WTKA Roundtable 1/19/2023: Nobody Takes You Seriously
Things discussed:
- Harbaugh returns. At this point they're probably close on an agreement and have recruiting to worry about.
- Broncos were definitely interested, but this is just a return to status quo from last year.
- Contract will matter. Harbaugh clearly has NFL interest still, also has interest in being paid like a top-5 coach for respect purposes. Not about respect though: Saban's contract, Day's contract, Mel's contract: they all say the same things, which is this guy is staying.
- Ono: Very different experience for an athletic director. Did he cut Warde's legs out or is this just how he operates?
- NCAA investigation: Somebody there has a bug up their ass, and is clearly an incompetent idiot who's exposing the depth of his organization's fecklessless.
- Seriously, what they're doing here is the equivalent of trying to get Harbaugh for perjury for telling the officer he doesn't remember if he was going 35 or 30 in a 25 zone. Nobody does that unless they clearly shouldn't be in a position to do so.
- Weiss: Was hacking emails but for what? This could be really nothing but it also could be REALLY bad. Normal people don't do that, and when they do it's often for a very nefarious purpose. They've already ruled out some of the more awful stuff, but he could be harassing, covering something up…there are a lot of very bad reasons to be hacking email accounts and no good ones.
- QB analyst Kirk Campbell, Gattis guy, Michigan might be looking at him as on-field guy.
- How does this affect Jadyn Davis? Sam admits Davis's dad told Weiss he's a bad recruiter, but also they have a very good relationship now.
- Basketball: Praise for the two-bigs lineup, no praise for the tiny Big Ten, which Brian calls an "NIT league."
[Hit the JUMP for the player, and video and stuff]
You can catch the entire episode on Michigan Insider's podcast stream.
Segment two is here. You can watch the video here:
MGoBlog Roundtable https://t.co/pAtRU4rxxx
— Sam Webb (@SamWebb77) January 19, 2023
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I think it'd be funny if Michigan offered Harbaugh a billion dollars a year, and then Saban's contract went up to match, and then Harbaugh was like 'Nevermind.'
January 19th, 2023 at 10:50 AM ^
"Sam admits Davis's dad told Weiss he's a bad recruiter, but also they have a very good relationship now."
He can't design a pass game either. Why is he even on staff?
January 19th, 2023 at 11:19 AM ^
“One thing I’ve learned is there is a lot of the relationship element to it. If an NFL free agent signed with a team and went to the press conference and said, ‘I’m just here because I just love this position coach, we have a great relationship, we’re up playing Fortnight (video game) every day at 2 a.m., and this guy is just awesome. That’s why I’m here.’ Everybody would be like, ‘Wow, what’s wrong with this guy?’ But in college, that’s kind of what happens. It’s not the only thing that things (decisions) are based on, but it matters.”
This Weiss quote tracks with Dante Moore saying how he hadn’t built the relationship with the Michigan coaching staff like he had with Notre Dame when ND was leading his recruitment.
January 19th, 2023 at 11:48 AM ^
I know! He must just keep failing upwards from Stanford to the Ravens to QB/co-OC to Michigan. As we know, John Harbaugh is an incompetent person as well.
January 19th, 2023 at 12:07 PM ^
Matt Patricia worked for Bill Belichick and was given the reins of an NFL team. Apparently, that was his level of incompetence.
January 19th, 2023 at 12:24 PM ^
Hell, Saban hired Doug Nussmeier and even won a national title with him.
January 19th, 2023 at 12:25 PM ^
The two situations are in no way analogous.
January 19th, 2023 at 12:50 PM ^
I believe that was an allusion to the Peter principle, not an analogy between Patricia and Weiss.
January 19th, 2023 at 12:45 PM ^
The crazy thing is that I don't even think Patricia was a good DC. His last game, the 2018 Super Bowl, was one of the worst defensively coached games I've ever seen. He took the Lions job the next day, and that season the Pats defense immediately got better...
January 19th, 2023 at 12:49 PM ^
They went from giving up 500+ yards, 41 points, and not forcing a single punt in that Super Bowl to giving up just 260 yards & 3 points in the following Super Bowl.
January 19th, 2023 at 3:37 PM ^
I was at that Super Bowl. Without the commentators it wasn't as easy to spot/notice that Malcolm Butler wasn't playing at first but when it became obvious the Pats could not stop the Eagles at all not playing him was flat out coaching malpractice. I know Belichick makes those calls in the end but Patricia showed what he was worth neither making adjustments nor getting him on the field. And it was SOL to hire him immediately after. Thank god this current Lions management seems to have a few working brain cells.
January 19th, 2023 at 12:55 PM ^
It was the Lions, though, so maybe that's his level of incompetence.
If you have a laundry list of failures in the passing game you can draw up due to Weiss's incompetence then by all means share. I don't think he's the greatest OC in the world but the anger directed at him and the playcalling seems mostly based on vibes and losing a football game and not, say, some schematic deficiency that teams were able to exploit.
January 19th, 2023 at 10:59 AM ^
When you preface your argument with "I don't know any details about this" maybe you should just stop right there. Saves you time to be an institutionalist and get that uncritical defense of Warde in.
January 19th, 2023 at 10:59 AM ^
The double post bug back?
January 19th, 2023 at 11:00 AM ^
"Weiss: Was hacking emails but for what? This could be really nothing but it also could be REALLY bad. Normal people don't do that, and when they do it's often for a very nefarious purpose. They've already ruled out some of the more awful stuff, but he could be harassing, covering something up…there are a lot of very bad reasons to be hacking email accounts and no good ones"
Sometimes a seeming small issue can lead to a much more serious issue.
Do you recall The Cuckoo's Egg? Back in 1988 before the Internet wasn't anywhere as huge as it is now, and many users were scientists exchanging datasets, Cliff Stoll, a guy who was aiming to be an astronomer, was working a side job as a sys admin for Livermore labs and was asked to reconcile a 75 cent discrepancy in an account.
This led to a discovery that someone had hacked in for 9 seconds and was exploiting weaknesses in the mail system. Rather than just stopping there he continued onward and ultimately discovered a systemic hacking effort looking for nuclear and strategic defense initiative data. Worth a read.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cuckoo%27s_Egg_(book)
January 19th, 2023 at 11:06 AM ^
I love that book
January 19th, 2023 at 11:16 AM ^
What a story! Thanks for the link.
January 19th, 2023 at 1:08 PM ^
Sorry, keep forgetting to do that!
January 20th, 2023 at 9:55 AM ^
"...the hacker was using a 1200 baud connection..."
Gosh, I remember in high school in the early 90s when we got a 14,400 baud and thought that shit was FAST. The conversion I found for it is that that modem we got was equivalent to 0.0137329102 Mb/s in today's terms. And the hacker was using a connection 1/12th as fast as even that.
How did those folks ever get ANYthing done remotely?
January 20th, 2023 at 12:50 PM ^
My first internet connection was 300 baud -- dial-up, over a phone line of course -- but the "internet" of the day was basically text-based. That's a lot different than downloading pics, music files, and video. If you wanted to download content back in the day, sometimes you got this....
Even music files would take a while back in the day. Once cable modems came along, things got much better.
January 19th, 2023 at 11:49 AM ^
META question:
Is there an MGoBlog preferred method for us consumers to listen/watch the podcasts? I guess what I am asking is, is there a financial difference for the blog if we consume it one way over the others? Maybe one has better or more easily packaged listener counts or info to sell to sponsors? Maybe one pays better (even if it is just 0.0001 pennies/per listen)? Is so, please let us know and I would be happy to support the MGoblog in the manner that helps them the most!
January 19th, 2023 at 12:36 PM ^
Not long ago, Seth mentioned that they (as in MgoBlog) do not get paid to do the WTKA podcast.
January 19th, 2023 at 3:08 PM ^
They may not be paid for appearances on WTKA, but they definitely generate money off of their podcasts, even if it is just sponsorship fees. I want to listen in a manner that will support them best, I just don't if there is one or if it matters at all.
January 19th, 2023 at 3:30 PM ^
Doesn't really make a difference. The podcast version does include what we talked about during the break though.
January 19th, 2023 at 11:57 AM ^
With regards to Weiss, the only sensible theory I can come up with is that there was concern unnamed transferring player/s may have emailed team playbook information to an outside account and someone thought it was a good idea to access those players email accounts and check. That is my theory at least. I guess time will tell.
January 19th, 2023 at 12:12 PM ^
Yea hopefully it’s that or like a kid talking about leaving or whatever but it makes way more sense if it’s about some ill deed like harassing someone and trying to cover it up but or trying to delete an email and being dumb thinking it’s possible? Should be interesting.
January 19th, 2023 at 12:14 PM ^
My default assumption in these cases: it’s about a woman.
January 19th, 2023 at 1:01 PM ^
More generally I'm leaning toward it being a personal issue vs. him "hacking" SMTP servers or internal databases. Maybe it is something like that but if it turned out he was using work email/computers to, say, harass someone or cyberstalk I wouldn't be shocked. Or a Hugh Freeze situation where he used school property to connect with someone/something he shouldn't.
January 19th, 2023 at 12:22 PM ^
or there was a concern that someone, like from Iowa, might have been in contact with a player prior to them entering the portal...
Every employer I've ever worked for, has informed me that my work email was property of the company and any emails I send or received through that email address were subject to review by the employer. Do the same rules not apply to a student, or employee or the university? Not that Weiss would have the authority to hack into an email anyway.... but if it was monitoring whether or not rules were being broken through a university email.... that's kinda different, as he's on the coaching staff. just wondering.
January 19th, 2023 at 12:23 PM ^
there was concern unnamed transferring player/s may have emailed team playbook information to an outside account and someone thought it was a good idea to access those players email accounts and check
I feel like if this were the case, someone much lower on the totem pole would have done the hacking, not our co-OC.
Also, the call to the police apparently came from within Schembechler Hall, so whatever Weiss was allegedly doing was not supported by everyone there.
My guess is that this was a personal matter, not directly related to his job.
January 19th, 2023 at 12:16 PM ^
Weiss seems to be more of a liability than asset-poor recruiter and now something with this unauthorized email access. Maybe it turns out to be something minor but another reason to consider parting ways
January 19th, 2023 at 12:28 PM ^
I enjoy Seth's personal attack on the people who work in the NCAA office
January 19th, 2023 at 3:33 PM ^
They are the worst of fuckwads.
January 19th, 2023 at 12:35 PM ^
Regarding recruiting...... how the hell is any recruiting violation relevant these days? With NIL money and the Portal, these kids are all free agents at this point. The NCAA has let this get waaay put of hand and they are even more exposed as dumbasses than before.
January 19th, 2023 at 12:37 PM ^
Craig Ross must be best friends with Warde. Sam and him obviously can't be objective when it comes to Warde. They're actually criticizing Ono for how he communicated that Harbaugh was staying?!? GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE. Warde has his head stuck so far up his sanctimonious maize and blue Michigan Man asshole that he can't do his job anymore if he ever even could. That's not Ono's fault. Horrible take.
January 19th, 2023 at 12:46 PM ^
Yup, agreed. What the hell was Warde doing, exactly, before Harbaugh went to Ono for negotiations? I will give everyone the benefit of the doubt because we know very little right now on the details, but of all the people that look bad in this right now I think Warde shouldn't be overlooked and excused. And yet Craig says nothing bad about Warde in all this...he basically attacks Ono and Harbaugh.
January 19th, 2023 at 12:53 PM ^
Multiple of my friends and family are also very concerned about the way Ono Tweeted about this. They want Warde gone but they are nervous about what it might mean for the future that Ono handled it so publicly and was willing to embarrass someone below him.
January 19th, 2023 at 1:39 PM ^
Warde wasn't able to perform a basic job function as an AD (i.e. communicating with the football coach). Warde is in a high profile position of leadership at a major university with a $1M salary. It's not like he's calling out some a data analyst who made an error. People are now very concerned that leadership might be embarrassed publicly for being totally incompetent? I think that tells you all you need to know about what's held back the program from being elite.
January 19th, 2023 at 3:44 PM ^
Sam is such a company man that I listen to about half of what he says about anything
January 19th, 2023 at 6:22 PM ^
I agree with Craig. Ono including the line about informing the AD not only reflects badly on Warde Manuel, it reflects badly on Ono, Harbaugh, and the university. Santa is Warde's boss; he holds the power. If he's dissatisfied with Warde's performance he doesn't need to wage a publicity campaign. If he wants to get rid of him, he can fire him. If he doesn't, then undercutting him just damages the program by inviting this very speculation.
January 19th, 2023 at 12:40 PM ^
Criag Ross is a little bit too much of "old man yells at cloud" in this podcast. Craig, I like you, but I couldn't disagree more with your takes in this one.
Let's not immediately turn to the worst possible reading of the situation when we don't know a whole lot about what Harbaugh was thinking or why he seemingly went back on his word from a year ago (or why it's Ono he contacted for negotiating and not Warde).
January 19th, 2023 at 3:02 PM ^
CL:
1. [Not from you] I don't know Warde. I am certainly not friends with him. I have emailed him a couple of times and he hasn't (at least yet) responded. That didn't upset me---maybe he should not respond. Who knows, he might get 2k emails (or more) every day.
2. I knew I would take shit for my POV. That's OK. I am comfortable with opposing points of view. I am comfortable with criticism.
3. I agree that facts are relevant. I have taken some hits on this board in the past for insisting on such an idea. I really, really also like the ability of those accused to have the opportunity to provide their side of things. That's a continuing theme for me, along with McLuhan's aphorism that "to a fish, water doesn't exist." Sometimes, a person accused of something can't respond due to (say) death or other structural problems. Certainly, Warde has restrictions as applied. But conclusions drawn from incomplete data (and I definitely include myself in this) can look naive or churlish. Or actually be this. Certainly, like many people, I have been guilty of jumping to conclusions. I can't count the times I have listened to one side of a case and thought "wow, sounds pretty convincing." Until I heard the other side of the case. We are all (including me) the victims or heroes of our own stories.
4. I concede, I have no idea what Harbaugh is thinking. What does seem certain is that he wanted out last year. After coming back, he said this wasn't going to be an every year deal. Now, you are right (and I hadn't really considered this) maybe something happened over the course of the year to make it legitimate for him to (let's call it) change his mind. Or maybe not. In any event, UM is really at the same point it was last year---with a coach who is either really happy to be here or really not so happy to be here. Or some place between those points and I also concede, while the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, this is an arena where someone always seems to be throwing all of a us a curve. At this juncture, I don't know whether this will be a continuing saga, or not; or whose "fault" (if any) it might be. Certainly, it is murky enough to be an issue for Jadyn Davis, as Sam outlined.
5. I didn't and don't criticize JH for talking to Ono, especially if, say, Jim and Warde are not soul mates (no idea) and/or do not communicate very well. I do think it was inappropriate for Ono to announce matters the way he did. Ono had easy alternatives, that few would have found problematic. Even if he thinks Warde is a stooge who should be fired (and here, I don't know; Warde really can't defend himself) Ono should not have announced matters the way he did.
Craig
Very Old Man Who Does Yell at Clouds Given the Opportunity
January 19th, 2023 at 5:23 PM ^
I got your lumbago joke. It was priceless. But the only reason I got it is bc Uncle in RDR and RDR2 is always using lumbago as his reason to do no work..
I don't know if this says more about me or you?
January 20th, 2023 at 12:38 AM ^
Congrats. It was a stupid, obscure joke but funny to me.
I had hopes that someone would appreciate it so, thanks.
January 19th, 2023 at 7:02 PM ^
Wow, I got a response from the venerable CR. Thanks man!
I generally love hearing your takes on the podcast (and even your weird references that I don't always understand, like today's lol). Just found myself disagreeing hard with you for the first time. I guess Ono could have handled it differently, but I'm just not sure how much it really matters. I'm not ignoring the PR aspect of all of this, but if what Ono said is truthful I'm not going to fault somebody for telling the truth. That, again, is partly why Harbaugh's NFL flirtation is so puzzling this time around after he was so open and honest about his intentions just a year ago, how this would be the last time this happened, and reaffirming it last December. But ultimately to me, I can't fully judge Ono and Harbaugh's actions to date when we don't even know what Warde has (or has not) done yet. It feels like a lot of the story is missing.
One thing we can all agree on is the situation is big mess, and right now nobody really looks good. I look forward to seeing how everything shakes out and hope that we learn about a signed contract very very soon.
January 19th, 2023 at 2:12 PM ^
I'm interested most in Sam's follow-up convo w/Jadyn Davis and his dad/family about their 'direct questions' to Coach Harbaugh concerning whether or not he will be coaching here beyond next year and about Weiss' status for next season.
January 19th, 2023 at 2:25 PM ^
Good on Ono for stepping up to get the contract done, but no reason to put that statement out except to embarrass Warde. Even if you want to fire him, there's no need to publicly call him out like this.
Or maybe Ono just didn't realize how his statement would sound, 🤷🏾♂️
January 19th, 2023 at 3:44 PM ^
I have little problem with Ono's statement. Here's my fan fiction on how things progressed:
1. Ono sits at his laptop in between meetings, staring at that day's Wordle puzzle and probably realizes that it is cheaper to retain Harbaugh than to find a new coach. He becomes concerned.
2. Ono makes some rounds and hears from sources about the direction that the negotiations are taking (Warde and Harbaugh in all likelihood are pissed at each other). Ono approaches Warde and probably Harbaugh for an update and doesn't like what he hears.
3. Ono inserts himself into the negotiation, Warde says "fuck it, you're on your own, dog" and steps back.
4. Ono makes progress but Warde is pissy and somewhat incommunicado. Ono needs to get ahead of the speculation, so the second he gets mutually positive movement with Harbaugh, Ono hits "send" on the tweet machine.
5. Ono realizes that dealing with a dejected Warde is 10,000x easier than replacing Harbaugh. As long as nothing backslides with Harbaugh, he probably scores an early win in his tenure.
January 20th, 2023 at 8:35 AM ^
Craig Ross’s “10-second story.” Lol
January 20th, 2023 at 8:58 AM ^
We have a program where our sports talk guys talk of world class pianists.
Gotta love it.
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