Pretty obvious they were referring to Warde - on people Jim Harbaugh didn't love- video makes it clear that Harbaugh loved the players and coaches.
Unfortunately we seem to be stuck with Warde until/unless he does something stupid - maybe we can introduce him to Mel Tucker?
His comment was surprisingly pointed - without actually pointing.
He's done a number of stupid things, and we are not yet delivered.
Has this place turned around on Warde? A few months ago it felt like a pretty controversial opinion to say the rift between Harbaugh and Warde was why he moved on.
I love Rich Eisen
You know at first I was pissed about Harbaugh thinking about leaving for years then finally leaving, but the B10 was never going to stop going after him. They would have suspended him 5 games if he gave the team Vitamin D chewables. Who the fuck wants to deal with that every year? He went out on top with a big FU to the conference and possibly Warde. He's going to be under a little less stress now without the daily recruiting grind and constant turnover in college.
Crazy to think that an NFL head coaching job is less stressful than a college head coaching gig, but here we are, and I believe it.
Apparently you guys just don’t get Harbaugh. He doesn’t get stressed. He just finds work to do.
Jim was pushing for revenue sharing with the players and gave his performance bonus to AD employees who saw their compensation take a hit during Covid, so it's no shock the NCAA and AD found that distasteful. They couldn't get rid of Jim fast enough. Guys like Mel Tucker who are given a bonus pool for their coaching staff but pocket that money for themselves are a better fit for the current state of college football. Phonies like Dabo Swinney who talk about quitting the game if the players feel entitled to the billions of dollars in the sport are the kind of people the NCAA support.
In retrospect i think it's likely Harbaugh gave that bonus money back not only for those affected by budget cuts, but also as a big FU to Warde/Admin thinking a pay cut motivated him in any way.
I really believe it is baked in to Harbaugh that he was never going to be one of those 25 years in one place guys. That doesn't exclude the notion that all this NCAA/BiG bullshit didn't impact his decision this year.
Just grateful that UM got some great years, including the best 3 year run he has put together anywhere.
Dabo is so nasty. The scary thing is that there are so many credulous people who fall for that brand of ick, and not just in the South.
It's a drag that Harbaugh felt it was time to go, but the only thing we can do is say, "Thank you, Jimmy." He restored the program and fulfilled everything we dreamed when he agreed to come back as our coach. We don't own the guy, and he wants to win a Super Bowl. Plus, he was never one of the college good 'ol boy network and didn't want to be, so the other coaches were always going to try to bring him down through off-the-field scheming. Who needs that? So, thank you, Jim! We will always love you and be grateful for your years coaching Michigan.
He didn't have to take Ben Herbert. That will never sit right with me.
I'm not sure about the less stress. Regardless of what Warde thought, Michigan probably would never have fired Harbaugh unless he shot somebody. There is definitely more pressure to win in LA, or else. Also, he always loved recruiting. Remember he was out recruiting high school players for his dad when he was still playing in the NFL.
It’s worth remembering that Harbaugh was never linked to any NFL jobs his first six years here. He dismissed any rumors out of hand as coming from “jive turkeys” and there was no reason to doubt him.
Things changed after 2021. Suddenly he was keeping his options open each offseason. It seems in retrospect that his relationship with Manuel was irreparably damaged around that point. Maybe it was the pay cut, or other issues like NIL, but something definitely changed between them. By 2023 we had him announcing to Ono, not Manuel, that he was staying, while Manuel chose to skip the team banquet in December. And the NCAA/Big Ten joint witch hunt probably didn’t help any.
I think Ono would have had to fire Warde to keep Harbaugh. Shame he didn't.
Good point that the fiasco of the covid season was the beginning of the end for JH staying with us. At the time it was hard for me to to believe that so many knowlwdgeable people on the blog and elswhere wanted to ditch JH after 2020 ("Matt Campbell!!"). I ranted, to anyone who was unfortunate enough to hear me, that losing the perfect coach for Michigan was insanity.
And then idiot Warde cuts his salary in favor of performance bonuses - as if JH needed any extra impetus to do all he could to WIN... at his beloved Alma Matar... in the shadow of Bo. Sheesh! It was a massive insult, and that was when he "did not feel the love". Perhaps we could have healed that wound, but not standing firmly behind him during the bullshit investigations last year was the last straw. So he turned the other cheek, brought Michigan to heights we had never reached before, and left on his own terms. He will always be my coach.
I think that was just Jim being a man with integrity. He said he wouldnt look at NFL for 7 years and that's exactly what he did. And then he looked at it every year, heh.
We knew from the get go that Harbaugh was hard to get along with if you were (nominally) his supervisor. It was inevitable that there would be conflict with an execucrat like Warde. But make no mistake that the success of the Michigan football program is about Harbaugh. Warde was best served standing aside and cheerleading, which his ego prevented him from doing. So we got passive aggressive undermining, like the suspensions last season which Warde did little or nothing to prevent.
Prevent? Warde directed the first three games! That was his idea to appease the NCAA to stop BurgerGate, and he went through with it despite the NCAA telling him it wasn't going to stop!
As he said, little to nothing. He should have been ready and willing to go to the matresses as other programs have with the NCAA regarding the Satlions shit storm.
Even if Warde was willing to battle tooth and nail with the NCAA, it wasn't his decision to make. Michigan got exactly the kind of AD they wanted when they hired Warde, or that they deserved, if you prefer.
He knows his role. Stays out of the limelight. Respects the Michigan tradition and takes care of the money. He's never going to put Michigan on the cutting edge of anything new or controversial. He has none of the most objectionable traits of his predecessor Of course, I don't mean Jim Hackett, who had the job on an interim basis.
Isn't it "go to the mat"? As in, a wrestling term? "Go to the mattress" is weird - "Go to the mattresses" makes no sense whatsoever; like there is a large, dark warehouse filled with twin mattresses - placed in a grid -and this is the place to go and do battle.
Oddly enough, that does seem like an appropriate place for which one would do battle against the NCAA.
It’s from the Godfather.
It's from The Godfather.
From Mario Puzo's gangster novel The Godfather (1969). Those involved in such a conflict might be expected to stay in hideouts where they would sleep on mattresses rather than in beds.
That's not how any of this works. The NCAA had to finish their investigation no matter what Michigan did in the way of self-imposed sanctions. The idea behind the suspension of Harbaugh was that it would act as "time served" when the NCAA eventually determined what the penalty would be. So if the NCAA decided on a 4-game suspension, there would only be 1 game left to serve. No one expected the NCAA to stop their investigation because Michigan self-imposed sanctions; that's just not how self-imposed sanctions work.
That being said, Warde is probably not a good AD. But if you're going to bash him, at least bash him based on realistic knowledge of how his job works.
Yeah, he may suck. I certainly wish he had been more vocal in defense of the school a good many times, now. In truth he seems like. . . corporate man, now maybe with his eye on the next job. But what real pressures he's under, from who. . . so much of we get here is pure speculation. Sentiment tends to settle around a select few narratives for which, even now, there's not a lot of real evidence. From some people's close-up viewpoint, Warde may have moved heaven and earth to get Michigan through and to the championship, with everything else being. . . far less important.
Yeah, I think people are forgetting how that was supposed to work. There was a negotiation with the NCAA over 4 games that fell through for whatever reason. The plan was to suspend him for 3 body bag games to start 2023 and that if he got another one after investigation and time served, it would be Fresno State next year. Crucially, he would be available for Texas. It also ended the PR noise at that time which was quite annoying. This was prior to all the Stallions stuff being known which ratcheted up the annoying to 11.
The plan was aggravating, but very tenable and likely to cause no damage/losses so I get why it was the route they went with. It was only the absolute BS that came from the Stallions stuff that made that look weaker in hindsight, but at the time, it was a reasonable approach.
I'm referring specifically to the restraining order that Michigan threatened to file against the B1G and never followed through on. The conference clearly misapplied their own rule (based on how it's been used historically) and imposed a premature penalty that proceeded an incomplete NCAA investigation. It was also done so in a deliberate manner to maximize damage to the Michigan Football program by announcing the suspension a couple of hours ahead of a huge game at PSU.
Warde should have been leading the charge to support Harbaugh in the media and in the courtroom.
It's mind numbing that administrators like Manuel want to assert control over true leaders like Harbaugh instead of getting the fuck out of the way and creating an environment that helps them thrive.
This happens in just about every field, not just sports.
True, but doesn't make it right.
Harbaugh's actions and decisions forced Warde to assert control. When Harbaugh is constantly poking the NCAA and skirting rules, who do you think has to deal with them. Not Harbaugh, it's Warde. When Harbaugh makes questionable hires, Schemy, superfan Stallions, or has guys on staff that are breaking the law/not following University policy, Weiss and Partridge, it kind of forces his boss to take action. I think it's probably a very difficult job Mr. Warde has and I'm sure he's made mistakes, but it seems him and Harbaugh butting heads was inevitable because Harbaugh is gonna Harbaugh
Competent AD's deal with things all the time. It's called "work".
I assume a competent AD knows when to assert their control over coaches when needed.
A competent AD backs his most valuable employee when facing external threats.
Setting everything else you said aside, what is it you think Chris Partidge did? Go ahead. I want you to write out what you think he did that was so awful And whatever it is you think he did, you think it was a fireable offense? Because I don''t. https://www.freep.com/story/sports/college/university-michigan/wolverines/2023/12/13/michigan-football-assistant-coach-chris-partridge-fired-termination-letter/71911322007/
The university did fire Chris Partridge. And they may have been within their rights. But that doesn't mean what they did was morally right. They offered him as a sacrifice to make it appear they were taking this whole investigation very seriously.
He talked to players about the investigation after explicitly being told not to do so.
It is absolutely a firing offense.
John and Jim sound like such UPers I love it
Me too.
What?
I look forward to Jim returning after winning a Super Bowl and Warde is (inevitably) fired.
As much fun as that would be, Jim MF'in Harbuagh will never coach football at any college ever again. He'll retire from the NFL.
Absolutely no one with an NFL coaching job is interested in going to the NCAA level unless they have absolutely no other choice. That's been pretty clear from the off-season coaching moves we've seen.
I love the stat that right now, Jim has the highest NFL career winning percentage of any active NFL coach.
I would lay a LOT of money that Warde is never fired. He'll look good in one of those enormous weird plaid jackets the bowl and NCAA people wear, and one day--maybe soon--he will be in one.
One of the first things we heard when Jim Harbaugh got hired at Michigan was that he would wear out his welcome, he's tough to work with, etc. This generally seems to be because he challenges UPWARD, not sideways or downward.
It's noteworthy that the people who have had the most friction with Jim have been Warde, Trente Baalke, NCAA and Big Ten administrators, etc. There have been very few issues with players and coaches, even though they far outnumber the administrators above Jim. (Yes, some players transferred out of Michigan, but that happens to every single coach.)
So none of us should be surprised that Warde and Jim do not have the greatest relationship. It's part of the cost of doing business with Jim Harbaugh.
I suspect his time in LA will be shorter than people think. The Chargers ownership is notoriously bad. It is worse than anything Harbaugh has ever had to deal with before.
Tigers don’t change their stripes. Especially egomaniacal billionaires. I give it three years before Spanos fires Harbaugh and tries to weasel out of paying him the rest of his contract.
You would think, by now, one hiring JMFH would understand that they are committing themselves to getting out of the way for 7 or 8 years. But yes, there is ample reason to be skeptical.