February 16th, 2011 at 4:36 PM ^
Glad Hoke is because Brandon sure didn't. Unless he meant it to be united against him.
February 16th, 2011 at 4:40 PM ^
"Glad Hoke is because Brandon sure didn't."
February 16th, 2011 at 4:44 PM ^
"What didn't Brandon unite exactly?"
Faith that he actually knows what he's doing as AD.
February 16th, 2011 at 4:46 PM ^
Yeah, but the question was about him uniting the UM family, not about opinion of him as an AD.....
February 16th, 2011 at 4:49 PM ^
Would not public opinion on the coach/AD have a bearing on uniting the family? It certainly did with Hoke's predecessor.
February 16th, 2011 at 7:10 PM ^
There have been uniters in history that were quite unpopular in the larger picture. The opposite has also been true. Opinions of Brandon's qualifications as the Athletic Director don't really factor into anything he has or hasn't done to unite the Michigan family.
February 16th, 2011 at 5:03 PM ^
It's going to be hard for Brandon to convince everyone that he made the right move before Hoke has coached any games.
February 16th, 2011 at 5:06 PM ^
I don't think Hoke's results have anything to do with it.
A home-run hire would have been a successful Hoke being hired in December. Even if Hoke's successful, it's more akin to Brandon 'pulling a Homer' (Simpsons reference) instead of Brandon hitting a homer.
February 16th, 2011 at 5:16 PM ^
Hoke's results have everything to do with it. Football is the engine that drives the athletic department. If the guy Brandon hired works out, then Brandon's done his job. The only other really big thing he has on his plate is the Crisler renovation. Besides, if Hoke is successful, he'll most likely be around longer than Brandon will, anyway.
February 16th, 2011 at 5:16 PM ^
Hoke's results have everything to do with Hoke and the product he and his staff are able to put on the field.
What I'm talking about with Brandon is confidence in his decision-making. Nothing Hoke puts on the field will affect that. We can win 5 straight national titles, erect a state of Brady Hoke outside the Big House, and I still won't have full confidence in Dave Brandon. And there's not a lot Brandon can do to change that. That's what it comes down.
Hoke's results reflect how Hoke will be judged. Brandon's decisions reflect how Brandon will be judged. In some ways those are linked, in this case not at all.
February 16th, 2011 at 5:17 PM ^
Assume that the football coaching position is settled for the near future. What big future athletic decisions are you worried about? The Crisler renovation?
February 16th, 2011 at 5:19 PM ^
Don't care to be honest. You seem to be making a bigger deal out of what I'm saying then what actually matters to me.
February 16th, 2011 at 5:25 PM ^
Help me out here. If you don't even care about the future decisions he has to make, why will you lack confidence in his ability to make them? And what is he going to be judged on, if not football?
February 16th, 2011 at 5:29 PM ^
"why will you lack confidence in his ability to make them?"
Did you see how our coaching search went down? I've had no problem with most of what he's done, but as you said the football program drives the athletic department. And hiring a new head coach is a huge decision to make, IMO one of the most important an AD can face in their job. To bungle it as badly as I felt he did is hard to come back from.
Am I concerned about things like the Crisler renovation? Not really. It's not as big a department-affecting change and frankly I'm not sure how Brandon could possibly screw it up (he isn't stupid).
His biggest decision in his tenure was highly flawed though, so excuse me if I'm not comfortable with his ability to make another crucial decision when the time comes (whenever that might be).
February 16th, 2011 at 5:31 PM ^
How do you know Brandon "bungled" the coaching search? Because he didn't end up hiring the guy you had been screaming for?
February 16th, 2011 at 5:32 PM ^
"To bungle it as badly as I felt he did"
C'mon man. You saw what I said, you know it's my opinion.
February 16th, 2011 at 5:39 PM ^
Explain how you reached your opinion then....
February 16th, 2011 at 5:43 PM ^
Revisit Brian's opinion on the process and it's about in line with mine.
February 16th, 2011 at 5:50 PM ^
SMALL BOXES
February 16th, 2011 at 5:52 PM ^
As good a reason as any to agree to disagree and move on.
February 16th, 2011 at 7:27 PM ^
It's an even better reason to see how thin we can make the box though. Two short sentences here will create a ridiculously tall, thin text box.
February 16th, 2011 at 6:14 PM ^
(Brian is only taking that angle to attract new members to this site)
February 16th, 2011 at 8:25 PM ^
Though maybe this isn't the place for it.
February 16th, 2011 at 8:36 PM ^
I love when the're a crazy number of responses, how the text boxes get so small. Wait! There's no way that all my thoughts are going to fit in this
February 17th, 2011 at 8:10 AM ^
I wish my company sprung for a wide screen monitor so I could read these!
February 16th, 2011 at 5:09 PM ^
It's going to be hard for Brandon to convince everyone that he made the right move.
For proof see past rumblings on RR, Lloyd, etc
February 16th, 2011 at 5:32 PM ^
Brandon needs to take a lower profile. He is not running for office (or is he?). He also needs to realize that just because he says something does not make it true.
February 16th, 2011 at 5:34 PM ^
We tried "low profile AD" with Bill Martin.
In a world of ridiculous rumors and speculation, the AD needs to be visable enough to squash things. It's sad that things have reached this point, but it's only realistic for him to approach his AD duties this way.
February 16th, 2011 at 6:11 PM ^
Bill Martin was an excellent AD. He inherited an Athletic Department that was a mess financially (and in a number of other ways) and returned it to one of the top 5 or 6 in the country. He did that while getting approval and arranging financing for a number of long-overdue, major facilities improvements (including the $226 million Big House renovation).
Maybe Dave Brandon will turn out to be as successful an AD as Bill Martin. I sincerely hope he does. I just wish he would do his job without all the self-promotion. The constant newspaper and radio interviews, the blog, the tweets, the stalking the sideline at the Big House -- it's a bit much.
February 16th, 2011 at 6:16 PM ^
He's establishing himself as being in charge of Michigan athletics. If Bill Martin had done this, he probably wouldn't have lost the battle in the media.
February 16th, 2011 at 6:24 PM ^
What are you talking about? If you are suggesting that Bill Martin is somehow responsible for RR getting canned, you are delusional. RR was fired because he did not win enough. Period. If RR had won 9 games last year, he still would be the HC at Michigan. No amount of blogging or tweeting or radio interviews by the AD would have changed the product on the field and the product on the field is what got RR fired.
February 16th, 2011 at 7:27 PM ^
I don't buy it at all. Everyone keeps saying how it was only the record. Nothing else played into the decision. But then DB keeps saying the exact opposite. He keeps saying how the fanbase needs to be united and the new coach knows the words to the fight song. He is hinting that a Michigan man needs to be at the helm.
February 17th, 2011 at 9:11 AM ^
I do not believe for a moment that Hoke was Plan A. Harbaugh was, and he changed his mind at the last minute leaving DB scrambling.
February 16th, 2011 at 6:53 PM ^
An absolute TON of people are only going to remember Martin for hiring Rodriguez, not his improvement to the facilities or his ability to balance the budget. Old wounds die hard, and Rodriguez created a bunch of them for the average fan.
February 16th, 2011 at 7:12 PM ^
I don't get how someone who admits Rich was fired for not winning doesn't hold the guy who hired him accountable for his biggest decision, hiring a guy who didn't win enough in his most important post. (and not just Rich bashing; his percentage of successful coaching hires is bleak, with maybe 1 success and a couple of TBD's).
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<br>I credit him with some really nice infrastructure developments (the Stadium's original Suite design was kinda "meh", but the final product is amazing), but making Michigan profitable is more an embarrassment of the previous administration, because it shouldn't be hard. And the way he did it wasn't any act of business genius; nearly double the ticket prices over ten years, and add "seat donations" to triple charge them on top of that. It's easy to make more money when you drastically raise the price of everything.
February 16th, 2011 at 6:46 PM ^
What decision did he make? He fired RR. His hire, Hoke, wasn't a choice more like I have no choice now!!!!
February 16th, 2011 at 7:16 PM ^
So many people thinking Brandon was a super human genius, pimp-handing everyone, right up to the point he made a decision they disagreed with. If I had a dollar for every post that was basically "Brandon sees all the stuff we don't, and sees the big picture [like 'I' do], so he'll never fire Rich and all the haters will have to live with it..."...then, when he must have seen something he didn't like..."IDIOT!!!!".
February 16th, 2011 at 7:13 PM ^
.....that people need to be able to get over, I think. It seems like the larger problem is that nobody is completely sure that he did the right thing, and because Hoke has yet to actually coach a game as the head coach of the University Of Michigan football team. That's a fair thing to say, but again, it doesn't have anything to do with uniting the Michigan family, as has been suggested here.
February 16th, 2011 at 8:30 PM ^
We all thought Rich was the greatest hire ever, and well...
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<br>We won't know for years, what decisions are right and wrong. Amaker seemed like a good hire at the time too for many...Beilein could be...or it could still go wrong. How much I like a decision doesn't matter to me anymore...long term results do.
February 16th, 2011 at 4:37 PM ^
If something M sports related appears on the internet, it has already been posted, double posted, triple posted, front paged, and sidebar'd by the time you're done reading it.
February 16th, 2011 at 4:40 PM ^
1. How did you find yourself in Bolivian?
February 16th, 2011 at 4:41 PM ^
Too much negging others, getting negged myself, points dying of old age, and a well-deserved 900 point deduction from on high. I probably won't neg as much going forward, it sucks to not at least have the option to start a new thread, and miss being able to see voting on posts.
February 16th, 2011 at 4:48 PM ^
I was just checking because you've made some great comments today.
February 16th, 2011 at 5:11 PM ^
I haven't been on here much recently, and hadn't noticed your drop. I hate the expiring points thing, honestly. I think it's pretty bunk that I can go away for a week, not post a thing or get a single neg vote, and yet come back to having lost 500-800 points. Bunk I say.
What If I had to go away for a month or two? I'd have to start over? I realize points literally mean nothing, but that's just plain annoying.
February 16th, 2011 at 5:48 PM ^
I've been running around here under the same handle since the haloscan days. I stopped posting for a period of time. I'm now a rookie.
February 17th, 2011 at 9:19 AM ^
the expiring points are a bit of a farce. I didn't have a ton to begin with but having not been able to post while the site was going through its thing has left me with a very tiny amount indeed....I admit it...I have point envy!