The Michigan Football program right now is pretty much anything but clear. The team is at .500 and will struggle just to make a bowl game. Their players haven't developed, AD got fired resigned, recruits are de-committing and this year as pretty much been a disaster. Clarity and future direction is something that this program currently lacks.
President Schlissel: “That’s why I’m taking a bit of time with the search for Dave’s successor,”
Schlissel said Monday. “Some folks wanted me to hire an athletic director
(earlier) so he could fire the current football coach and hire the next coach
but I want to take the time to make sure we get someone who is not only
technically adept, but can ensure that the program has financial and academic
integrity, and also someone who shares the value system of realizing our
mission.”
On Tuesday, we got clarity in his comments:
“With the football team having a challenging year, some of that advice speaks
to the head coach. As I said earlier in the season, all of our coaches will be
evaluated at the end of the season on their full body of work and that will be
done by the athletic director,” he said.
“What I was referring to was the quote, which was accurately quoted but
wasn’t clearly stated by me, is that there are people saying, ‘You gotta do
this, you gotta do this.’ But what I say back is, it’s actually very important —
the personnel that we have in place — and I want to hire an outstanding
permanent athletic director. I don’t want to do the quick easy thing that some
people are calling for, and that no decision has been made about the future of
the coach and that’s the athletic director’s decision, almost certainly, at the
end of the season.”
Monday: During his comments to SACUA on Monday, Schlissel added that Curzan, the faculty
liaison to the Athletic Department, said it “often tries to keep her at arm’s
length.”
Tuesday: “There’s a back and forth between pushing hard on the academic needs of
students, while at the same time, making sure that the student-athletes can
satisfy their athletic comments and pursue their sport as a member of a team at
a very high level.”
“I think Anne has full access to all the student-athletes, the coaches value
her as a partner, there may be challenging circumstances that arise as students
are balancing their academic commitments and their athletic commitments, but
Anne is in the trenches working directly with both coaches and students helping
them succeed in both.”
He also spoke about the poor graduation rates of the football program in the past, that has gotten better under Hoke.
Monday: At Monday’s SACUA meeting, Schlissel said, “We admit students who aren’t as
qualified, and it’s probably the kids that we admit that can’t honestly, even
with lots of help, do the amount of work and the quality of work it takes to
make progression from year to year. These past two years have gotten better, but
before that, the graduation rates were terrible, with football somewhere in the
50s and 60s when our total six-year rate at the University is somewhere near 90
percent.”
Tuesday: “We don’t admit students that we don’t think can be successful,” he said. “It’s
really not science … where we’re trying to predict future performance of the
students in a brand-new environment, but we do the very best to pick students
that will be successful here and then provide them with the academic support
they need to be successful.”
I'm very concerned President Schlissel thinks that athletics is something you do in your spare time and not very important. I am starting to wonder if he will pay Jimmy $5M+ to coach here. Here is his official Michigan PR Clarity release.
Here is former Wolverine and current NFL LB Larry Foote's take: "They better change up their recruiting. They better get some guys in there that can get some NFL talent. Like I said before, Michigan better go back to the 'hood. They got too many trust fund babies in there, and they look like that when they're playing. They got guys out there that are just happy, they're happy they're at Michigan, they're losing and smiling. And that's just not Michigan football. And that's gotta change." Larry doesn't think that Jimmy is coming to A2 either.
- Jim Hackett will be paid $600K as interim AD
- After a rumor about a night game, Michigan will play OSU at noon.
4 comments:
Mr. Schissel best realize if he doesn't pony up for Jimmy he hself will b looking for a job...the alum will run his assistant out of town faster than they did Brandon...Stanford has done well with high quality kids so has N.D. and u can find "kids from the hood" that can make the grades...as an alum who donates each and every yeAR I can guarantee u that donation will go to zero immediately if they hire some weak up and comer...and many if my fellow alum will follow suit...RR didn't give damn about grad rates....now u see the result...Hoke can't coach but he's graduating kids.
What were the grad rates when Lloyd was in town? I feel like I dont hear too much that Michigan athletes are failing academically (maybe I havent looked hard enough).
Also saw a comment somewhere saying Schissel is thinking of an athletic department closer to Northwestern than Ohio State. Personally, I always thought we were in the middle (prolly closer to OSU in terms of being successful). I am assuming, however, that Michigan will never be like Northwestern is right now, because fans will stop packing the Big House, and donations would go down.
So I guess my question is, is Schissel just mentioning the academic driven AD just to show that he cares, but in the end, we will still be getting candidates like the ones mentioned?
I will guarantee u my donations will b gone completely ...no more he has "great potential" guy....no unproven MAC type guys....Harbaugh...Miles ...Harbaugh...Gruden......my wife and I donations r not Mr.Ross type money but I assure u if only a small percentage of donors like us pull out the same amount we donate yearly they will feel us and hear us loud and clear...the one quote Hoke brought to Michigan that I agree with is "this is MICHIGAN fergodsake"....it will b Michigan without my money I promise u that and I will make a few phone calls to ensure we r heard and felt...pass that on to Schlissel!!!.. I understand high academic standards but there r plenty of brainiacs running around AA and we always have great student athletes so Schlissel can cut the bulls hit and hire a winner...I'm fed up!!!
macdaddy, I'm with you. I am seriously considering stopping my contributions to the Victors Club and ending my season tickets. You won’t see me buying up pricey Michigan gear every season. I will take my kids to a single low-tier B1G game every year so they can enjoy the stadium experience, but that will be the extent of it. The inept, grossly negligent, misguided manner in which the University and the Athletic Department has handled an infinite amount of events and issues since November 17, 2006 (Bo’s passing) is simply inexcusable. And in the process a perfectly proud football program has been decimated and a loyal legion of alumni and fans have been battered and alienated.
Now we have a President talking out of his ass hole on things he knows nothing about. This President is out of his league when it comes to big time athletics. His comments appear to me to indicate either (1) he is entirely clueless, or (2) he is about to embark on a mission to transform the way Michigan's athletic department does business relative to some nebulous academic standard.
If (1) is the problem it can be easily cured by advising Mr. Schlissel to shut his face and stop talking publically about athletics. He should be limiting his comments to generic type "we are working on it" and "we care about Michigan athletics" type comments. Shut up and work expeditiously to find a an AD with a proven track record of success as a big time AD and get that hire made STAT!
If it is (2) he is becoming bogged down on something that is entirely irrelevant concerning the problems this department and football program are experiencing. He is expending valuable time and resources pursuing some ideal of a utopia between college athletics and academics that simply does not exist at 99% of other successful athletic departments and is just not the standard. Michigan football’s academic performance is fine. Aside from the RichRod years, the academic performance of our football players has generally been entirely acceptable. The bar is not 90% graduation.
I, like many alumni, will be watching closely to see that this guy gets it right. If he doesn’t, we will all just stop watching. And then, I suppose, this President will get what he wants - a top five academic public university institution, leaders and best in research, but with a feeble football program with a half empty stadium filled with the echoes of ghosts of Michigan’s past tradition and success for all of us to tell our grand children about one day.
Hell, maybe we can leave the B1G and petition the Ivy League schools to allow us to be a honorary member so we can compete at the performance level of Harvard and Yale football. Then again, they wouldn’t have us. Because we are not Ivy League.
Hey, maybe we should just stay where we are, and stop trying to deform our athletic department and football program’s identity into Schlissel’s likeness...
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