RANCHO PALOS VERDES, Calif. — Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel is seeking more steadiness around the program after a period that featured football and men’s basketball national championships but also several high-profile controversies.
Manuel, who has led the athletic department since January 2016, acknowledged the challenges Michigan has faced during the past five years, even amid great success. Michigan won three straight Big Ten titles and a national title in football, and in April captured its first men’s basketball national championship since 1989. Michigan also went through the signal-stealing scandal involving football staff member Connor Stalions, the federal indictment of former assistant football coach Matt Weiss and football coach Sherrone Moore’s firing and arrest in December.
“I always aim for steadiness, believe me,” Manuel told reporters Tuesday during the Big Ten spring meetings. “This is not anything that I’ve desired or wanted or hoped for, but I deal with it, and then you know my goal as a leader is to provide the steadiness to … the rest of the department, and my staff, and student-athletes, and I think I and we have done that as a department in the organization. I don’t take any of it lightly.
“It’s not something that I welcome, but we’ve dealt with it.”
Manuel noted the competitive accomplishments of Michigan’s teams during the stretch, as well as the athletes’ academic success. He said his goal as AD is to “limit the impact” of negative situations.
In August, the NCAA announced sanctions for Michigan, which included probation and financial penalties expected to exceed $20 million, significant show-cause penalties for Stalions and former coach Jim Harbaugh, and a suspension for Moore, then the team’s coach. Manuel in December fired Moore after the school learned of an inappropriate relationship he had with a football staff member.
Hours after the firing, Moore was arrested and charged with a felony and two misdemeanors for entering the staff member’s apartment. In March, he pleaded no contest to the two misdemeanors and later received probation and a fine but avoided jail time.
Weiss, a Michigan assistant under Harbaugh from 2021 to 2023, was indicted in March 2025 on 14 federal counts of unauthorized access to computers and 10 counts of aggravated identity theft, after authorities said he hacked into the private computer accounts of thousands of college athletes.
In December, the university announced it had commissioned a law form to evaluate the athletic department’s culture, conduct and procedures. Interim university president Domenico Grasso said the investigation would “leave no stone unturned” and could lead to other employee firings depending on the information uncovered.
“We deal with it, and we learn from it, and we get better, and that’s what I’ve always tried to do,” Manuel said. “That’s what I was taught to do by my mom and dad, and [former Michigan coach] Bo Schembechler, and a lot of great leaders along the way, and so I think what our teams, our coaches, student-athletes and my staff have accomplished in that four- to five-year period, I am so proud of what they’ve done to get through it all and drive the success.”
Manuel also addressed the Big Ten’s push for a 24-team College Football Playoff, saying that future expansion would not impact late-season rivalry games such as Michigan versus Ohio State. Big Ten coaches this week said that they didn’t expect teams comfortably in the CFP to rest starters for rivalry games because of the damage a late loss could cause with seeding.
“I can’t envision a world where that would happen,” Manuel said. “I don’t think it devalues it at all. I think it actually increases the value, in my opinion, because more games become more important at the end of the season. I can’t see anybody saying they’ll rest. I can’t see Alabama-Auburn. Obviously, I just said we wouldn’t. I wouldn’t see it that way.”
