Brian Bennett, ESPN Staff Writer 9y

Dave Brandon's departure begins shift for Wolverines

Dave Brandon had no previous experience working in college sports when Michigan hired him as its athletic director in 2010. He was a businessman, most famously as leader of the Domino's Pizza chain.

He set about trying to run the Wolverines' athletic department like a business, which in many ways, of course, it is. But Brandon's tenure also reflected some of the worst tendencies of modern American corporate culture: the incessant focus on short-term profits over long-term loyalty, viewing customers as revenue streams and beating people over the head with marketing and "branding."

We could go over Brandon's many missteps -- the revelation of his incredibly tone-deaf emails to fans this week likely serving as the last straw for school president Mark Schlissel and the board of regents -- but in the end, it's pretty simple. Whether you work on Wall Street or State Street, any CEO's job depends on the bottom line. Brandon's fate wasn't sealed by a quarterly finance report, but by his football team's inability to play competently for four quarters under Brady Hoke.

So what Brandon's resignation on Friday really signals is the beginning of a new way forward for Michigan football. There was no real way Hoke was going to survive this season, not with a 10-12 record since Jan. 2013 and a host of embarrassing defeats. Hoke was already on his way out the door after the Shane Morris concussion debacle (aided by Brandon's own bumbling of the situation from a PR standpoint). Another blowout loss to Michigan State -- which included a silly pregame spectacle that prompted another public apology -- slammed and locked that door.

But the Wolverines couldn't move on from the Hoke era without first getting rid of the man who hired him. Brandon no longer had enough support or credibility to make the next major football decision. Dream candidates like Jim Harbaugh or Les Miles or really any other established head coach would have steered well clear of Ann Arbor if it meant working under Brandon and in the toxic atmosphere around him.

Brandon has long been viewed as a meddling AD who liked the spotlight; the former benchwarmer under Bo Schembechler had some definite Jerry Jones traits when it came to inserting himself into the football operations, so a low-key coach like Hoke was a good fit for him. The past few seasons have shown that the Michigan job is probably too big for Hoke, and no alpha-dog coach would want to deal with Brandon's interference. Even the Big House doesn't have enough room for two giant egos.

The timing of Friday's announcement should allow Hoke to finish out the season as coach. The Wolverines can take a month or so to hire the right athletic director, whether that is someone with Michigan ties like UConn's Warde Manuel, Boston College's Brad Bates or Arkansas' Jeff Long, or one who is not a "Michigan Man." Schlissel has only been school president for a little more than three months, and he won't and shouldn't be beholden to finding an AD who can play the six-degrees-of-Schembechler game.

The next athletic director's first agenda item will likely be the most important one he or she will ever make, as the Maize and Blue can't afford to whiff on a third straight football coaching hire. The next AD would also be wise to learn from Brandon's mistakes and listen to what Wolverines fans want, though that doesn't have to mean retreating into the tradition-worshiping navel-gazing that has hamstrung this program at times.

Michigan is too big to fail. Or at least it should be. Maybe Brandon could have survived the football setback had he not alienated so many people in the process. But CEOs are always slaves to their bottom line, and Michigan football is a stock that has bottomed out. This is the first step back up.

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