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Michigan in Turmoil? Steve Deace on the Athletic Department Shakeup 🚨〽️ · Out of Bounds with Bo Bounds

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: We got it all right, We will switch gears.
• 0:02
  Speaker 2: We're going to talk a little Michigan Wolverine Athletic Department,
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: and we're going to welcome in Steve Dace at Michigan Podcast.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: He's joined us several times over the years. Certain things
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: going on, and Steve Dace, you're plugged into Michigan for
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: a while.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Now.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: Did you see Athletic Director Ward Manual's ouster coming or
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: did this catch you off guard?
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: I didn't catch me off guard at all. I thought
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: it was fifty to fifty and it was going to
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: be pretty much tied to whether the page Driver report
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: was going to come out or not, the Athletic director
• 0:45
  Speaker 3: investigation or the Athletic department investigation that was initiated back
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: in January, which Ward helped himself to initiate, by the way.
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: But I figured it was going to be tied to
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: whether that report bo ever came out or not, you know,
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: kind of you know, it's it's just it's very interesting
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: to watch universities that consider themselves paragons of progressive virtue,
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: like the University of Michigan. It's very interesting to watch
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: them operate because you know, we had a former president
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: here Mark Schlissel, who tried to use every ounce of
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: power he had to shut down the twenty twenty college
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: football season during COVID to demonstrate as a medical professional,
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: you know, his virtue and concern for the student athletes.
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: At the same time, he was carrying on an alsted
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: affair with a supportin at the university and eventually lost
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: his job. Something that's kind of page one in the
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  Speaker 3: Manuel at the university. And it'll do the It will
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: always do the right thing once it is eventually forced to.
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: And that's kind of been how it's operated now for
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: a couple of decades on ltiple fronts. It's really been
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: sadly how things have operated kind of pretty much since
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: bo died in two thousand and six. Wow, And I
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: think that that's a couple of decades now, you know.
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: And so I think it was going to come down
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: to this report. If the report was going to be
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: forced out, then I thought Ward would be forced out.
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: If they could bury the report, then he could probably
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: survive a little bit longer. She's going to force the
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: report out. She's got a foil lawsuit going on against
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  Speaker 3: the University Michigan loses these foil lossters like all the time,
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: they always try to bury stuff like this, and this
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: time it's going to come out. And I think that
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: you're seeing an embattled board of regions in the state
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  Speaker 3: now trying to get ahead of it, and they're negotiating
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: a buyout, which essentially are probably the terms of Ward's
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: NDA for being honest and let's just all move on.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: So Steve Days, Michigan in shodder on the Farm Bureau
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: insurance guest line. They fired Sharon More last year through
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: all of those you know, indiscretions, and then they hired
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: Kyle Whittingham, and as Steve Days said, they signed on
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: Jenner and Block, a law firm out of Chicago, paid
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: twelve million to do this open investigation of the athletic
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: department and evidently Ward manual did X, Y and Z wrong.
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: Do you believe that he will I saw the thirty
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: six month buy out. Do you believe that he will
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: receive his buy out? Or there's enough in the report
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: investigation to get Michigan off the hook of whatever that
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: is two million plus a year.
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: I think that.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: Ward.
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: I think Ward will be given ample compensation for both
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: the momentous success that Michigan had at times and all
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: kinds of sports. I think every sport at Michigan's won
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: a Big ten championship or thereabouts since he came on board.
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: I think he'll be given financial recognition, I'll put it
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  Speaker 3: for the success that's been demonstrated on the field of play,
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  Speaker 3: and also for his ongoing assistance and not being a
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  Speaker 3: material witness. I think is likely going to happen.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, So.
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: I wish, you know, for Michigan to be you just
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: said it, for Michigan to be as dysfunctional as they
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  Speaker 2: are at times, both academically and athletically, and a powerhouse
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  Speaker 2: at the same time. And yet when national titles in
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  Speaker 2: sports that matter like harball and football and Dusty May
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: in basketball. I mean, that's what's incredible to me, Steve.
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  Speaker 2: Does that surprise you considering everything you know?
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  Speaker 3: I mean it does, But is it really incredible to you? Bo?
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  Speaker 3: You're in the sec You guys have done this all
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  Speaker 3: our lives, you know, I mean, you know so, so
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: I think what's different is you guys are just more honest,
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  Speaker 3: all right, And there's there's no there's no virtue signaling,
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  Speaker 3: uh in your neck of the woods about this, and
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  Speaker 3: there's at least some honor among fees. I guess I'll
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: put it, you know, a prison code up here. I
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  Speaker 3: think that what's what makes this really much more unlikable
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  Speaker 3: when the school like Michigan does it, frankly, is again
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  Speaker 3: they want to parade around progressive virtue and then at
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: the same time they then want to maybe go right
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  Speaker 3: up to you know, not up to quite the line
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  Speaker 3: that you know, an Alabama would have gone to, you know,
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  Speaker 3: or in the eighties and nineties or a myriad of
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  Speaker 3: SEC programs, and then claim, Okay, because we didn't go
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  Speaker 3: over that line, look how much better a people we are,
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  Speaker 3: and and and and and and that's it's a croc.
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  Speaker 3: And what's sad about it is Number one, there's just
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  Speaker 3: an immense amount of high quality student athletes that come
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  Speaker 3: out of the Michigan programs. You know what you're not
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  Speaker 3: going to find. There's been so many problems surrounding that
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  Speaker 3: twenty twenty three football team, none of them really involved
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  Speaker 3: any of the players. They're almost all upstanding guys. They're
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  Speaker 3: almost all very likable guys. I mean, Blake Korum is
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: you know, his nickname could be son in law. Like
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  Speaker 3: every father in America wants their daughter to bring Blake
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  Speaker 3: Koram home for a husband, Okay, you know, for a
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  Speaker 3: bow and a lot of the hits that Michigan has
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  Speaker 3: taken are for guys like Matt Weiss, how he passed
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  Speaker 3: any bedding process to be a total creeper, and yet
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  Speaker 3: he wasn't good at his job.
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  Speaker 1: You know.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, if a Penn State's going to look the
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  Speaker 3: other way at Jerry Sandusky for decades, Jerry Sandusky was
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  Speaker 3: once one of the best defensive coordinators in college football.
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  Speaker 3: Michigan's doing this for guys like LaTroy Lewis, who gets
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: found out after he leaves to go join the Atlanta Falcons.
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  Speaker 3: For Matt wife who even players on the team thought
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: was odd and weird and offered nothing and no idea
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  Speaker 3: where he came from or what he was doing. And
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: they actually had a better offense after he got busted
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  Speaker 3: and had his title taken away from him. You know,
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  Speaker 3: it was very clear watching the product on the field
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  Speaker 3: last year they were going to go nine to three
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  Speaker 3: just because they were that much physically more talented than
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: nine opponents. When they played three teams that could punch back,
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  Speaker 3: they completely fell apart and yet Cheron Moore would still
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: be the coach here right now if Page had not
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  Speaker 3: come forward, which just got to blow your mind. Okay,
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  Speaker 3: And so one thing about Michigan is Michigan is great
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  Speaker 3: at producing greatness and great for taking hits to its
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  Speaker 3: reputation for people who frankly just aren't worth it. And
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: it's been Juwan Howard. How many times was he permitted
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: to act out while we're going like seven seventeen and
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: fourteen in the regular season? Why?
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: Why?
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  Speaker 3: It's it's really just truly, it's just truly mystifying. And
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  Speaker 3: it makes you kind of think that if they ever
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  Speaker 3: actually took maybe some of their own talking points more
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  Speaker 3: seriously about being leaders and best and demanding their autocracy
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  Speaker 3: and high performance and integrity along with those resources. I mean,
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  Speaker 3: you noted, how with how good we do and we're
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: not doing that much better would be if we actually
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  Speaker 3: did so, Yes, Steve.
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  Speaker 1: Das Michigan in sider.
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  Speaker 2: They're going to fire their athletic director this week, and
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  Speaker 2: they fired their football coach last year who was involved
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  Speaker 2: in a scandal. Now, the interesting thing part of this
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: is they upgraded massively. Kyle Whittingham can flat out coach.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, he did an incredible job at Utah, which
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  Speaker 2: is not Michigan or Georgia or so on, and they're
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: still Michigan.
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  Speaker 1: They trip over really good coaches.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, Dusty May just left for the Mavericks after
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  Speaker 2: winning a national time. So dysfunctional, yet still always going
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: to bring in talented players because of the brand in
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: the massive alumni based Steve Das on the Farm Bureau
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  Speaker 2: Insurance guest line, So, how did you just kind of
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: walked us through a couple of things with the Michigan
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  Speaker 2: football program. How is somebody who loves the Michigan Wolverines.
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: How do you look at Jim Harball after his tenure
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  Speaker 2: in Michigan and everything that he gave y'all? That was great,
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  Speaker 2: But then some of the turmoil and scandals.
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  Speaker 3: The biggest thing I would say about Jim and I
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  Speaker 3: could care less about Burgergate or any of the rest
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  Speaker 3: of that. I just don't care, and neither does anybody else.
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  Speaker 3: And I think a lot of that stuff was blown
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  Speaker 3: out of proportion because Jim was the most high profile
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  Speaker 3: person messaging things about we need to create a transfer
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  Speaker 3: portal play compensation at the time that the NCAA was
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: in its death ros trying to fight that stuff. And
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: I just think the nca largely detested him. But what
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  Speaker 3: I what I would fault Jim for? And I think
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: that this was done wrong in the Connor Stallion's affair.
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  Speaker 3: Also is instead of saying things like I don't recall
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  Speaker 3: if I bought those kids a burger after the Wisconsin
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  Speaker 3: game when they came up here for that, when they
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  Speaker 3: came when them and their families came up here to
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: show support for me, when I was very in battled
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: and there was talks about getting rid of me during
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: the COVID season, I don't recall if I bought them
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  Speaker 3: a burger at breakfast at at one of the M
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  Speaker 3: spots the next day. What I fault him for? Because
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  Speaker 3: that's the kind of stuff. You know, I don't be
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  Speaker 3: a very provocative leader. And then when when the system
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  Speaker 3: comes back at you for trying to confront it, then
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  Speaker 3: try to, you know, use some political legalies. Okay. When
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  Speaker 3: I when I would have would have been very fascinating
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  Speaker 3: and should it would have been way more preferable. Is
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  Speaker 3: if Jim would have just simply said hell, yeah, okay,
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  Speaker 3: you guys won't do anything to police all these under
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  Speaker 3: the table payments for years, I got to find I
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  Speaker 3: got to I've got to figure out what I could
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  Speaker 3: possibly do right to recruit when I've got Clemson calling
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: Rashaun Gary on signing day just as he's about to
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  Speaker 3: go on ESPN to announce his commitment and offered him
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  Speaker 3: four hundred grand all right to to you know, to
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: sign to switch his commitment five minutes after two years
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  Speaker 3: of recruiting. Maybe goes down the drain. You bet your ass.
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  Speaker 3: I'm trying to find every last advantage I can because
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  Speaker 3: you guys don't enforce your own rules, so I don't
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: owe you Jack squatt. In other words, my point is
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: there were opportunities here to own the moment. I thought that.
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  Speaker 3: I thought that the Connor Stallion's case should have never
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: ever been argued on any grounds other than what rule
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  Speaker 3: here was actually broken?
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: What rule?
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  Speaker 3: It's not against the rules to steal science, And yet
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: this whole thing is called a sign stealing scandal. So
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: what was the rule? Oh? Well, people went there in person. So,
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  Speaker 3: in other words, people walk into a stadium in a
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  Speaker 3: public event utilizing devices that everyone in the stadium currently has.
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: That's your big scandal. You're so now everybody that sits
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: in there with a phone and put and puts any
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: amount of film that they just had up on a
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: Twitter feed or a website, which a million people do
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: every week, that's now an NCAA violation. I mean, my
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: point being is there was there were moments here to
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  Speaker 3: call to mister Smith goes to Washington, the system and Michigan.
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  Speaker 3: Michigan failed to do that every single time, and then
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  Speaker 3: and and and and tried to hide behind like legal
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: ease and get cute with it and find you know,
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: you know, a fanciful attempts to you know, uh uh,
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: you know, to to to massage it, and then ended
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  Speaker 3: up just harming its own integrity in those situations all
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: the more when I thought what they should have done
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: has actually challenged the merits of the system in and
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: of itself, and I thought they would have become I think,
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: you know, in many more respects more full hero okay
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: than than scandal. But they didn't do that. And maybe
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: now we're learning one of the reasons that they didn't
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  Speaker 3: do that that there were other things happening under the
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: under the under our noses we didn't know about, like
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: what was really going on in Sharon Moore's private life
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: and things of that nature. Right, And so you know,
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: I work in politics full time, and I can just
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: tell everybody in your audience when a politician, I don't
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: sure what party they're from, when there's an obvious, principled
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: play to make, and they won't make it, I can
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  Speaker 3: promise you it's ninety nine percent because there's something else
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  Speaker 3: going on in their lives and they're in their campaigns
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  Speaker 3: that they don't want to come out, and so they
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: don't think they have the moral standing to do this.
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: So they're trying rather than being exposed somewhere else, and
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: so they're attempting to find to be cute in a
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: way that obviously isn't going to be successful. And I
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: think ultimately that's what happens here at Michigan is there
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: were It's not the stuff upfront Honor burger Gate that
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: you know shows like yours around the country talk about
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: that was that was essentially the undoing of a reputation here.
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: But it's the stuff that came out later, like about
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: Sharon Moore, that was really the real In Matt Weiss,
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: those things were the real problems and the real reasons
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: why they didn't take a more forthright stance against those things,
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: those other things than in the grand scheme of things.
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: All right, whether it's stealing signs or paying burgers to
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: a kid for buying burgers for a kid at breakfast
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: the morning after an illicit recruiting trip. That stuff doesn't do,
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: isn't It doesn't mean Jack Squatt, but it became quite
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: meaningful because of the stuff we found out later was
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: actually going on underneath the surface.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: Okay, And so Michigan will make a new hire. It's
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: one of the it's a top ten job in the
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: country and things, and you do have a better football
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: coach and things will march on.
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: The perfect time to do this now. But we have
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: a grown man, an adult. He can essentially be the
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: associate ad in charge of football for the next you know,
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: twelve to twenty four months, so Michigan can find the
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: new president, the new ad. You have a basketball coach
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: who has really no contract at all, and an extremely
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: talented roster. Still, this has got to be a top
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: ten starting five in college basketball next season. The entire
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: roster that Dusty recruited is intact, so you know, you'll
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: get he'll get a chance to prove himself. I mean,
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: if he can't at least get to the second weekend
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: of the NCA tournament at a top four double by
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: finish in the Big ten with this roster, then he's
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: Mike Boyton who failed at Oklahoma State. And you just
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: move on very quickly and it's painless and doesn't cost
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: you anything. So this is really kind of the ideal
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: time to reassess your athletic department, to fumigate the last
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: remaining places and bring in your new general. I mean,
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: Michigan will fail up here, just like what happened with
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: Sharon Moore. That's going to end up being the most
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: successful sex scandal in the history of American enterprise. I mean,
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: we upgraded from Sharon Moore to a guy bounce to
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: the Hall of Fame with a major chip on his shoulder,
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: and we're going to really upgrade here at athletic director too.
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: So it is amazing. Sometimes Michigan will still manage to
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: fail up incredible.
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: Steve Dace at Michigan Podcast on Twitter Michigan Insider on
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: the Out of Bounds Show. Steve, thanks so much, man.
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: Hope you're having a good summer. We'll talk soon.
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: You got a brother, God bless he's awesome.
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: Steve Dace, Michigan insider on the Out of Bounds Show.
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: Michigan will fire their athletic director if they haven't already
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: this week after a twelve million dollars investigation into their
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: athletic department by law firm in Chicago because of what
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: happened last year with the Sharon Moore paid Shivers scandal
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: and then eventual lawsuit from paid shivers