Stewart Mandel: Michigan sold their souls when they hired Harbaugh
"Our friends at Michigan when they hired Jim Harbaugh sold their souls. There was nobody more ciritical of the SEC and oversigning and pulling scholarship offers than Michigan fans. They hired Jim Harbaugh. That's what Jim harbaugh does. But they're happy with the results."
Hard to believe this dipshit gets paid for his college football analysis when he can't even take two seconds to look at a depth chart. He and Teddy Greenstein probably use each others asses as hand warmers. Ole Miss sold their souls. Baylor sould their souls. The audacity of this guy to suggest something like this is astounding to me.
Oversigning means that you have signed enough players that someone who is told they will have a scholarship will not be getting one from that University.
What you are talking about is perfectly in the rules. You are allowed to backdate scholarships, and it's pretty regular practice for players to have to wait before a scholarship is "officially" open.
Don't pay him much attention.
Winning draws this kind of myopic bullshit out of dudes I forgot existed.
Feed him or not - your choice - but he doesn't get clicks if we're putting up 5-7's.
It's 100% causitive on attention. There are 128 college football coaches in the FBS, but only about 3 or 4 coaches that consistenly have their names in the headlines.
The distribution is definably extremism.
Exactly. Michigan, and more specifically Harbaugh, generates headlines all year long. Every move Harbaugh makes draws attention, whether he wanted it or not. Finebaum saw an opportunity to latch on to that train in an attempt to make his name relevant. Others are just going to continue to follow suit in hopes that they can get JH to respond to their ignorant statements, and instantly boost traffic to whatever crappy blog/podcast/column they have.
Agree, Mandel is a good national college football writer and tends to be pretty objective, this feels like an over-reaction to Mandel having a critical take on how Harbaugh is working recruiting(which we've argued about on this board ad nauseum).
Things we have to keep in mind here:
A. There is a reason the guys on The Solid Verbal call Michigan one of their least favorite fanbases, we could all probably stand to calm down a bit and not try to take every reaction to critical statements up to 11.
B. Mandel is a NorthWestern grad who grew up in Ohio, couple that with Michigan fans being perceived as being over-sensitive about the status of a program that, nationally, has done jack and squat for a long time and you're going to be a punching bag for him and get an extra level of snark.
I don't give a freaking CRAP what the "guys on Solid Verbal" think of our fanbase. What I do care about is Michigan Football
Fine, point remains that if we're going to go completely crazy about a somewhat innocuous statement made by a popular college football writer with a rep for being objective, we're going to continue to deal with these continuous pokes because they will look at Michigan fans as being an annoyance and have no real need to look any deeper into the issues than whatever is on the surface.
as a guide for how to act?
HOLY SHIT! THE SOLID VERBAL IS AGAINST US!!
(who is 'The Solid Verbal'?)
The Solid Verbal is a pretty good national college football podcast. I usually listen to it mid-week during college football season. I don't really go there for their Michigan opinions though (thanks to MgoPodcast). However, the two hosts are an Oregon fan and a ND/Penn St fan, so take everything they say about Michigan with a grain of salt.
Negged for the phrase "butt hurt."
Only because Ole Miss never had a soul to sell.
Now THIS is the way we use to be treated by others back in the good old days. Jelous, angry, resentful, saying shit about us that wasnt true because they were so envious of our success.
Things are back to normal. Love it.
You nailed it. The ankle biters will always take shots at the heavyweight on the block.
It's good to be back. Muck Fichigan, TTSUN, Big Brother, Fence the Garden...it's good to have real estate in the head of other fan bases.
Don't forget the oh so clever "Ann Arbor is a Whore"
Then just ask them why they couldn't get in.
This isn't word for word either but Feldman asked him the question about 'selling your soul' and Mandel said "Kind of". Also, when he said the stuff about the SEC and oversigning he also said the Big Ten in general. That is all that was said of Michigan or Jim Harbaugh so its not like he went on some Michigan rant. It was just a couple seconds inbetween some Notre Dame talk and then something else.
gonna Hate
It's the offseason, and expecting guys like Finebaum and Mandel to put forth actual coherent, intelligent discussions about a wide-ranging number of topics concerning college football is just too high a bar for them. Instead, complain about Harbaugh because it'll get us pissed and give other fans something to poke fun at. This is a nothing discussion by a hack, which is fine. College football is full of them. And it's pretty clear he's hoping Harbaugh will tweet or otherwise respond to him to drive a discussion, so the thing to do is ignore him and let his laziness exist without comment.
Here's a fun piece Brian did on Mandel 10 years ago yesterday (I just saw this working on the "This month in MGo history diary").
http://mgoblog.com/content/stewart-mandel-wants-be-troy-smiths-bridget-moynahan
Once upon a time I sold cars for a few months and this was the dealer's best advice to me. You can waste a lot of energy trying to use logic with ignorants and trolls like this guy, Pete Finebaum, Sparty, Buckey, etc.
See, I think you can hire Jim Harbaugh and not completely concede the things that Mandel is apparently saying that we have, so the statement seems like a bit of an overreach to me. It was the right hire at the right moment to resurrect a program on the verge of protracted irrelevance, and I don't think allowing Harbaugh to build the program in the manner in which he wants is "selling your soul", but rather "finding someone who can build a winner and letting them win their way". Not something Michigan has always been good at as a fanbase and culture, but hardly what Mandel is describing.
"Fuck this shit" might have been harsh but this is how I feel about the writer.
click to this b.s. opinion/fake news. Plus one for public service.
Northwestern sold their souls when they gave Mandel a journalism degree.
Using this guy and Mike Greenberg as my Example A and Example B, I don't believe Northwestern graduates Journalists.
If the alternative to selling my football soul is keeping Hoke, going 5-7 every year and going into the MSU/OSU games knowing with 100% certainty that we are going to get our collective asses kicked, what choice do you think I'm going to make?
Harbaugh generates headlines, and because he's so outspoken, its easy for the talking heads to latch onto him and speak their minds so they can generate some clicks. If Hoke was still here, or if a has-been like Schiano was our coach, we'd continue to remain irrelevant. I'd pose the question right back on Mandel and ask him what he'd do if he were in Michigan's situation.
Your program is on a downward spiral on and off the field. You're getting your ass kicked up and down the field by your rivals every time you play them. You're nationally irrelevant and a total laughingstock. And when you fire your coach, one of the best coaches in the NFL, who also happens to be a highly proven college coach, tells you he's interested in coming back to take over.
What do you do? Take the highly successful, proven commodity, and deal with his quirkiness? Or rely on a pool of far lesser candidates who you know will not be the caliber of coach that can take down Urban Meyer, and then you enter the coaching carousel again in another 3-5 years? Michigan was desperately in need of a winner to take over. And when one presented himself, it went out and got him.
So, sorry I'm not sorry.
canadian actor / comedian from deal or no deal talking about college football?
Not sure if serious, but I think you're referring to Howie Mandel. Stewart Mandel is a completely separate person.
Are you sure about that, Kendrick Perkins?
I figured we were past the point of having to add /s everytime we were /s
If you can't find great gifs, you need to STEAL great gifs! Thanks, Shrute Beet Farm...
Why do people need to let things go?
You obviously can't by commenting about it.
If you truly believed what you wrote, you wouldn't have commented about it because you would have "let it go...." right? :P
Aside from busting your balls, It's easy for Stewie to comment about this on a podcast. Let's see him write a article about it.
Stewie, like many today, like to take hyperbole to a whole new level.