Did JUB reach out to Mike Hart to see if he would retract or alter or take back his comments on Jim Harbaugh being a Michigan Man?  Seems to me that Mike (and I'm the same age as Mike and wrongly thought similar things) would maybe regret those comments.

Does he like koalas?

What really surprised me about Endzone was the suggestion that Harbaugh only made his decision - or at least only made it clear to Hackett - on December 27.  That seems much later than I'd have thought, given that in the days before, we were getting lots of confident rumblings from insiders, such as Sam Webb adding 5% to his chances every day and this site calling it a "99%" certainly the day before.

Was the media jumping the gun?  Was there a real chance that Michigan would end up with egg on its face as late as the 27th? 

Why does Hagerup feature so prominently in the book? Was it just availability or do you think his specific story is key to understanding the period of time covered by your book?

The last line of your preface is "This is the story of how Michigan fixed itself." What should we be looking for during this season and beyond to show that Michigan is indeed "fixed"?

non-blog media in this journey?  It seems as though so many gaffes occured and yet so little of it was reported on, did Dave Brandon influence the local papers and how so?  Are the journalists for sports reporting just this poor at doing their jobs?

One of the things that's well-chronicled in the book is Brandon's bad relationship with the lettermen. Why did he have such an adversarial relationship with the lettermen, especially considering he is one? Was his own disappointment in his playing career a contributing factor?

You left it uncertain in the book, so here and now between us pals: do you think Brady would have succeeded without the influence of Dave Brandon in the locker room and the film room? Brian, what do you think?

Before reading Endzone, I would have said no way, Brady was always doomed because he wasn't accomplished enough. But after reading, I got a much different picture of Hoke as a coach and leader, and now I'm not so sure it was always doomed to go that way for him.

Did you find any truth to the rumors that Brandon's AD was attempting to poach donors to the university's academic programs and general development office?

You write a bit about Hackett's decision to get involved with Michigan athletics, but I'd like to know more about who advised Schlissel to give him a call.  Did Schlissel reach out to other notable alums for counsel when tshtf?

The night Brandon resigned, did anything happen between his last meeting and resignation?

In Bacon's opinion, if Brian hadn't posted the email story, would Brandon have stayed as AD?

Dumb question: with the massive increase in AD staff, where did those people work?

Finally, was Rodriguez eating his Spaghettios right out of the can?

I haven't read the book, so forgive me if this is a stupid question.  

 

My big question for both of the last two regimes has been the dynamic among the coaching staff and in this case with Brandon's involvement.  While I don't think Hoke and his coaches were among the best in their profession, they have been around a long time and had at least some individual success.  How did thier interaction, strategy, and relationships evolve during the Brandon/Hoke era as things went from amazing (2011) to disaster (2014)?  

Was Hoke an active participant in offensive strategy meetings?  

How much was this totally on Borges?  

What was Brandon's role in strategy and personnel decisions?  

How exactly *did* Brandon manage to both resign (rather than be fired) and keep his buyout?  Was that just Michigan being gracious?

How much influence did Dave Brandon have in the firing of Al Borges?  In the book, a great amount of time is spent detailing the hirings and firings of Dave Brandon, as well as his micromanaging style.  This seems to fall squarely within that rhelm, yet there was little mentioned about this in the book.  Are there any details about this that you are at liberty to share?

1. Echoing the question posed by several others about the future of the athletic department going forward and what is done about all the "yes men" hired by Brandon?

2. I know they wanted the book out in time for the start of football season, but couldn't it have been run past the copy editors one more time? Multiple typos.

To quote from pg 120-121 "You let even a simple typo get past you," he told me,"you'll hear it from alumni: 'This typo is unacceptable!' They don't care if it's hard to catch every single piece of punctuation-and they shouldn't. This is Michigan. They take it personally."

3.Similar to the athletic department question, does Michigan see fallout over the next several years in other sports from all of the coach turnover?

 

Loved the book, looking forward to the next one.

John, can you read aloud all of the material that was cut for space? Thanks!

The two point conversion against OSU. Did the players question the play call at all before the play? I read that DG regretted it after, but wasn't clear if there was conversation about it live on the field.

How is "Mike Burger" doing? Was he able to get the help he needed and rejoin the team?

I have a lot of remaining questions about Harbaugh's exit from the 49ers and then about his first days as Michigan's coach:

1) Why were York and Baalke so eager to get rid of Harbaugh? Didn't they appreciate three straight NFC title games? Did they really think Tomsula could do as good a job? Seriously, what were those guys thinking?

2) What was the atmosphere like in the 49ers organization after York and Baalke began trying actively to undermine JH? Did he confront them about it? Did anyone else? Did JH even realize it was them? How does he feel about what happened now?

3) When did JH begin assembling his Michigan coaching staff? It's obvious he had Durkin lined up before JH-to-M was official; were there any other coaches he had pre-recruited? Were there any other concrete actions JH took to get started on his functions as M's coach before he was actually hired? When did he start contacting high school prospects? When did he start reviewing M game film?

These are not earth-shaking points, but hey:

P.16: " . . Canham packed the stadium by selling two-dollar tickets to students [I don't know when this was, but our season tickets were included in the tuition price. After paying your tuition, you went to Yost and picked up your season ticket book] "inviting Boy Scout troops and Little League football players in uniform free of charge" [the Boy Scouts in uniform --- of which I was one --- were supposed to be ushers and help people find their seats. Of course we spent most of the time watching the game. Once Bo arrived and ticket sales skyrocketed, Canham dropped the Boy Scouts, the Little Leaguers, and High School Band Day].

P.77: " . . that MIchigan's traditional rivalries and seasonal rythms [sic] don't count for much, could be easily refuted by anyone who knew about Michigan's failed attempt to create instant rivalries after leaving the Big Ten in 1907, . ." The Big Ten Web site says when Michigan left in 1908, the conference was known as the (9-member) “Intercollegiate Conference Athletic Association.” Ohio State joined in 1912, and when Michigan rejoined in 1917, bringing the membership to 10 schools for the first time, the media began referring to the conference as the "Big Ten." Not until 1987 did "Big Ten" become the conference's official name.

The book's best narrative: the Chapters 63-65 blow-by-blow account of the playout of Shane Morris's onfield concussion, including the marathon CYA press-release writing session while Brady confronted the media and twisted in the wind. The book's best (and most relevant) quote: P.18: "Never turn a one-day story into a two-day story." How universally true, and how woefully true that this was yet another lesson Dave Brandon never learned.

Thanks, John

Loved the book, it reads almost as a "what not to do" from a leadership standpoint.

Questions: Was there no recourse for unhappy AD employees? It seems that Brandon was pretty autonomous, but where could one have gone with complaints? MSC? Would she have listened?

What's being done to recreate the department culture?

Has AD overhead been reduced? How?

What's the plan for facilities moving forward?

What, if anything, is being done to purge all of the questionably-qualified and overpaid staffers brought in? Is there an efford to rehabilitate them? Have they reached out to bring any former staffers back into the fold in any capacity?

My question is about the "Dave Brandon Emails":  Brian has mentioned that he had heard that the department regularly deleted Dave's inbox specifically to avoid responding to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA requests).  This never came up in the book, so I was curious:

1) Did Bacon hear of this or other similar practices to try to avoid accountability and culpability from the athletic department?  Were FOIA requests returned promptly relating to Dave and if not, why not?

2) If the inbox was being deleted, who was doing the purging?

3) Topic-wise, were they only deleting Dave Brandon's ridiculing emails to fans or was there other topics that he insisted be un-traceable to the press?

4) Since deleting emails for this purpose would appear to be against the law for a public employee, is there still some legal repurcussion that Brandon could face?

Mr. Bacon,

I post with this username on several message boards and other posters often ask if this is you posting on various Michigan sites. I am not one to say no to many things, so I often satisfy their curiosity and just say that I am. They ask what the numbers stand for and I tell them that 14 stands for how many PBRs you can chug in one minute and 31 represents the number of people you have slept with. Is there anything else you would like me to let others know so that I can present them with a more accurate representation of the real John U. Bacon?

Much Thanks,
bacon 1431

P.S. - when will you update Blue Ice? I am asked this quite frequently as well.

Mr. Bacon,

I know you said you are wrong every time you think writing the next book won't be as difficult as the last one. So I was just wondering some things about the actual writing process of this book:

What was the most difficult sections to write?

How do you organize your notes and interviews into a cohesive, sequential 400 page story?

Lastly, how the hell did you do all of this in six months??

It's probably too late to get this question in but since I work in PR, I was wondering what the heck Brandon and the dept were doing all day Sunday after the Minnesota concussion incident. It should have been clear that action needed to be taken on this with the media and public, but according to the narrative in the book they didn't start looking at a statement until Monday morning! That's incredibly stupid and short sighted. I understand Dave had just promoted someone without experience to PR duties and the old hands were all gone. But Madej and Ablauf had to know what was coming. Did they sit on their hands all day Sunday in order to allow the crows come home to roost?