A few random thoughts for your Thursday night...
Presidential Search/Haller’s Support
For some reason, the MSU Board of Trustees has publicly announced that Thanksgiving is the target time frame for announcing the next president of the university. Not sure why. Not sure how that helps them. Not sure how it helps the presidential search committee. But that’s what they said.
Following that announcement came those who said that the president needs to be in place before MSU hires its football coach. That the president needs to have input on who the new coach will be.
I don’t believe that is the case.
I’ve been told by a very good source: “It’s Alan’s job to hire a football coach.”
I’ve also been told from sources that Haller is not getting any other indication internally from anybody that he for some reason would not be in charge or not be the one running this.
The interim president fully supports him. The board hasn’t told him to slow down or wait for a president.
In fact, Haller recently gave the board a very high level update on the coaching search, explaining the process, how he is going about it, etc – there was no push back from the board telling him to not do it that way or that they wanted to be involved.
As I mentioned previously, a search firm will be involved – not to determine the candidates (as happened under Beekman), but rather to reach out to prospective candidates that are determined by Haller and a couple close confidantes. Another thing to remember is that the list of candidates is fluid and could change throughout the rest of the season. Imagine Harlon Barnett beats Michigan, Ohio State, and/or Penn State and finishes strong. That would change things. Imagine if Washington State or Oregon State plummets. That would change things, too. I haven’t heard anything that makes me change my thinking that Urban Meyer has no more than a 1% likelihood of happening.
SD4L going, going … gone?
If you haven’t read Graham Couch’s article yesterday yet, you should. In it, he confirmed a few things that I had heard as well, including the fact that MSU needs to “rebrand and remake” its official NIL collective quickly – it’s one of the first things that football coaching candidates will ask about during their interview. SD4L as a brand appears to be all but dead. The Spartan Dawg depiction might have been able to work if everything had gone according to plan – but it most certainly did not. Tucker embraced the Spartan Dawg look and feel and the perceived swagger that came with it (cigar, chains, mean-looking dogs, etc). When he went away, the brand’s appeal seems to have as well.
This was amplified by the fact that SD4L inexplicably canceled the vast majority of its football players contracts less than 90 days before they were going to expire (then backtracked on a few because they threatened to not suit up against Iowa). And, even worse, SD4L sent out a tweet that night (which is still the most recent tweet on its account, for some reason) admitting – again, for some reason – that less than 100 folks had signed up for the collective. A friend told me that they would have taken that knowledge to their grave. Yet SD4L broadcast it to the world.
Again, the tweet is still up. It has been seen 251k times on X/Twitter – and they haven’t tweeted again since. SD4L’s pinned tweet (with all the coaches asking for Spartan fan support for SD4L) has only been seen 159k times in comparison. The brand is all but dead – people don’t even have to save screenshots of their tweet admitting they have no support ... it is still up. It’s already being used against MSU in recruiting. It’s crazy because MSU has an NIL Collective waiting in the wings (This is Sparta!) that is well run and hasn’t canceled a single contract for any of their 100+ Spartan student-athletes. But internal university politics aren’t allowing for a merging of the two in any way that makes sense. We’ll see where this ends up.
The first SD4L advertisement included Mel Tucker and aired in Spartan Stadium about 22 minutes before kickoff of the Richmond game. The next day, he was suspended (and ultimately fired). The following week, the advertisement aired again during the Washington game, this time without Mel Tucker. The Tucker-free version was also promoted on the SD4L twitter account on September 14th. It will be interesting to see if the advertisement ever runs again (during the Michigan game?) and, if it does, what it looks like.
Tucker’s Hearing Timeline
Tucker’s campus disciplinary hearing concluded on the same day in started, Thursday, October 5th. The university’s hearing officer (in this case, a third-party outside expert) has 20 business days max to reach a decision (notably, though, it doesn’t have to take that long – it could be announced at any time). Thursday, November 2nd would seem then to be the final deadline. It is important to note that the decision will only be communicated to Tracy, Tucker, and the OIE office at that time. MSU will not share the information publicly (either party might, obviously). The decision will likely be lengthy and detailed, spelling out the hearing officer’s reasoning for the decision. At that point, it’s still not done.
Either side has the right to appeal within 10 business days after the decision is announced. If all 10 days are taken before the appeal is made, it could be Thursday November 16th or Friday November 17th (Veteran’s Day falls in that window). Those responsible for reviewing the appeal have 12 business days to do so. Now we’re around December 7th or so – the latest this could possibly drag out before the university would consider it closed and would be able to start responding to FOIA requests. Obviously, that would be dragging into the window where MSU would hope to be focused on their new coach and the signing of the 2024 recruiting class.
Presidential Search/Haller’s Support
For some reason, the MSU Board of Trustees has publicly announced that Thanksgiving is the target time frame for announcing the next president of the university. Not sure why. Not sure how that helps them. Not sure how it helps the presidential search committee. But that’s what they said.
Following that announcement came those who said that the president needs to be in place before MSU hires its football coach. That the president needs to have input on who the new coach will be.
I don’t believe that is the case.
I’ve been told by a very good source: “It’s Alan’s job to hire a football coach.”
I’ve also been told from sources that Haller is not getting any other indication internally from anybody that he for some reason would not be in charge or not be the one running this.
The interim president fully supports him. The board hasn’t told him to slow down or wait for a president.
In fact, Haller recently gave the board a very high level update on the coaching search, explaining the process, how he is going about it, etc – there was no push back from the board telling him to not do it that way or that they wanted to be involved.
As I mentioned previously, a search firm will be involved – not to determine the candidates (as happened under Beekman), but rather to reach out to prospective candidates that are determined by Haller and a couple close confidantes. Another thing to remember is that the list of candidates is fluid and could change throughout the rest of the season. Imagine Harlon Barnett beats Michigan, Ohio State, and/or Penn State and finishes strong. That would change things. Imagine if Washington State or Oregon State plummets. That would change things, too. I haven’t heard anything that makes me change my thinking that Urban Meyer has no more than a 1% likelihood of happening.
SD4L going, going … gone?
If you haven’t read Graham Couch’s article yesterday yet, you should. In it, he confirmed a few things that I had heard as well, including the fact that MSU needs to “rebrand and remake” its official NIL collective quickly – it’s one of the first things that football coaching candidates will ask about during their interview. SD4L as a brand appears to be all but dead. The Spartan Dawg depiction might have been able to work if everything had gone according to plan – but it most certainly did not. Tucker embraced the Spartan Dawg look and feel and the perceived swagger that came with it (cigar, chains, mean-looking dogs, etc). When he went away, the brand’s appeal seems to have as well.
This was amplified by the fact that SD4L inexplicably canceled the vast majority of its football players contracts less than 90 days before they were going to expire (then backtracked on a few because they threatened to not suit up against Iowa). And, even worse, SD4L sent out a tweet that night (which is still the most recent tweet on its account, for some reason) admitting – again, for some reason – that less than 100 folks had signed up for the collective. A friend told me that they would have taken that knowledge to their grave. Yet SD4L broadcast it to the world.
Again, the tweet is still up. It has been seen 251k times on X/Twitter – and they haven’t tweeted again since. SD4L’s pinned tweet (with all the coaches asking for Spartan fan support for SD4L) has only been seen 159k times in comparison. The brand is all but dead – people don’t even have to save screenshots of their tweet admitting they have no support ... it is still up. It’s already being used against MSU in recruiting. It’s crazy because MSU has an NIL Collective waiting in the wings (This is Sparta!) that is well run and hasn’t canceled a single contract for any of their 100+ Spartan student-athletes. But internal university politics aren’t allowing for a merging of the two in any way that makes sense. We’ll see where this ends up.
The first SD4L advertisement included Mel Tucker and aired in Spartan Stadium about 22 minutes before kickoff of the Richmond game. The next day, he was suspended (and ultimately fired). The following week, the advertisement aired again during the Washington game, this time without Mel Tucker. The Tucker-free version was also promoted on the SD4L twitter account on September 14th. It will be interesting to see if the advertisement ever runs again (during the Michigan game?) and, if it does, what it looks like.
Tucker’s Hearing Timeline
Tucker’s campus disciplinary hearing concluded on the same day in started, Thursday, October 5th. The university’s hearing officer (in this case, a third-party outside expert) has 20 business days max to reach a decision (notably, though, it doesn’t have to take that long – it could be announced at any time). Thursday, November 2nd would seem then to be the final deadline. It is important to note that the decision will only be communicated to Tracy, Tucker, and the OIE office at that time. MSU will not share the information publicly (either party might, obviously). The decision will likely be lengthy and detailed, spelling out the hearing officer’s reasoning for the decision. At that point, it’s still not done.
Either side has the right to appeal within 10 business days after the decision is announced. If all 10 days are taken before the appeal is made, it could be Thursday November 16th or Friday November 17th (Veteran’s Day falls in that window). Those responsible for reviewing the appeal have 12 business days to do so. Now we’re around December 7th or so – the latest this could possibly drag out before the university would consider it closed and would be able to start responding to FOIA requests. Obviously, that would be dragging into the window where MSU would hope to be focused on their new coach and the signing of the 2024 recruiting class.
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