The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1508023
OCTOBER 2023 ❱ THE WOLVERINE 19 The Wolverine: What gratifies you the most about the past year in Michigan athletics? Warde Manuel: "It was a special year, be- cause of the combination of academic and athletic success. It was unmatched in the history of Michigan athletics. "We broke records, in terms of the number of Big Ten academic award win- ners. We broke records in terms of the number of Michigan athletes above a 3.0 GPA. On top of that, we won 13 Big Ten championships, which not only set a record for Michigan but for the Big Ten. "For me, the combination of that, given the great student-athletes we have as people, makes me proud of them, makes me proud of their coaches and our staff, and everything that came together to make last year so special. "As the athletic director of this pro- gram and all of our sports, I just smile constantly thinking about our success and what the student-athletes and the coaches and the staff accomplished last year. "There's a lot of work to still to be done. We're not perfect. But there is im- mense gratification about the people we have here in the athletic department as a whole — student-athletes, coaches, staff. It just makes me immensely proud." TW: The football program has made two straight College Football Playoff appearances, won the Big Ten in back-to-back years, and decisively beaten Ohio State twice. Can you talk about the breakthroughs that have been made there? WM: "It's special, there's no doubt. What Jim has accomplished, and that team and his staff, is just tremendous, in terms of the breakthrough of the last two years. "Jim and I always had that expecta- tion. Here, you don't expect not to have success. To break through after all of the noise, to get through COVID and come out of COVID the way the football team did was just spectacular. "A lot of credit goes to Jim and his staff for the way they came together, and then the student-athletes. They get a lot of credit for how they pulled together. "It's leadership throughout that pro- gram that makes me proud to see the end result of what they accomplished. A lot of work went into it. As a former student-athlete, I know the amount of work it took, the leadership in that locker During 2022-23, Manuel oversaw a U-M ath- letics program that won a Big Ten-record 13 conference championships. Michigan also had 498 athletes earn Academic All-Big Ten recognition, including a school-record 131 student-athletes who were named Big Ten Distinguished Scholars with 3.7 GPA or higher last academic year. PHOTO BY LON HORWEDEL BY JOHN BORTON M ichigan athletics directors have sat down annually and exclusively with The Wolver- ine since Jack Weidenbach in the early 1990s to engage in a question-and-answer session about the U-M athletics landscape. Warde Manuel continues that tradition, meeting with us to share at length his takes on the past year, Michigan's football breakthroughs, the expanding Big Ten Conference, the 12- team College Football Playoff and more. No topics were off the table … except one. Manuel ex- plained — like Jim Harbaugh has repeatedly — that he is un- able to comment in any fashion regarding the NCAA issues involving the football program. That includes the decision to self-impose a three-game suspension on Harbaugh, and any thoughts about the NCAA commenting on the case a few weeks ago. Here's what Michigan's AD did have to offer.