John Bacon - UM regents discussing contract extension for Warde
None of us know anything of course, and Bacon doesn’t seem to be plugged in as he used to be with the program. But if there is any truth here it seems there might be a battle between the old guard and new in respect to NIL and how the football program adapts to the changing landscape of college football:
https://x.com/johnubacon/status/1755754750530683282?s=46&t=yOp53t7WHGsRQ1QfeEFEXg
In other news, Bacon ran a poll on his Twitter asking who would support a contract extension (which I believe ends in 2025), and with almost 10,000 votes in 4 hours the results are approaching a landslide…
https://x.com/johnubacon/status/1755756835477373087?s=46&t=yOp53t7WHGsRQ1QfeEFEXg
February 9th, 2024 at 12:38 AM ^
Click HERE to see AMAZING results!
February 9th, 2024 at 3:54 AM ^
Man, if this is true then how can the BOR be so backwards thinking? I just don't get it.
I voted no and agree that there should have been a hell no or fuck no option.
February 9th, 2024 at 8:26 AM ^
Maybe they haven't read Who Moved my Cheese?
February 9th, 2024 at 6:18 AM ^
#9 will SHOCK you!
February 9th, 2024 at 12:54 AM ^
I heard from my source within the AD that Warde forced his dog to eat an entire trough of bacon and then stood over it laughing maniacally as it vomited pieces of its own pancreas.
He also bought that bacon using money earmarked for the defensive coordinator's salary.
February 9th, 2024 at 1:11 AM ^
......and claimed the whole thing for tax purposes
February 9th, 2024 at 1:22 AM ^
February 9th, 2024 at 11:14 AM ^
This is obviously untrue. Warde would never share any of his precious bacon with a dog.
February 9th, 2024 at 12:55 AM ^
Athletic director loses top football coach. Michigan Board of Regents: time for a contract extension for the athletic director.
It would be hilarious if Michigan administration works harder on a contract extension for Warde than they did for Harbaugh.
February 9th, 2024 at 1:27 AM ^
Can we please stop pretending that Warde/admin didn't try to keep Harbaugh? They did, and he chose to leave. This board has gone insane.
February 9th, 2024 at 1:37 AM ^
They did try to keep Harbaugh, if by “keep Harbaugh” you mean slow play his contract extension negotiations so that they could save face when he left.
February 9th, 2024 at 9:24 AM ^
He also could have just... stayed. But he didn't. Nobody forced him out.
February 9th, 2024 at 9:48 AM ^
Agreed. I am thankful for these 9 years of Harbaugh culminating in a National Championship. It's clear with all his dalliances with the NFL after every season, that Harbaugh wants to try for a Super Bowl. It's best to rip the band-aid off now and start the Moore era.
February 9th, 2024 at 10:54 AM ^
John U Bacon said they hated each other. If you're the AD it's up to you to keep the talent happy, not piss them off and make them want to leave. Cutting peoples pay and not fully supporting them during NCAA/B1G investigations tends to piss people off.
February 9th, 2024 at 9:52 AM ^
Come on man... logically it was Harbaugh stalling for time.
I blame no one at UofM and I don't blame Harbaugh, but dude was going to try and leave and found his landing spot.
February 9th, 2024 at 10:15 AM ^
I missed the part where they kept offering him big contracts for years and Harbaugh kept interviewing with NFL teams despite claiming he'd stop after the Vikings.
If Jim Harbaugh wanted to be the HC at Michigan he'd be HC at Michigan, but sure blame the AD because apparently Harbaugh has no agency in any of his decisions.
February 9th, 2024 at 1:46 AM ^
They were working on a contract extension in January 2023 and were still "working on it" in January 2024. Here's a quote from an article from June of last year.
“Jim and I keep talking and will continue to talk — he’s in the second year of a five-year agreement, but we’ve had conversations about that. At the appropriate time, we’ll make an announcement, but he’s in a good place, he and I have had great conversations and so I feel good about where we are,“ Manuel said.
When pressed on a timetable, Manuel kept it short: “When we get anything finalized, y’all will know.”
Maybe Jim goes to the NFL regardless but they absolutely did not do everything in their power to keep Jim at Michigan.
February 9th, 2024 at 5:30 AM ^
It takes 2 to tango and Jim was also in no hurry to sign anything. We'll never know definitively what percentage of blame belongs on each side.
February 9th, 2024 at 8:57 AM ^
You're not wrong, but I think your point makes the main point. Warde is part of the tangoing that didn't go well. Although we don't know all the details, the ones we do have point to him not doing all that was reasonably possible to keep Jim. Ono being repeatedly involved signals a problematic relationship.
As a comment below shares: who wouldn't want to work for a boss that doesn't defend you to the NCAA, especially over small stuff?
February 9th, 2024 at 6:17 AM ^
If they were talking, then that meant that JH had at least some interest in staying. That means it could have been accomplished. This was the most important task in Warde Manuel's professional career and he shit the bed. He then compounded his failure by refusing to stand up for the university, the football team and the head coach when the witch hunt started - actions that we now know were motivated by his desire to personally look good for his run at the head of the playoff committee and to build his personal resume. It is shocking that anyone on the BoR is even entertaining a contract extension for him. Is there even one positive thing that he accomplished as an AD? He certainly had nothing to do with the national championship,
February 9th, 2024 at 6:54 AM ^
f they were talking, then that meant that JH had at least some interest in staying. That means it could have been accomplished.
No, it means Harbaugh understood that there are only so many jobs in the NFL, and Plan B was to stay at Michigan if he could not get one of those NFL jobs. It has been pretty obvious going back to his hiring at Michigan that his dream is getting a Lombardi Trophy. We were his backup plan.
February 9th, 2024 at 7:05 AM ^
I think this turned out to be the case, but I'm not sure it would have been true IF Michigan had a different athletic director in place.
Todd Anson, a close friend of Harbaugh's, has suggested as much.
February 9th, 2024 at 8:04 AM ^
Jim Harbaugh is among the most famously mercurial and unpredictable people in the world. Nobody knows what is going on in his head. I just don't think it's a good use of energy to be mad at Warde for something this is basically impossible to prove, especially when he's provably guilty of things like "transformational not transactional."
February 9th, 2024 at 8:35 AM ^
Right. This whole saga overlooks the point that by all rights, we were lucky as hell to have Harbaugh coaching here in the first place, and if he were any other coach with three recent conference championship game appearances, he'd 100 percent have taken another NFL job then.
February 9th, 2024 at 10:15 AM ^
He had no interest in staying after 9 years, but needed it to appear that way for leverage. Blaming Warde for it is just wrong.
February 9th, 2024 at 10:31 AM ^
Did you miss the Jordan Acker piece where he said this?
That November, when I went back and had lunch with him, just one on one at Schembechler Hall, we talked about the past (especially that 1995 AFC Championship Game), our families, how we could do better on campus, and how much fun he was still having. He didn’t lie to me that day; he told me that if there was a fantastic NFL offer, he’d have to strongly consider taking one more shot, and that despite that he still loved Michigan. You could see it in his face. He was five yards short in the Super Bowl against his brother. He wasn’t going to be done until he got to the goal line.
February 9th, 2024 at 12:14 PM ^
This doesn't have to be an either/or. Yes, he had NFL interest. And he had interest in staying at Michigan, too.
Anson's take is that with an AD he could better work with, he'd have been more interested in staying. We have no reason to doubt him, considering that he's probably the closest person to Harbaugh willing to go on the record.
February 10th, 2024 at 12:32 PM ^
"We have no reason to doubt him,"
Anson hates Warde because U of M wouldn't let the sketchy non-profit NIL collective he was trying to set up use U of M trademarked IP
February 9th, 2024 at 12:20 PM ^
Again, Harbaugh has spent 3 years trying to get an NFL job. I'm sure he "negotiated" with UM but hell, even the contract he stated he was willing to sign he wouldn't do so until after the current NFL hiring cycle ends.
Harbaugh would have been fine coming back to UM if he had to but can we stop with this idea that Warde fucking Manuel drove a guy to a job he clearly has been gunning for for years.
February 9th, 2024 at 6:29 AM ^
I don't know about you, but when I try to keep a valued employee on my staff, I always make sure to suspend him based on spurious allegations, deny him the chance to protest, and tell him any new contract won't be guaranteed. Works every time!
February 9th, 2024 at 10:12 AM ^
Spurious allegations? His program committed 4, level II violations. Moore, for his part in those level II violations was suspended 1-game. Of Harbaugh's, 3 game suspension, how many were for the level I violation and how many were for the level II violations?
His new contract won't be guaranteed? Here is the language of what was in his current contract:
4.02 Termination for cause. The University has the right to terminate the employment of the Head Coach for cause in the event of any of the following:
(d) The NCAA or the Conference determines, or the University reasonably determines (following any notice and cure period required by Section 4.02(a)), that (i) the Head Coach has committed a material violation of a material provision of the Governing Rules (including, without limitation, a Level I or Level II violation of NCAA Rules); or (ii) that a material violation of a material provision of the Governing Rules has occurred within the Football Program during the Term of this Agreement and such material violation occurred as a result of the Head Coach’s failure to appropriately supervise the Program in a reasonable and customary manner.
If Michigan was looking to extend Harbaugh after being served with the Notice for the Level I and the 4 Level II infractions plus the whole Connor Stalions issue going on, why would anyone believe that Harbaugh's job was in danger? No one was looking to fire Harbaugh and that language was only moving the goal posts while Harbaugh was out seeing if he would land an NFL job.
February 9th, 2024 at 12:18 PM ^
Level II violations are nothing. Programs acknowledge guilt on them all the time. They never result in the head coach being suspended.
Level I violations actually matter. The one in this case was ridiculous, the claim that Jim lied about a burger receipt. Jim adamantly denied lying about it. Warde decided to fold and suspended him anyway.
February 9th, 2024 at 7:35 AM ^
Do or do not, there is no try. Hmmm.
February 9th, 2024 at 8:32 AM ^
Seriously, if this extension happens, it is the nail in the coffin for the M GO board's "hot takes"
Every crusade M Go Bloggers embark on ends up turning into "opposite day"
Keep frothing at the mouth fellas, because we end up winning doing the complete opposite you idiots.
February 9th, 2024 at 9:03 AM ^
Just because the regents are happy with Warde doesn't mean we have to be happy with him. There are tons of examples where boards are happy with a CEO who just keeps a steady hand on the tiller while the company slowly bleeds talent and gets behind on R&D.
Boards often want risk mitigation. Warde provides that, in the near term at least. The Regents may be fine with UM football going 9-3 going forward. Their goals and the goals of the fans on this board may well be at odds.
If you believe that Warde had more to do with UM football success than Harbaugh, I don't know what to tell you...
February 9th, 2024 at 9:05 AM ^
I was referencing this blogs crusade to fire Harbaugh as an example of another failed idea.
Just saying, we kind of are approaching "boy who cried wolf" terrain here.
Wrong too many times for people to listen if you are finally right.
February 9th, 2024 at 9:43 AM ^
I guess I get your point, but there are ppl on this blog who were on one side on fire Harbaugh who are on the other side with fire Warde. So it's not a single person potentially being wrong multiple times, it's the majority potentially being wrong multiple times. Not really sure it fits the boy crying wolf narrative, either, because we're not making things up like some twitter journalist. We're outlining preferences based on incomplete data.
I don't think we're wrong on Warde, but I guess time will tell.
February 9th, 2024 at 10:31 AM ^
Some folks are good at schmoozing, getting & holding jobs, and moving up the ladder. They don't eschew political bullshit; they're the source of it.
Other folks are good at doing their jobs, and since that usually involves little tolerance for political bullshit, they frequently clash with management.
Guess which ones Jim Harbaugh and Warde Manuel are, and why they hate each other.
Manuel absolutely will get an extension and a raise to boot, because he's good at pleasing the right folks. If even 98% of Ann Arbor or whatever loathes his guts is immaterial to the outcome, and he knows that.
February 10th, 2024 at 12:35 PM ^
"Their goals and the goals of the fans on this board may well be at odds."
Their goals and the goals of football fans SHOULD be at odds.
I like football - but it is truly a tiny thing in the big picture of the university.
February 9th, 2024 at 12:22 PM ^
If the Regents want to have a spineless loser as our AD, that says more about how they view athletics than anything else. It doesn't mean that Warde is secretly playing 4D chess for losing most of our good coaches.
February 9th, 2024 at 8:42 AM ^
"Beaver, I'm worried about the Warde."
February 10th, 2024 at 12:08 AM ^
FB Dive, are you still uninformed about this?
https://x.com/Johnubacon/status/1750353682959401466?s=20
If that is true, the regents/admin were abysmally inept, or did it on purpose.
February 9th, 2024 at 12:56 AM ^
So, the Bacon poll is sizzling?
February 9th, 2024 at 3:30 AM ^
Warde settle down its not what you think it is.
February 9th, 2024 at 12:56 AM ^
People need to get past the Warde hate. He is not.gopd at his job, but nobody is firing the AD of the reigning National Champs in football.
Just because you want it and just because you ain't wrong, don't mean it's gonna happen.
February 9th, 2024 at 1:04 AM ^
Orgeron got canned a year after winning it all.
February 9th, 2024 at 5:49 AM ^
Sorry don’t follow. So Warde is Orgeron and Harbaugh is Joe Burrow in this analogy?
February 9th, 2024 at 7:15 AM ^
Coach O got fired two seasons after winning the NC. Plus, he was underwhelming before the 2019 season. The two situations are not comparable, but most people down there looked at the 2019 team as an anomaly.
February 9th, 2024 at 10:26 AM ^
Didn't he get fired to trying to hook up with the wife of a LSU Trustee?
February 9th, 2024 at 1:34 AM ^
he had absolutely nothing to do with winning a National Championship, he was just along for the ride. If we want to win another one, we need someone like the guy who hired the coach that just won us the National Championship.
Now he's in the way of hiring/firing coaches for our foreseeable future. Please get rid of this do nothing pom pom waving johnny come lately sideline fraud. It is insanity that this man gets to keep his job.
People in his position of power cannot be allowed to skate by, it's insulting.