Warde Manuel: Michigan will 'fight when we need to fight' with NCAA investigation, admit mistakes

The past 12 months have been an eventful time for Warde Manuel and the Michigan athletic department he oversees.

The Wolverines’ storied football program won its first national championship since 1997 . Shortly after that title run came to an emphatic end, Manuel hired Sherrone Moore to replace Jim Harbaugh after the former Michigan quarterback left for the Los Angeles Chargers. The eighth-year athletic director hired a new coach in men’s basketball, as well, bringing in Florida Atlantic’s Dusty May to replace the fired Juwan Howard.

During that time, though, Manuel’s focus has had to shift in other, less-than-ideal directions.

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Michigan football, the crown jewel of the athletic department, has been the subject of multiple NCAA investigations, one related to recruiting violations and the other tied to the Wolverines’ alleged sign-stealing operation.

In an interview with The Michigan Insider that posted Wednesday , Manuel pushed back at the notion that the university and its athletic department aren’t mounting a sufficiently forceful response to the NCAA during its probes.

“First of all, we’re going to fight when we need to fight,” Manuel said. “Also, where we have made mistakes, we’re going to admit them and deal with it. I don’t want people to think because we don’t talk about it publicly — and I can’t — that we’re not going to fight for what we think is right for the University of Michigan and the people that are here. We are.

“But at the same time, you have to also understand that if we do things that are against the rules, that we know are against the rules, we need to admit it and move forward and deal with it. There’s a duality to that. There’s a sense that you have a responsibility to adhere to rules we say we’re going to participate in, but when it gets to a point where we feel like it is over the top or we need to fight something, we certainly will.”

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Earlier this month, the NCAA announced a four-year show cause order for Harbaugh as a result of its investigation into Michigan’s impermissible contact with recruits and players during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Wolverines aren’t done with NCAA-related headaches, either.

The university has received a Notice of Allegations (NOA) related to the sign-stealing and in-person scouting scheme allegedly spearheaded by former analyst Connor Stalions . A Michigan spokesperson confirmed to the Free Press Sunday that the NOA accuses seven staffers from the 2023 team of violating NCAA rules.

Manuel noted he has been frustrated with how that process has unfolded.

In early August, a draft of the NCAA’s NOA on the sign-stealing case was leaked to ESPN . Among other findings, the draft revealed that Moore was among the seven Wolverines staffers who was accused of violating NCAA rules.

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NCAA investigations are meant to be cloaked in silence, with neither the subject of the investigation nor those leading it commenting on the matter until it’s complete. While Manuel has committed to do that, he believes others haven’t done the same.

“It’s wholly unacceptable and ridiculous that people who have information or get information about what’s going on are leaking it to the press and to the public,” he said . “We try to find it. We just don’t let it pass. We actively try to find where are these leaks coming from, particularly if it’s on us. The problem, as you know, is it’s hard to get to the bottom of it. It doesn’t mean we’re going to stop trying.

“It really does not help the process. It doesn’t help the University of Michigan to go through it. It doesn’t help the NCAA. Whoever is leaking this, it is not helping what we’re trying to do to resolve the cases. It just puts stuff out there, in some cases, some of it wrong, some of it I can’t respond to when it’s wrong. We are under a sense of not being able to talk about it publicly, but yet people are leaking things out there about the case. It’s just disappointing, unnecessary and sad.”

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Warde Manuel: Michigan will 'fight when we need to fight' with NCAA investigation, admit mistakes