[2006alum]

Please.  Agents are notorious for leaking heavily spun realities to reporters to gain leverage on contract extensions.  It wasn't even reported that Mussleman was offered the job.  He well could have been torpedoed by the new chancellor.

ןɐɔ does plenty of things to embarrass itself.  It's way too early to conclude "ןɐɔ internal dysfunction" made Mussleman withdraw.  Again, he wasn't offered the job.

I think a certain amount of skepticism is always warranted with these kinds of announcements, but having known several faculty members at UC Berkeley who have described the massive "cal internal dysfunction" involved in faculty hiring and tenure decisions, it doesn't surprise me at all. Everything is extraordinarily bureaucratic and often times the faculty of a department will vote unanimously for a faculty member to get tenure, or overwhelmingly vote to lateral-hire an outside faculty member, only for the higher-ups to stall the approval for literally years, at which point the faculty member leaves to go elsewhere or accepts an offer at another institution because they don't want to wait for years to get hired. If there's anything like that involved in AD coaching hires, I wouldn't be surprised if it turns some people off from even considering the place. 

It's kind of like how I assess a job offer: is the employer responsive and eager to answer questions, etc.? If they aren't when they're trying to win you over, how likely is it they will be once you're there and you have no leverage?

[2006alum]

Please.  Agents are notorious for leaking heavily spun realities to reporters to gain leverage on contract extensions.  It wasn't even reported that Mussleman was offered the job.  He well could have been torpedoed by the new chancellor.

ןɐɔ does plenty of things to embarrass itself.  It's way too early to conclude "ןɐɔ internal dysfunction" made Mussleman withdraw.  Again, he wasn't offered the job.

I think a certain amount of skepticism is always warranted with these kinds of announcements, but having known several faculty members at UC Berkeley who have described the massive "cal internal dysfunction" involved in faculty hiring and tenure decisions, it doesn't surprise me at all. Everything is extraordinarily bureaucratic and often times the faculty of a department will vote unanimously for a faculty member to get tenure, or overwhelmingly vote to lateral-hire an outside faculty member, only for the higher-ups to stall the approval for literally years, at which point the faculty member leaves to go elsewhere or accepts an offer at another institution because they don't want to wait for years to get hired. If there's anything like that involved in AD coaching hires, I wouldn't be surprised if it turns some people off from even considering the place. 

It's kind of like how I assess a job offer: is the employer responsive and eager to answer questions, etc.? If they aren't when they're trying to win you over, how likely is it they will be once you're there and you have no leverage?