Still confused about Herbstreit/Miles thing
I was hoping Three and Out would shed some light on this, but apparently not. I never understood how Herbstreit got his info that Michigan and Les Miles came to an agreement, and how/why neither he nor ESPN was ever held accountable in any way for reporting false info and pretty much sabatoging a coaching search in the process.
Although I was all about PB&J time when we hired RR, reluctantly accepted that he had to go for a number of reasons, and am quite content with our current staff, I'm still dying to know wtf happened. At that point I was extremely excited about the prospect of Miles as our new coach, and I remember mgoblog was going nuts celebrating our early Christmas present that Saturday morning. I don't want to give away too much from the book for those who haven't read it, but it was pretty clear that Miles could have been our coach if the process wasn't botched by Herbstreit/ESPN and Martin. At this point this is neither here nor there, but I really do think Miles would have gladly adapted his ethical standards at Michigan compared to what he can and does get away with at LSU, and I think he would have turned us into a powerhouse (sooner than our current trajectory, though not necessarily better in the long run).
I'm not really bitter at this point, and despite the last 3 years of pain, I feel awesome about our program and its future. Even though Herbstreit is a Buckeye, I find him to be relatvily objective and skilled at his job, with this one glaring exception. Does anyone have any clue what happened and why there was never even an apology or acknowledgment of such a major confabulation and screw up? My apologies if I'm missing info of which others have been aware.
November 13th, 2011 at 5:17 PM ^
Two points make a trend.
November 13th, 2011 at 3:34 PM ^
November 13th, 2011 at 3:44 PM ^
Re: your signature, love it (I used to teach Research Methods to psychology majors and that mistake drove me nuts), but remember that "effect" can indeed be a verb, as in "to effect change." Means the same as "to cause" in that context.
As for your hypothesis, I think maizenbluenc's above is much more plausible.
November 13th, 2011 at 5:04 PM ^
November 13th, 2011 at 5:25 PM ^
Agreed. Those who can't get the common usage correct shouldn't have the privilege to even try to use "effect" as a verb.
November 13th, 2011 at 3:48 PM ^
That's probably the same guy who helped Al Gore invent the internet.
November 13th, 2011 at 4:15 PM ^
LOL come on, there's no way that's true. The guy was trolling.
3 big holes in that claim off the top of my head:
- How did some random LSU fan get Herbie's phone number? I'm guessing that's not easily accessed info.
- Herbie and Desmond work together, Herbie would recognize Desmond's voice, and recognize that random LSU fan is *not* Desmond.
- I'm sure they have each other's cell #'s. When this guy calls Herbie claiming to be Desmond, don't you think Herbie wouldn't have been the least bit suspicious when his caller ID showed some random phone number with a Louisiana area code, and not "Desmond"?
It's laughable that anyone would take that claim seriously...
November 13th, 2011 at 5:00 PM ^
November 13th, 2011 at 6:25 PM ^
Wouldn't Herbie's phone tell him where the call came from?
November 13th, 2011 at 3:46 PM ^
I remember that the information Herbstreit reported was pretty specific: Miles had agreed to become Michigan's coach and was bringing Jon Tenuta (who was DC of Georgia Tech at the time) with him. It was odd because I don't think Miles and Tenuta had ever even worked together before. Seems like Herbstreit's sources were somewhere in the south and were not connected to Michigan at all. Herbstreit is not a journalist and he just got hoodwinked, that's all.
November 13th, 2011 at 3:56 PM ^
Yes the Tenuta thing is interesting. I've read it hypothesized that HE was the one who leaked it to Herbie, for leverage - IIRC, he got hired at ND for a lot of money shortly after
November 13th, 2011 at 3:58 PM ^
You're totally right, I forgot about Tenuta! That level of specificity made it seem even more legit (and exciting) at the time.
November 13th, 2011 at 3:48 PM ^
It's pretty much been said,but in one of Bacon's radio interviews,he said that he thought somone from the university told that Herbstreit they were going to hire Miles. It was probably done on purpose to mess up the Miles hiring process,but we will probably never know for sue.
November 13th, 2011 at 3:56 PM ^
Reading between the lines in the book, it seems Bacon goes as far as he can to state that it was the anti-Miles faction responsible for the leak.
Honestly, I'd like to meet some of these people face-to-face and ask them what hallucinogenic drugs they were on that made Ron English seem like a viable choice for head coach.
November 13th, 2011 at 4:28 PM ^
"Honestly, I'd like to meet some of these people face-to-face and ask them what hallucinogenic drugs they were on that made Ron English seem like a viable choice for head coach."
It was at least partially a race issue.
The guy, can't remember his name.... James Hamilton or something like that.... (the guy that's now at Eastern but has connections to U of M) wanted Michigan to have a "minority" coach.... which in this case was a code word for an African-American coach, because let's not forget that Rich Rodriguez's last name is Rodriguez, lol, but, apparently that wasn't "minority" enough for that guy. (Hamilton or whatever his name is.)
English was also a Lloyd Carr assistant.
The desire for English was a mixture of affirmative action and cronyism.
(By the way lest someone accuse me of racism, or bringing issues of race somewhere they don't belong, my source for this was a post on this very board. I can't remember when it was made, it was awhile ago, but I distinctly remember doing a facepalm when I read it becausse I thought it was so monumentally stupid that some jackass torpedoed the coaching search over an affirmative action crusade + cronyism.)
November 13th, 2011 at 5:52 PM ^
Reading that makes me so sad, not in the least because I can half believe it. I've often wondered why the criticism of English's defenses was so muted despite the multiple debacles under his tenure. Not wanting to be seen as criticizing one of the few prominent black coaches in college football seems as a good a reason as any for this. Probably any other coach would lost to App. State, etc. would never have been considered for fear of a fanbase revolt.
As an aside: I fall squarely into the category of "generically brown" , and not in a good way either, so I'd like to hope that thinking the above doesn't make me a racist.
November 13th, 2011 at 3:57 PM ^
Lets not forget that. Brandon knew MIles is a horse's ass.........a good coach, but a horse's ass.
Kelly was not considered, simply because he had a rep as an unpleasant person.......so Brandon, who knew Miles to be a horse's ass (who banged the coach's wife, setting off the drunken rage that culminated in Moeller's meltdown).
When Lloyd Carr took over, Miles was the first person sent packing.
Herbstreit just decided to run with an unconfirmed story. just as any lightweight journalist would.
November 14th, 2011 at 12:32 AM ^
Do you have any idea how greatly you lower the level of discourse on this board when you FLATLY state things like Miles slept with Moeller's wife?
People like you are why wikipedia can be dangerous.
November 13th, 2011 at 4:23 PM ^
November 13th, 2011 at 4:31 PM ^
MO...Les is 57 years old, and has probably 10-13 years left as a viable Div 1 coach...unless he pulls a Jo Pa.Little did we know what "pulling a JoePa" would mean.
November 13th, 2011 at 4:32 PM ^
Don't know if Herbstreit ever told anyone who his source was - he just reported it without attribution. Did anyone ever press him on it? Not that I know of.
November 13th, 2011 at 4:32 PM ^
Can Miles have the success at Michigan without the oversigning and the overall bullshit SEC recruiting "methods" along with having to deal with an actual admissions standard that is not indicative of a community college? We'll never know at this point but I say no.
November 13th, 2011 at 4:39 PM ^
Who cares?
November 13th, 2011 at 4:45 PM ^
November 13th, 2011 at 5:30 PM ^
Personally, I want to know how to feel about Herbstreit and Carr, and this cognitive dissonance thing has been pretty annoying, especially regarding Carr. I love that guy so much for 1997 and for what he stood for (especially his intellectual nature and his candid spite for the media and money grabbers), but that's pretty messed up if he played a role in this Machiavellian drama. The more I've heard/read about Carr recently the harder it has become to reconcile my feelings towards him.
November 14th, 2011 at 12:33 AM ^
A lot of people.
November 13th, 2011 at 5:07 PM ^
for a National Title, it was a flat out lie to benefit his Buckeyes and I absolutely believe that.
Since then I don't trust a damn thing he says about Michigan or anyone else playing OSU. He has as much integrity as Tressel himself.
November 13th, 2011 at 5:31 PM ^
Herbstreit's report happened the day Miles was about to play Tennessee for the SEC Championship. It was before anyone knew they'd be playing OSU for the title.
November 13th, 2011 at 5:57 PM ^
To be fair, it was pretty certain LSU would win the SEC, so he might have just been planning ahead. Wait, what am I saying, a buckeye using his brain? Nah . . .
November 13th, 2011 at 6:04 PM ^
Also, I don't think OSU was even in the national title game yet. I think it was still supposed to be a WVU-Missouri matchup - but then they both got upset that day.
November 13th, 2011 at 5:50 PM ^
There's a few things I wished the book had gone more into - obviously Lloyd Carr and Les Miles, but also:
(1) Dave Brandon going to film session. Bacon mentioned DB asking RR, but then doesn't talk about what the actual film session is like
(2) Rod's final meeting with Brandon - I imagine Bacon wasn't allowed into the meeting, but I imagine Rod mentioned something on how it actually went.
(3) The players felt like RR was gone before the bowl game. Why would Brandon keep Rod around and then fire him for the bowl game? If he truly did that to lower the buyout, he really doesn't "get it."
(4) Rich's frustration with Gerg - he hints at the divide, and mentions how Rod was frustrated but trying not to micromanage. Clearly there was a lot more that wasn't put in the book, and I wonder what Rod said in his last meeting with Brandon about Greg Robinson and Co.
It was a good book, but not a great one - it gave us more details on the last few years, but the only really "wow" thing was, "Bill Martin didn't do a good job."
November 13th, 2011 at 6:32 PM ^
I doubt it had anything to do with the buyout. I think Brandon waited until January to appease all the factions:
-He gave RR one final chance to show what he could do;
-He operated on Harbaugh's timetable, to give him a shot if he wanted the job;
-He agreed to meet with Miles after the bowl;
-He met with Hoke after his bowl.
If he had hired Hoke right away in December, supporters of the other three guys would have been pissed. As it turned out, they all effectively dropped out of the running (RR got slaughtered in the bowl, Harbaugh chose the NFL and Miles confirmed that he was staying at LSU), so Hoke was the only one still in the running in the end. The fanbase rallied behind him.
November 13th, 2011 at 8:06 PM ^
was also trying to keep the players from transferring, so he kept the current coaching staff around for as long as he could.
November 13th, 2011 at 8:30 PM ^
1) Rodriguez was dragged throught the mud for him leaving his team before their bowl game, and DB wanted no part of repeat negative publicity. He wanted the new coach to come in with as little controversy as possible.
2) If he gave Rodriguez one last chance, he was also waiting long enought that Rodriguez had very little chance of being hired somewhere else for this season. That reduced the risk of transfers, and kept Barwis in place until it was clear he was to be replaced.
November 13th, 2011 at 5:54 PM ^
Like it or not, Miles' first responsibility is to his employer, LSU and they are paying him to win games within the rules of the NCAA. His responsibility is to them. Football in the SEC is different, and he would not be competitive with Alabama... without oversigning (which is fully legal according to the SEC & NCAA).
If he didn't oversign and that cost him games, his employer would be pissed and he'd be fired.
November 13th, 2011 at 6:23 PM ^
All of this discussion of Miles ethical short comings is all hind sight as of the second coaching search (The Process). When the 2007 search was on going, no one had discussed oversigning or payments to recruit handlers.
I'm glad he didn't get hired this time around, but let's keep our facts straight.
November 13th, 2011 at 6:25 PM ^
Scott Draper.
November 13th, 2011 at 6:28 PM ^
A no good piece of shot. I hate his ass and his smug arrogance. Enjoy Albion College, you dick!!!!
November 13th, 2011 at 10:46 PM ^
Do Michigan proud
November 13th, 2011 at 7:02 PM ^
Cool. Let's see your credential.
November 13th, 2011 at 8:33 PM ^
1. Draper in bed with Carr
2. Carr didn't want Miles hired.
3. So Draper didn't want Miles hired.
4. By leaking it to Herbie and it not being true, it throws a wrench into Miles being hired by Michigan.
4a. Especially on the morning of the SECCG
What are your credentials?
November 13th, 2011 at 10:47 PM ^
6. Profit
November 14th, 2011 at 12:36 AM ^
My credentials? Burden of proof is on you.
I'm not the one throwing shit out there in a matter-of-fact fashion with NOTHING to back it up.
November 13th, 2011 at 6:34 PM ^
Nope
[quote]but it was pretty clear that Miles could have been our coach if the process wasn't botched by Herbstreit/ESPN and Martin.[/quote]
It's a sad state of affairs if Michigan let ESPN get in the way. I doubt ESPN has that kind of influence over any organization. If you read the book closely, it's pretty clear that Martin is a buffoon. Martin may know finance... but jack about little else -- including being a decent human being given Martin's shoving match debacle a couple of years ago.
November 13th, 2011 at 7:00 PM ^
Making this story even more bizarre is that Herbstreit never once tried to break a story as a reporter before this incident and hasn't tried since. The affair is a stunningly massive aberration in his media career.
November 13th, 2011 at 7:08 PM ^
Maybe not as officially as he did that time, but he was beating a "If Harbaugh leaves Stanford, it'll be to Michigan" drum at this time last year.
November 14th, 2011 at 12:22 AM ^
Completely different. He let you know he was going on a hunch. Not even worth mentioning as a comparison.
November 13th, 2011 at 8:27 PM ^
Don't think this deserves to be negged, but jmblue has a good point above.
November 14th, 2011 at 12:24 AM ^
No, he doesn't. Herbstreit makes a comment like the Harbaugh one several times a year up in the booth. That's what a COMMENTator does.
Putting on his reporter hat on having "ESPN's Kirk Herbstreight reports..." scroll on the ticker is nothing like that.
November 13th, 2011 at 7:04 PM ^
Even these 4 years later it's still fun to talk about. Yeah, it's in the past and we're moving forward in what seems the right direction, but the paranoid conspiracy aspect is fascinating. What makes it so fascinating, in my opinion, is that the torpedo-ing of Miles being hired WAS a conspiracy. That the info was fed to Herbstreit about Miles-to-Michigan can not be doubted. What can be doubted and discussed is who is behind the conspiracy. There are some really good theories in this string and I'm willing to bet somewhere in there is the truth. My guess is it's Lloyd and/or Lloyd sycophants. I remember reading speculation that even the timing of Lloyd's retirement announcement was done to make hiring Miles as difficult as possible. And that's before Bill Martin's inept "search" even began.