DetNews Article on Dave Brandon

It's written by Lynn Henning so take it for what it's worth.

http://detnews.com/article/20101123/SPORTS0201/11230321/Dave-Brandon-relishes-keeping-U-M-great

Relevant bits:

"The past two years have been difficult, and while this year is feeling easier, (football) is still not where it needs to be," Brandon said, sitting at a small conference table, bottled water in hand.

"We got spoiled for 40 years. And let me tell you, our fans aren't very good at handling losing. And heaven forbid that they do."

"I think what we learned is that there are two ways for a leadership transition to take place," Brandon said, speaking of Carr's retirement in 2007.  "One is to have an internal candidate, and another is to have an external candidate.  "If it's internal, it makes it easier to adjust to the future, and if it's external, it's something of a disadvantage.  "Bo and Gary Moeller (Moeller succeeded Schembechler following the 1989 season) made for an easy transition.  They knew each other and coached together.  It was the same when Lloyd took over (1995).  But what we found out when Lloyd decided to retire is that there was no logical successor.

"There was going to be a new staff, a new philosophy. It created a stir in the program."  Brandon added: "Everybody wants to believe there's no price to be paid (for change)."

"If you want to coach here, you've got to understand the expectations are very high," he said.  "There are not a whole lot of things our coaches long for here. You come here, and we give you a lot of tools.  "We expect to compete, and we want to have a program that regularly competes for championships.  "If there is progress, we continue to invest in the program. If you wake up and see that we're moving sideways, and you don't see a clear path to success, that's when you think about making changes."