern or what have you, but it's absolutely false to contend that FSU's rise as a football power meant nothing to the school academically. There are plenty of really smart kids out there who maybe don't get their first choice and then decide, "F it, i'll go to a place with big athletics and a big campus and have the full college experience."
November 3rd, 2014 at 8:00 PM ^
Football (and sports/atmosphere in general) certainly plays a role for a lot of students, not just out of staters. I was a Campus Day leader for 3 years in undergrad so I heard from lots of admitted-but-not-yet-decided students. Lots of them were considering schools like Wash U, Emory, the Ivies, Carnegie Mellon, Johns Hopkins, etc and one of the things that set Michigan apart was the amount of school spirit that came from having big time sports. It's something that draws the student body together and it's rare among schools in that eschelon.
And it's also a lot of fun, and that's certainly one of the reasons kids pick a particular school.
November 3rd, 2014 at 3:37 PM ^
Then how do you explain schools like Washington University in St. Louis, Emory, Cal Tech, MIT and the Ivy's which are all ranked ahead of us in the academic rankings. I'll go so far as to say that there are probably only a handful of Universities in the US News & World Report top 30 academic Universities which field D1 football and even fewer that are ranked in the AP Top 25 (I know NWern, Vandy, us, UVA, aren't ranked in the AP).
I think the big-time football certainly helps for exposure and there is a certain percentage of people who might apply to us because of big-time athletics ALONG with the academics but lets not kid ourselves into thinking the University will go down the toilet without football.
November 3rd, 2014 at 4:20 PM ^
I agree. There are schools whose reputations are built more on their football prowess than on academics, schools such as West Virginia and Boise State come to mind. Then there are the majority of Div. 1 schools where football prowess is a huge boost to their reputation, schools like Oklahoma and Alabama. But Michigan isn't in either of these groups. As others have pointed out, Michigan is an elite academic institution that does not depend upon football prowess as an integral part of its academic reputation, more like Stanford. Football success does of course add to the university's reputation, but the University of Michigan is not going to be less of an attractive option for most students and will continue to get more qualified students than can be accepted no matter what the football situation.
November 3rd, 2014 at 12:31 PM ^
- "Maybe UM is no longer interested in being a top-notch football school that annually competes for the B1G."
If that's true then I think our our HC for next year will remain Hoke. But say goodbye to the 100K + attendance mark if he is.
November 3rd, 2014 at 12:40 PM ^
7 years (sans 2011) of very mediocre football didn't seem to hurt attendance. Make changes to the pricing and stop gouging people to see a football game and we'll still see that 100k+ attendance stay in tact. We still might see mediocre footbal but people will still come, imo.
November 3rd, 2014 at 12:46 PM ^
November 3rd, 2014 at 12:58 PM ^
I think it's unwise to trust for those patterns to hold much longer.
People are very attached to the brand of M football and that's kept butts in the stadium so far, but Brian and others have pointed out that the numbers in the stadium are something of a mirage. With the waitlist mostly dried up, there's no one left to take the places for any who decide to leave, certainly not at the same lucrative prices that were being asked of those season ticket holders.
With the fallacy fo stadium attendence widely known now (booing at fake stadium numbers seems to be strong evidence here) and the Cokegate debacle, it seems clear now that each person who forgoes season tickets for next year will be replaced by a much lower-paying fan, or no one at all. The vast reservoir of goodwill and support has been tapped in the past few years.
November 3rd, 2014 at 1:08 PM ^
It may not have necessarily hurt attendance per se, but it and Brandon's stunning incompetance destroyed a once-legendary waitlist. An attendance drop is coming if change doesn't.
November 3rd, 2014 at 5:25 PM ^
As said above, there was hope under RR and remaining good will. You can see how dangerously close we are to dipping below 100k now that the well is dry. The people in the stadiums now are all that's left and if Hoke is retained you're going to bleed even more.
I would go so far as to assert that if Hoke is retained there will multiple sub-100k games next year
November 3rd, 2014 at 6:18 PM ^
if Hoke or some similarly unqualified coach is running things next year I will not be renewing my season tickets nor will a lot of others.
November 3rd, 2014 at 9:08 PM ^
In those seven years, IME, most of us thought we were an upward track after the 2008 rock bottom. The Sun WIll Come Out, Next Year...Bet Your Bottom Dollar that Next Year...
We went to hell with RichRod, but then started to recover, but not fast enough. We got to 11-2 in 2011 with Hoke, and lost by 7 or less points to three Top 10 teams in 2012.
Then 2013 and 7-6 happened. There was no way to look at it and think "Man, had Denard not been hurt in the Nebraska game, or if Devin had been ready instead of Bellomy, and we make a couple more plays in the three Top 10 losses, we could have been 12-1." Nope, we got smoked by MSU & KSU, lost to three middling teams in PSU, Nebraska, and Iowa, had an admirable one-point loss to OSU, and beat ND. Meh.
Weelllll, you say, young line in 2013 and Borges's season long blocking scheme/personel switcheroos. Nuss and a year older line will have us back in contention in 2014!
Nope. Nada. We're presently ranked #70 in the Sagarin ratings in year 4 of the Hoke regime. (Or year 3 by recruiting, if you prefer...you should be showing clear signs of improvement in year 3 at least.)
The belief in the future under the present regime is gone. And another unproven meh-Hoke-like hire will do nothing to restore that belief.
November 3rd, 2014 at 12:31 PM ^
I don't want the "balance" that lowballing coaches will get us.
I want the type of "excellence" of which Schlissel spoke. While you can achieve excellence but hiring a lesser known coach the program is in no position to take that gamble. Millions of dollars per year are at stake (that's the reality) so you need to get the best person for the job, almost regardless of costs at this point (at least within reason).
November 3rd, 2014 at 12:33 PM ^
Sorry Sam, but I think Schlissel is smart enough to realize how important athletics, especially football, are to the school.
November 3rd, 2014 at 12:45 PM ^
If you did, you wouldn't have written what you just wrote.
November 3rd, 2014 at 2:03 PM ^
Awesome comment. Very informative and thorough.
November 3rd, 2014 at 3:12 PM ^
Is not the president of the University of Michigan, thankfully.
November 3rd, 2014 at 2:26 PM ^
I listened to Sam this morning and it seemed more like Andy was the one who had this view (i.e. we shouldn't have to pay that much for a good coach). Sam actually said he thought Andy had a decent point and that it COULD be done since other places have done it in the past, but in his opinion, they should definitely pay whatever it takes to get JH.
I think the confusion comes sometimes because Sam tries to remain very neutral, so you have to really pay attention to hear his actual opinion.
I disagree vehemently with Andy's view this morning. One caller had some very good points about the percentage paid to coaches vs. the revenue generated by the athletics department. He sited Kentucky, whose AD makes around $90MM and pays Stoops $4.25MM. Keeping in line with this percentage, Michigan could pay a lot more for JH with no issues. Andy sited OSU, who got Tressel, however, I think his arguement is moot in 2014 if you want to compete at the highest level. OSU didn't mess around last time and went out to get the big name. The results certainly show.
November 3rd, 2014 at 12:32 PM ^
Listen to Schlissel's presser over the Brandon firing. He gets the importance of football at Michigan.
November 3rd, 2014 at 9:21 PM ^
Yes!! ^ ^
Just because Schlissel is an academic doesn't mean that he doesn't "get it". How else was Brandon shown the door in the middle of the freaking football season? How was Ross and the Regents lined up for that to happen? Maybe I'm wrong, but I think people aren't giving the guy a lot of credit for acting pretty wisely and then decisively and for probably being pretty politically savvy as well.
November 3rd, 2014 at 12:32 PM ^
AD choice may take YEAR or TWO!?!?!
DAAAAAAMMMMNNN. I wouldn't have ever thought it would be that big of time frame.
November 3rd, 2014 at 12:33 PM ^
Alumns need to stand united and have their preference for Harbaugh be heard...
November 3rd, 2014 at 12:33 PM ^
in football (top ten) and very successful in academics. Also, Schlissel did use the term "excellence" a criteria for both several times.
Regarding paying a coach, one thing Sam and Ira seem to forget is that alumni who donate like myself view the football program as very important to the image of the University. Dowmplaying the program will be a turnoff for me and cause me to believe my money will be better used elsewhere.
Ross has stated that the football program needed to show marked improvement. I am not alone in my views.
November 3rd, 2014 at 12:34 PM ^
Our athletic department is self-sustaining. Thus, whatever we pay a new coach is completely and utterly irrelevant in terms of our education to athletics balance.
November 3rd, 2014 at 12:38 PM ^
November 3rd, 2014 at 12:36 PM ^
like Sam was opining or guessing. Either way, I think he's badly misinformed.
November 3rd, 2014 at 1:36 PM ^
It sounded like he was pushing for Butch Jones. Saying that he's a Michigan guy without having UofM on his resume. Also brought up how he worked the camps here for years and that virtually his entire coaching staff is from the state of Michigan.
I don't think we can afford to screw up a 3rd coaching search. Hiring someone like Butch Jones, would mean we struck out with the most qualified candidates.
November 3rd, 2014 at 12:36 PM ^
I think Schlissel's comments certainly can lead people to conclusions like that but he clearly understands the importance of football at Michigan and particularly its fans or else Dave Brandon is still AD.
I think Harbaugh's success at Stanford could be used as a rationalization for what would surely be a huge offer. Schlissel explicitly stated that he is looking for 'excellence' in his search for the next AD. So while a $7 Million/year coach certainly doesn't fit the balance suggested by Sam Webb and others, it certainly would require true excellence from the football program in the classroom and on the field.
November 3rd, 2014 at 12:36 PM ^
November 3rd, 2014 at 12:38 PM ^
Panic is the only solution!
November 3rd, 2014 at 12:38 PM ^
especially of AAU accredited, top 10 public university that will publically say anything else.
Did you expect him too say "Psshh.academic get outta here, we aint brining no guys in here to play school" ?
November 3rd, 2014 at 12:42 PM ^
November 3rd, 2014 at 1:31 PM ^
Ohio football coach Jim Tressel could fire him. Of course, Tressel later had to resign.
But, of course, Gee had a reputation as both a great fundraiser and unifying force in the academic community.
November 3rd, 2014 at 12:39 PM ^
Has Sam Webb ever really had any insider info about Michigan that isn't recruiting? I've always assumed he was tapped into the recruiting scene, not the Michigan scene. Everything he has been saying lately sounds more like a guy giving his opinion than someone who is "inside" the athletic department.
And Schlissel understands the importance of the football program to the athletic department and university as a whole. He isn't going to do anything to downgrade that aspect of the school. Unless he wants to be fired.