Hackett Article In Detroit News (Harbaugh, Refs, and The Game)
Angelique Chengelis has a nice piece on Hackett's relationship with Harbaugh. It's mostly (high quality and well-written) fluff, but two quotes jump out regarding the reffing at The Game:
“I was so proud of him before the game, and I was even more proud of him after the game,” Hackett said. “I felt he was the kind of man I know him to be. He speaks his mind. I went back and watched the whole interview after the game, and if you watch the whole interview, the stream of when he speaks about being bitterly disappointed is in the flow of questions about how do you feel. This is a man who can’t lie.
He continues to say
“No threat of a fine or a detention where they’re treating an adult with a technique like they would treat him in high school. If he had been disrespectful or vile that’s different, but he was speaking his mind about how he felt. During the heat of the game, can you imagine the comment he got from an official? He competes authentically like no one I’ve ever been around. It just reinforces why we’re lucky to have him because of his authenticity and being a step ahead in the art of being a coach. We have fully realized the value that was promised.”
The complete article is here, and well worth your time:
http://www.detroitnews.com/story/sports/college/university-michigan/201…
December 22nd, 2016 at 7:50 AM ^
Word, Jim Hackett. Word:
He competes authentically like no one I’ve ever been around. It just reinforces why we’re lucky to have him because of his authenticity and being a step ahead in the art of being a coach.
December 22nd, 2016 at 7:52 AM ^
This quote was awesome too.
“Jim was 10 or 12 when I played, and Jack was the coach that I would talk to often,” Hackett said.
“I had to reacquaint myself. I called Jim and identified myself, ‘This is Jim Hackett.’ He said, ‘Is the Jim Hackett who taped me into the locker?’ I didn’t hesitate, ‘No I cut you out.’ ”
December 22nd, 2016 at 10:17 AM ^
December 22nd, 2016 at 8:08 AM ^
“He didn’t want to sign the agreement until the season was over,” Hackett said. “Because of who he played for and I played for, how we were both raised, I just needed to hear him. If you want to tell me you’re coming, that’s all I need. He said, ‘I’m coming.’ ”
if you're hackett, who obviously lives and breathes maize and blue, played for bo, etc, that had to make his heart beat real, real fast. and then to have to sit on that for however many days or weeks. i would've exploded.
December 22nd, 2016 at 9:27 AM ^
Reading that made MY heart beat really, really fast. Yeah, not sure I could have sat on that. It would have leaked out somewhere.
December 22nd, 2016 at 8:15 AM ^
Many years ago Schembechler said that the most important decision any athletic director at Michigan will ever make is who to hire for head football coach.
By that metric, Hackett is as successful as any AD in Michigan history.
December 22nd, 2016 at 8:16 AM ^
Hackett and Harbaugh. Hacket deserves a statue.
December 22nd, 2016 at 8:21 AM ^
December 22nd, 2016 at 8:31 AM ^
The difference so far between Hackett and Warde is the difference between the AD being an active asset and the AD being just not an active distraction. Even putting aside the hockey coaching (in)decision, the MSU/OSU scheduling, the ND series starting on the road, etc. Following this year's OSU game, a statement from the AD like this in the immediate aftermath would have been hugely helpful. Instead we got, well, crickets. It's really too bad Hackett couldn't stay on longer, but he's a legend nonetheless.
December 22nd, 2016 at 9:20 AM ^
I don't know that these are fair criticisms.
-On hockey, Manuel had only been on the job a couple of months when last season ended. He may have felt he needed another year to get his bearings and line a successor up. If he lets Red string things out beyond this year, then I'd be more critical.
-On MSU/OSU, he's said that he wants to get it fixed but it isn't necessarily simple. That's probably true. I do hope he can lobby to get it straightened out at some point.
-On ND, we've always played them on the road in even years and at home in odd years. This wouldn't normally be an issue. It's an issue because of the MSU/OSU situation and because Brandon let Swarbrick play him like a fiddle, getting that extra home game. We're not likely to ever make up that missing home game, especially when the same ND AD is still in place. That was probably a precondition of restarting the series.
-On the OSU officiating, I can't think of too many instances in which an active AD critcized the refereeing. I would hope that behind the scenes, Manuel did communicate his concern about referees with Ohio ties working the game. We have some reason to believe he may have; that's how he operated on the Friday football situation.
Fans may want their AD to make a big public spectacle, but that may not be the best way to actually get things done. Brandon didn't win too many friends around the league when he was front and center all the time.
December 22nd, 2016 at 9:21 AM ^
It's Harbaugh's place as coach to complain publicly about the refs. Not Warde's. Doesn't mean he shouldn't be working the lines and doing everything he can to ensure UM gets a fair shake.
December 22nd, 2016 at 9:43 AM ^
1. Warde was officially brought on as AD in January and the NCAA hockey season ends in April. He also had a phone-a-friend whenever he needed it to the guy who's been in the seat for over a year prior. Considering the stability in basketball and football he walked into, hockey was clearly the first thing he needed to figure out from a coaching perspective. He did nothing, and the result is a disaster team that does nothing for Red's legacy, kills recruiting, is unfair to the players, and is a lost season in Michigan hockey. I don't give him a pass there, he needed to make Red understand that it was time to usher in Mel for the good of the program. Warde dropped the ball there.
2. I'm not saying it's simple, but do you have any confidence at this point that he'll get it done? I certainly don't. If it is going to happen, I'd like to have seen some concrete steps being taken in that direction besides a one-off press conference quote that builds in an excuse for it never happening.
3. Cumong man, the even/odd year excuse is total bullshit. ND ended the series on their own accord at home, so it should resume in the Big House, simple as that. Then you compound it with the fact that our road 2018 game is on a road MSU/OSU year? Ridiculous. If it were an absolute dealbreaker for ND, which I highly doubt given their fading national relevance, then don't resume the series until they change their mind. We have plenty of high profile noncon games on the upcoming scheudule anyways. Swarbrick raked him over the coals on this.
4. The quote Hackett just laid out would have been very welcome in the OSU aftermath. It supports our coach and the position he rightly took in the postgame presser. Warde offered little to no actual support.
I'm not saying he's a failure, I'd just like to see Warde step up a little more in the future.
December 22nd, 2016 at 9:43 AM ^
4. The quote Hackett just laid out would have been very welcome in the OSU aftermath. It supports our coach and the position he rightly took in the postgame presser. Warde offered little to no actual support.
You lost me on this one. Hackett is not making these comments as the current AD, so they're not really comparable situations. You have no idea what support Warde did or did not offer. All you know is that he didn't say anything in public about the officiating. And what AD ever talks about the officiating in a game? Let's stay in the current millenium if you are going to actually answer that question.
Of all criticisms of Warde, the one about him "not doing anything" about the officiating is the weakest, fanboyest whining. It's not his place to publicly denounce officials and that would be counter-productive (see: Dave Brandon).
December 22nd, 2016 at 10:00 AM ^
Regarding the officiating: I would have liked to see Warde speak out on this publicly. While we do not ever hear AD's speak on this, we also often never see egregious malpractice in officiating a game like we saw in the mich/osu game this year. It was ripe with conflicts of interest and an obvious strong bias in this one. I watch a lot of CFB and do not ever recall a game so blatantly crooked when it comes to refs. It wasn't just a few bad calls that didn't go our way - it was flat out malpractice. When you add that to the magnitude of that game and everything that was at stake, I thought it was necessary that our leaders come to the support our coach, players and fans in a public forum.
December 22nd, 2016 at 12:13 PM ^
I don't really think he has to say anything controversial. A public "I stand by my coach" statement without going into the game would be cool. I think Manuel is a quiet guy who doesn't want to push the boundaries compared to Harbaugh's I'll say what I mean and do what I want.
December 22nd, 2016 at 9:45 AM ^
1 - I don't think it's unreasonable for a new AD to keep on a legendary coach one extra year, especially if he doesn't have too much of a background with hockey. Again, I would not expect him to keep Red on beyond this year and if he does, I'd criticize him then.
2 - I have no reason to doubt he wants to get this fixed, because the status quo means a crappy home schedule on even years. I don't think he's going to make a public spectacle over it, though. I think he will privately communicate our interests on this, as he did with the Friday football.
3 -Look at the history of UM-ND. We've always played them home on odd years and away on even years. That's not a coincidence; ND wants to have the UM and USC series staggered. I definitely think it was a precondition of renewing the series. Michigan fans demanding a home game in 2018 are not being realistic.
4 - I do not think Hackett would have said these things publicly if he were a sitting AD. It's much easier as a private citizen.
December 22nd, 2016 at 10:19 AM ^
1. Guess it's just a matter of personal tolerance for a program decending into total shambles because of a legacy coach who's a couple years past his time. I'm not trying to take away from what Red's meant to the Michigan hockey program (everything), but I think it was clear to everyone watching that by the end of last year his time had passed and another year would be rough. Lo and behold, here we are in the midst of the most embarrassing hockey season in memory. I'm not sure how many of the readers on here watch a lot of Michigan hockey, but they're SO bad. Below any acceptable standard bad. It's just hard to stomach, and not how you'd like to see Red go out. I understand that people will disagree, but I really think Warde needed to push for Red to make the call to Mel last spring and usher in the new era.
2. Sure, I hope you're right. I also should have given Warde credit for totally disavowing Friday football off the bat, especially even going against the road games. If he's still pushing hard for the schedule fix behind the scenes, then great. I just don't have a ton of confidence that he is, but we'll see.
3. This is where you lose me. It's not like we're ND's whipping boy here, we're the superior football program. The last number of the year of the game does not mean a damn thing, and why the hell do we care that they want to stagger the USC game? We want to stagger two games against it and Warde couldn't! It's just a total cluster of a schedule now, and we should not have resumed the series until ND agreed to resume at Michigan Stadium. Swarbrick was the one who ended the series in South Bend. He should not have gotten a free pass to keep his precious independent schedule flowing to his will because a certain year is even or odd. That's the most arbitrary bs reasoning one could possible concoct around the whole matter, and it totally disregards how the ending of the series went down just a few years ago.
4. I disagree, as he's not really a "private citizen". He knew these commets would be published with him as an implicit representative of UM. But again, that's a matter of opinion.
December 22nd, 2016 at 11:41 AM ^
ND hosts USC on odd years and Michigan on even years, to make sure they have a marquee home game every year. That's reasonable enough. And we never had a problem playing them at home on odd years. It's the MSU series that is screwed up. That's what needs to get fixed, for the benefit of both Michigan and MSU (which also has UM/OSU stuck on the same rotation).
We could have perhaps waited to get ND back on the schedule in 2019. If so, I think they probably would have agreed to come to Michigan Stadium. You can criticize Manuel for scheduling them for 2018. In fairness, I don't know if Harbaugh wanted them on the schedule ASAP or Swarbrick demanded that 2018 game first. At any rate, I don't think ND was ever going to agree to flip the series so that Michigan would host on even years and ND on odd.
It seems like a lot of Michigan fans wanted to strong-arm ND somehow in the new negotiations, as a kind of revenge on ND for the way they ended the last series. That wasn't realistically going to happen. The series probably wouldn't have broken up in the first place if Brandon weren't such a jerk. We'll probably never get to make up that extra home game. I still like having them on the schedule though, so I don't lose too much sleep over it.
December 22nd, 2016 at 2:34 PM ^
delete. poorly written. sorry.
December 22nd, 2016 at 12:06 PM ^
I don't get the even odd thing. It helps our schedule now if we play home on even years. We gave ND all the leverage and gave them two home games in a row and once in the middle of the big ten season. Tell them to take a hike if they don't give us some concessions.
Hackett hired the football coach shortly after being hired which is a much much bigger search. We already have our guy for hockey in Houghton. Red came back and we're moving into MSU under Anastos territory. It's not fair to Red, the fans, or the players that he's back.
I do think the other two are not very big issue tbh. The big ten ain't changing the MSU b2b thing until we expand again.
December 22nd, 2016 at 3:18 PM ^
The MSU series is the problem, for both schools. On odd years, MSU doesn't host either of UM/OSU and on even years, we don't host either of MSU/OSU. Flipping it back to the old setup would benefit both schools. At some point it'll happen.
December 22nd, 2016 at 9:46 AM ^
2) So what are your concrete steps, why does everything single decision or action have to be public knowledge?
3) fair.
4) it's pretty easy for an interim AD, and now not the AD to say these kinds of things with no repercussions. Saying Warde offered no support is probably BS. Maybe no public support, but I'm sure they reached out to the Big 10 or had separate conversations behind closed doors. Can't think of many instances where an AD publicly criticize the officiating.
So he seems a little more choice with his words than the former interim AD. Is that a bad thing?
December 22nd, 2016 at 9:50 AM ^
The one thing I would disagree with though is the Red situation. I have been one who believes Red should've retired a few years ago. However, as a new AD to come in and in your first few months force a legend to retire can be risky. If we don't land Mel and we end up with anyone else and this season is not a sucess....... Well, that's not a great start to your tenure as AD.
I think giving himself a year to try to lure Mel or find another top flight coach is probably the right move for him to make right out of the gate. Even though Red has hung on a few years to long he is a legend and UM owes the man a huge dept of gratitude. Make sure his leaving is handled properly and one loss season isn't going to destroy the program. Also the three months you talk about getting a coach. All good coaches were still coaching their programs and schools are not going to allow you to talk to them in season. So in reality his time to put a new coach in place was more limited.
December 22nd, 2016 at 11:53 AM ^
There are two constraints:
1. Habaugh said to make it happen ASAP.
2. They need 3 home nonconference games in 2019.
Put those things together and it was never going to be anything but playing at ND in 2018 and in Ann Arbor in 2019.
December 22nd, 2016 at 3:24 PM ^
We still have one open date for a non-con in 2019. ND could have been on the road and we could still satisfy getting at least 6 home games in a season. How quickly Harbaugh was demanding for it to happen is total speculation.
December 22nd, 2016 at 1:55 PM ^
Chicago Tribune article on officiating for the game. Highlights include:
1. There were two missed calls -- PI for Darboh play, and late hit on Peppers interception play.
2. Big 10 referees work in crews, and this was the best crew. It included three referees from Ohio and three from Michigan.
December 22nd, 2016 at 2:12 PM ^
I saw this article earlier today and was considering making a thread about it - but this is good ol' Teddy Greenstein and the article is slanted accordingly. I wasn't going to give him the extra clicks
December 22nd, 2016 at 10:29 AM ^
December 22nd, 2016 at 10:42 AM ^
December 22nd, 2016 at 8:44 AM ^
Expect a response from Warde....er,... BoCanHam....
December 22nd, 2016 at 9:19 AM ^
Prime Minister?
December 22nd, 2016 at 9:47 AM ^
Nice comments by Hackett. The guy clearly gets the integrity side of Harbaugh, which most people breeze past, despite it being at the very core of who he is. I say we give Manuel a break on the hockey situation. The quickest way to lose the respect of an organization is to step in and start making agressive decisions about people that have been around a long time.
December 22nd, 2016 at 9:56 AM ^
Nice comments by Hackett. The guy clearly gets the integrity side of Harbaugh, which most people breeze past, despite it being at the very core of who he is. I say we give Manuel a break on the hockey situation. The quickest way to lose the respect of an organization is to step in and start making agressive decisions about people that have been around a long time.
EDIT: Argh! My first double post. I feel like part of the club!
December 22nd, 2016 at 9:46 AM ^
December 22nd, 2016 at 10:48 AM ^
December 22nd, 2016 at 9:49 AM ^
December 22nd, 2016 at 8:28 AM ^
Was life altering for all Michigan fans. JH will end up on a Schembechler level or higher if he stays long enough. He gets it where Michigan is concerned. He knows that the only missing ingredient is a road grading O-Line. Three of his five losses in 2 years came because we couldn't power run the ball for first downs to close out games. OL reinforcements are coming soon. Then we'll be unstoppable. We were overpowered by OSU in year 1 because of a lack of defensive depth. We lost to Utah because Harbaugh only had Rudock for fall camp and he wasn't ready. The future is very bright.
December 22nd, 2016 at 8:28 AM ^
December 22nd, 2016 at 8:35 AM ^
I wish Warde would have made some of these quotes after the game.
December 22nd, 2016 at 8:47 AM ^
That's bullshit IMO.
December 22nd, 2016 at 8:59 AM ^
Yep...
There's a difference between being an AD that supports the coach while staying out of the fray, and being an AD that leads the program when definitive leadership is required. Saturday night, that leadership was required. And it was required a couple of days later, also, when the fine was handed out. Warde failed both times.
December 22nd, 2016 at 9:46 AM ^
How do you know that Warde didn't do anything? Just because he didn't throw himself in the public spotlight doesn't mean he didn't take any action.
December 22nd, 2016 at 10:09 AM ^
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
December 22nd, 2016 at 10:12 AM ^
December 22nd, 2016 at 10:53 AM ^
You've drawn the conclusion that because we see zero evidence he's doing anything he simply MUST be "working behind the scenes" and not....you know....doing nothing.
December 22nd, 2016 at 12:18 PM ^
The guy appears to be very competent and I give him the benefit of the doubt based on his body of work. Your criticism can apply equally to your own views.
December 22nd, 2016 at 12:59 PM ^
What do you see that he's done that indicates he's "very competent" other than getting doing well in the interview and getting the job? What specifically has he done at Michigan that lends you to that conclusion? If we were talking Hackett then hell yes - he definitely earned the benefit of the doubt but Manual? I dont see it.
Look - maybe it's a difference in how we view people in general. When I come home from work during Christmas break and I see my teenage son sitting in his pajamas watching TV and eating freetos I dont think to myself "I'll bet he painted the house for me today and changed the brakes on my car". I assume he's spent the day doing nothing because all visual evidence points to doing nothing and his prior track record indicates he's done nothing.
I get the feeling that if you retunred home in the same situation you'd assume he's probably done something wonderful - you just havent found out what yet..
December 22nd, 2016 at 8:44 AM ^
Bring Hackett back now.. I want an AD that defends our coach
December 22nd, 2016 at 10:46 AM ^