The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
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dismissal Dec. 2, he said he wished he had more time to work with him on aspects of his program that could have lengthened his tenure. At the same time, he made it clear change was necessary and that Michigan would get it right after seven years of relative futility and two coaching changes. PLANTING THE SEEDS The first step, Stephenson noted, was to get everyone back under the same umbrella, something Brandon had vowed to do and succeeded in accomplishing in the short term, at least — the 2011 Sugar Bowl sea- son, Hoke's first. The same factions that had emerged since Bo Schem- bechler 's death in 2006, however, were back in full force in 2014. "You had guys still bashing [for- mer coach] Rich Rodriguez, 100 dif- ferent reasons why guys were com- plaining," Stephenson said. "There were factions, and the first thing Jim Hackett did was make sure everyone was together. He put together teams to reach out to guys and mend fences, and he was going to do that before he made a decision. He wanted the ship going in the right direction. "People got on the phones and said, 'Hey, this is no longer about Rich Rodriguez, Lloyd Carr 's guys or Bo Schembechler — it's about The Team, The Team, The Team and get- ting it back together, going in the right direction. There were former captains from all eras calling Har- baugh from the last 40 or 50 years, but at the same time guys on Hack- ett's teams were mending fences. He had one chance to bring all of the factions together." Though he kept his committee in the loop, the behind-the-scenes details remained behind the scenes. Even Harbaugh's father, Jack, inten- tionally recused himself from the process down the stretch, though he was involved early on. He praised Hackett's handling of the situation, remembering him from when the two crossed paths at Michi- gan in the 1970s. "Anthony Carter was a freshman punt returner in my last year, and we'd come out early before practice to work on it. Jim Hackett would come out as the long snapper," Jack Harbaugh recalled. "This guy and I would just talk. He was from London, Ohio, where I recruited … Anthony would be out catching punts, and I'd be talking to Jim. We had dialogue every day. "I never coached him, but when I look back, there was that connection. Here we are in 2014, Jim Hackett the highly successful businessman and now the athletic director here — I Former U-M head coach Lloyd Carr "Jim Hackett's a brilliant guy … he's been a great leader in the business world. Did I doubt he would land Harbaugh? I knew if anybody could do it, Jim Hackett could."