U-M Director of Football Operations arrested on suspicion of DUI
Lot of news today
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
Former* Director
Harbaugh had a DUI ten years ago. This is a lifelong friend who he respects. If it is indeed DUI I don't think he would want to cut ties to him, he will give him a chance at redemption. And Harbaugh obviously has a decent amount of say in this, along with the final word in Hackett.
It's unclear what his qualifications for the position are in the first place. It looks like overt cronyism to hire your childhood pal with no football experience to be in a signficant leadership position in the program.
This is the kind of thing people would rail on Carr for.
Harbaugh's burning through the new-guy goodwill pretty quickly but the big picture story is unchanged -- win and you're a hero, lose and everything you do off the field sucks too.
Exactly how and in what way is "Harbaugh burning through the new-guy goodwill pretty quickly?"
What else has he done to justify that assertion?
- Hiring your 20 something son for an assistant job he's very underqualified for
- Hiring your childhood buddy for a director job he's (probably) not qualified for (though I'm not sure the exact duties here, the lack of football experience seems pertinent)
- Mini-furor over the American Sniper thing (and it's implicit politicization of the football program)
- NCAA violations
- Offseason attrition
- #38 ranked recruiting class in 2015
- Struggles with top instate recruits in 2016
None of these are a huge problem but each one cuts at the positive momentum around the program. Obviously Wins and Losses will offset all this stuff, but you lose your slack when off-field issues come up (See Rodriguez, Richard Alan).
Of course there's been some good stuff too (retaining Mattison, landing Drevno, Derkin and Fisch, being aggressive about camps, social media presence, helping the lady alongside the road, etc.) but the news has been more bad than good lately.
Only four secondary, self-reported violations is a positive. Especially when you read the details about them.
Only if you're a Freep sports editor or (no, AND) an MSU fan. They're not good if you're the head coach at Michigan, no matter how trivial. A lot of people aren't going to bother with the details, as we saw with the Rodriguez thing. And sure, these aren't even anything close to that, but bad PR is still bad.
if you think that the FREEP reporting on this stuff and pulling FOI requests is anything but bad press for Michigan.
Times have changed a lot since Lloyd was head coach. The media does not have the same restraint or respect as they did when Bo's lineage was intact. Harbaugh's trying to put it back in place after Rodriguez/Hoke but he has to win on the field to do it.
when you don't know what it entails?
There is always attrition, the recruiting class was ranked lowed because it was small, and the instate struggles in expected considering he hasn't coached a game yet.
The average star ranking (per Rivals) in the '15 class was near the '10 and '11 classes, well below the previous 3 classes and Rich Rod's 2009 class. So, no it wasn't just about quantity.
Hoke and Rodriguez didn't need to win first before they landed high profile recruits.
These are weak excuses. Look - everybody knows Harbaugh is a great coach, and everybody knows that nobody is perfect. It's OK to point out when things don't go well. These things are all manageable speed bumps in the big scheme of things, but sitting here and arguing that they don't matter at all or aren't negatives is delusional. A 5-0 start and all is forgotten. A 2-2 start and the negativity around the program and media will be loud.
To be fair Jim had what - 5 weeks (2 of which were quiet period) to put together his '15 class. It was a small class and you are comparing it to the 2011 RR/Hoke class which if you look at the comments section today post Blake...1 player remains from that class. And it had 1 true NFL prospect in it - who was eventually kicked off the team. Let's see how the 2015 class compares to that - its a pretty low bar but we wont know for 3-4 years. 2011 was the 26th ranked class on 247 composite and in retrospect based on production was probably more like 50th. And it had way more players than Jim/Hoke's 2015 class.
If you want to bitch about 2016 that is fine but its still early in the process - Hoke's 2012 class vs Harbaugh's 2016 class is a fair judgement...sometime around 2019-2020. Until then its just starz. And as of today pending developments the next 1-2 years the mighty 2012 class is looking a lot worse today than it did on paper out of HS. (Maybe thats due to coaching or maybe bad evaluations)
I do agree winning makes all this crap go away but I hope most fans are not focused on the first 5 games of the Harbaugh era as a judgement. He is down to 1 fifth yr senior, and by all accounts our starting QB is a transfer, our starting RB might be and the whole fanbvase is begging for one of our starting WRs to be.
Look, I get the circumstances were tough, but Harbaugh barely did better than Hoke in 2011. The fact it was a small class mitigates the level of difficulty too. Obviously, you can't ever fully judge recruiting classes until their time is through, but Michigan/Harbaugh went after a lot of guys and it's OK to be a little disappointed given the name and resume how few blue-chippers signed on.
Nobody is saying this is a major problem, but when you come in with sky high expectations based on past success these negatives add up and incrementally people who are all-in start to get critical.
I'm saying these things won't matter much or at all if Harbaugh wins. By October it'll all be forgotten most likely. I hope and think that will be the case, but as we saw with Rich Rod - little stupid shit gets blown up if you lose, and Harbaugh is suddenly accumulating a list of stupid little shit that could be a problem if things go badly. Swearing, too much loyalty, not recruiting in-state, violations, etc. -- sound familiar?
goodwill you're completely lacking in perspective. Seriously, every one of your points is either trivial, way premature or stupid. You're comparing recruiting classes when he was only here for a month and jumping to conclusions about the next class. A few trivial minor violations? Compare those to what happens at other programs. You think the standard is none? They were only news items because everything Harbaugh does makes the news. Same with American Sniper although I doubt people they don't follow Michigan or live here ever heard about them.
shit was trivial with Rodriguez too. Until he lost, and then suddenly it mattered.
I'm confident we won't have a repeat of that mess with Harbaugh because he'll win...but if he doesn't this will be brough up again and again and used to rationalize on field stuff. That's how it goes.
Just putting some info out there, in his first three years at Michigan, John Beilein committed at least four secondary violations including three which led to penalties against him/the program. Harbaugh's didn't rise even to that level.
Ohio State reports dozens and dozens of secondary infractions each year and none of them are a big deal either.
This won't matter if he wins, as Beilein has. The more serious violations Rodriguez had wouldn't have mattered if HE won either and those were way more egregious.
what you're talking about. None.
RR got us put on probation, along with other penalties.. It was a huge deal at the time to many. UM football had never been on probation. Those were multiple major violations, according to the NCAA standards. These kind of very minor violations under Harbaugh with no penalties attached happen all over every season.
Again, and I can't stress this enough, you have no idea what you're talking about.
those "major" violations were a technicality, created mostly by sloppiness at the DFO position and spurned on by FREEP aggressiveness. I'm sure we won't see any slopiness from Harbaugh's DFO or bad FREEP press....oops.
I don't think he's burned through any "goodwill" really, but I do think this offseason has been more of a circus than usual. The program has been getting more attention than it usually does this time of year thanks to Twitter posts, the American Sniper thing, silly NCAA violations, the DUI, satellite camps, etc. I feel like this is how it's going to be under Harbaugh, but I'm sure others are more bent out of shape about it.
I agree with that, so maybe it's just semantics. IMO the circus is a negative. Not going to make or break anything relative to the on-field results though.
As I said above - it is the winning or losing results that will define the narrative about stuff like this, and you seem to agree. Cronyism is fine if you produce results. But if you lose you get in trouble for being "too loyal" - a criticism leveled at Carr (at the end), Rodriguez, and Hoke.
Believe it or not, I am aware of Harbaugh's impressive resume and plan to be in SLC to watch him start off his Michigan career 1-0.
Harbaugh has several years to burn away a new guy, star alum and fantastic coach goodwill.
Only time will tell but if Harbaugh fails I have no hope of anyone turning this program around. But I'm overly confident Harbaugh will turn the program around in 3 to 4 years, may be sooner?
Someone else chime in if they know more about this than I do, but from everything I've ever seen a director of football ops handles all of the logistical work not related to on-field activities.
He (or his staff) would be planning travel, finding entertainment and team outings when that's called for, coordinating efforts to take care of housing or summer jobs for players and likely coordinating coaches schedules and things like that. Here's a link to a job description pulled from a book on big time college football.
Those duties have virtually no overlap with anything resembling coaching skills or experience. To use a lazy analogy, an ideal chief of staff is almost never an electable politician.
You make a good argument. and maybe he is indeed well qualified - though none of the above is necessarily convincing that he is. In my post I said "probably" because I don't know all the details.
Still, hiring a childhood buddy opens you up to questions and critique if things go badly. A DUI is bad.
I get taking contrary opinions and most of the ones you have on here aren't terrible surface-level observations, but you seem to be getting torn apart on counter-arguments and your need to respond to each one isn't a good look. Every once in a while you may just want to let it rest.
It's easier to do when you feel like you are losing. I don't.
The bulk of the counter-arguments are that this is trivial. duh. I acknowledged some (all) of this stuff is trivial and will only matter in the court of perception if Harbaugh loses on the field, which none of us expect. I don't feel like I'm taking a grandiose contrarian stand here as much as pointing out the obvious - bad press is bad and the small sloppy things are adding up a bit.
Of all the men on that staff, he would seem to be the least likely to get a DUI
I am betting that his story is true. He probably was drinking, but did not believe he was impaired. Maybe he hopped in his car after a second beer, swerved to avoid the other car like he said, and got a little testy when the cops wanted to pin him with a DUI.
He was obviously stressed over the accident, I can see a former Marine Colonel getting pissed at local cops if he had only had a beer or 2, especially after a near crash thanks to someone who probably was drunk.
But we will find out when the results come back.
You're making an awful lot of inferences there.
warned him he'd be arrested if he refused to take the breathalyzer test. If he had been drinking before his accident, it's unreasonable to get that testy over being asked to take the test. I sincerely doubt he has such little respect for the local cops as you suggest.
a civil infraction. refusing the DMT at the station (you're already under arrest) is a one year suspension of your license - do not pass go. hard to get past those under most every circumstance.
Well if we're going to speculate out of our asses, if he has any issues with local police it would be more likely to stem from some sort of Sheriff/cop rivalries or friction than because he was a Marine, since his dad was the local Sheriff... not that there is or he does, dunno, just sayin'
More importantly, hopefully for him he's also related to this other Jim Minick, https://twitter.com/minicklaw, one of ten co-authors of:
Just curious why you think that? Are you implying because he was in the military at some point? I would assume people in the military drink at a similar rate as the general population. Even officers. You'd think former officers would have better judgement however but considering the stuff even Petraeus did its not a given. Stupid decisions seem to have no border.
I say this as an Air Force vet, the military culture is defined by two things in relation to alcohol:
1. Alcohol is often an integral part of group events and is used quite often(which I don't necessarily have a big problem with as god knows I participated in that quite willingly and had a lot of good times through it), it does lead to an issue where you don't know if you have friends or drinking buddies.
2. If you get a DUI in the military, it will either get swept under the rug or get you crucified depending on how connected you are. If you're a "performer" or buddies with the commanders you're typically fine. If you're not in those groups your career is over. This may have led Minick to assume the same rules apply on the outside and so he may have honestly been surprised to see this become a thing.
He gone
Cue the Freep story on Harbaugh program being out of control.
Drew Sharp is so Birdman-Handrubbing.gif right now