The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
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22 THE WOLVERINE SEPTEMBER 2018 Manuel: "I don't know if we'll ever get to that point. I'm not ready to start scheduling out to 2040 to try to make it happen. I don't think Jack is, either. We haven't even talked about it. "It will be hard to do it that way. But I like the fact that we have Texas and Oklahoma coming up on our schedules. We have some games against some opponents that we like to play, and I think our fans will like to see in our stadium." The Wolverine: Jim Harbaugh says he'd like to see the play- off expand to eight teams, and eventually to 16. How do you feel about that? Manuel: "I like four. He and I haven't spent a lot of time talk- ing about it, and we have often seen things from different perspectives. "I like four because it still keeps the regular season in college football being talked about in a significant way. It's not like if you win your league, you're in. No, there are still choices to be made. "Who you play is important. How you play down the stretch is important. The impact on academics is one that would concern me. "And also, in order to do it like Division I-AA, we would have to limit games. I think they play 10 regular-season games, and then they have the playoffs. Financially, it's hard for me to give up a game for the possibility of making the playoffs in a year, and maybe hosting the game. "I don't even know how the Division I-AA model really works in terms of playoffs and who keeps the money or doesn't. But that's significant — not only for me, but for my colleagues across the country who rely on the support of our fan base to buy tickets. "To go to eight, those things have me concerned. I'm will- ing to talk about any model people want to talk about. Eight would be more comforting for me to talk about than 16. That's absurd, in my opinion. I'm just worried that the way we would have to do it would have an impact on the students academi- cally and a significant impact on us financially." The Wolverine: If you had the power to change one thing in college football, what would it be? Manuel: "I think we're getting significantly better around the safety issues of concussions. I like where we are with the rules, I like where we are with respect to coaching the game, limiting the number of exposures during practice. "If you'd have asked me this a couple of years ago, I would have told you all of that. I think we're so much better there. "You see the new rule around fair catching the ball on the kickoff. That's a good movement on a rule that has changed. "Speed up replay, that needs to be quicker. There are times I'm sitting at home, or sitting up in the suite, watching the game, and I see something, and I say, 'That's not a catch.' It takes them like three minutes to say that's not a catch. If the TV can show it that quickly, why can't we make the decision that quickly?" The Wolverine: What have you learned about head basket- ball coach John Beilein that maybe you didn't know when you came here? Manuel: "I knew about John, because Reggie Witherspoon, who was my basketball coach at Buffalo when I was there [as AD], had played for him when John coached junior college. Reggie spoke really, really highly of John and told me a lot of great things about him. "So for me, it was coming here and actually seeing that it was all true — that he was a guy of great character, that he was genuine, that he cared deeply about the kids, and that he was a brilliant coach and tactician as it related to the offensive side. Now he's getting a lot of credit for the defensive side, which is not something he had been known for. "It's those kinds of things I'd been hearing about for so long and just saw that it's all true. All of it. Not some of it, where a person has a persona of being nice, but when you get them behind closed doors, they're not nice. No, he's actually nice. He's genuine. He cares about people. You can see it in his interactions. "I can see it when he's out in public. The way you see him is the way he is. "Now, he can get intense. He's going to get passionate, and he cares about what's best for his program and for his student-athletes. But he also brings a lot to the table in terms of helping me. "He's been around a lot, so there's stuff I can bounce off him to get his feedback on. He's just a great, great man. Everything that is written about him and his character is certainly true." The Wolverine: What did you enjoy most about the run to the national championship game? Manuel: "The fun that the guys and the staff and everyone had doing it. It wasn't a Cinderella story, because I never think of Michigan teams as a Cinderella story. "But nobody was giving us any true thought that we would make it the way we made it, except those guys in the room and our families. "What I most remember most about this season is the way Jordan Poole ran around the floor [after the game-winning shot against Houston]. That, to me, epitomized not only the passion but the excitement. "Luck is when preparation meets opportunity. John had prepared the team for that one day we may need to do some- thing like that. He prepared them, an opportunity arose, and Jordan hit an incredible shot that nine times out of 10 is going to rim out. "If you'd have told me at the beginning of the year, I'd have said: 'John, we're not making it to the finals. Are you kidding me?' John Beilein and his team's road to the national championship game pro- vided Manuel and U-M fans with memories that will last a lifetime. "I just smile every time I think about that run," Manuel said. PHOTO BY PER KJELDSEN