Michigan AD Warde Manuel Steps Down at Year’s End After Damning Culture Review
The Warde Manuel era at Michigan is over.
The University of Michigan announced Monday that Manuel, athletic director since 2016, will step down at the end of the 2026 calendar year. The news came alongside the release of a Jenner and Block culture review that ripped his leadership for failing to act on allegations of misconduct inside the athletic department.
University president Domenico Grasso delivered the announcement. The review found that Manuel showed real strengths in supporting student-athletes but failed to move quickly on wrongdoing by athletic department employees. Read that again. That is not a soft landing. That is a formal indictment.
The tipping point was Sherrone Moore. Michigan fired the head football coach on December 10, 2025, for having an affair with his executive assistant. The Jenner and Block report examined how that situation was handled, and by all accounts, it did not paint the AD’s office in a good light.
Manuel, 58, signed a five-year extension less than two years ago. That deal was supposed to run through June 30, 2030. Instead, he told Grasso he wants out at the end of the year. He will move into a special advisor to the president role to help implement the reforms the review recommended. That is code for saying we need you to help clean up the mess before we push you fully out the door.
This is a big deal for the entire Big Ten. Manuel was one of the most connected ADs in the country and a former Michigan football player himself. He hired Jim Harbaugh’s replacement. He navigated the sign-stealing scandal. He handled the Harbaugh suspension. And now he is exiting under a cloud.
Michigan will launch a national search. That search is going to be one of the most watched hiring processes in college athletics this year. Whoever takes the job walks into a program that is still elite on the field but bleeding trust off it.
Names to watch: Ohio State’s Ross Bjork has Big Ten experience but is unlikely to jump. Cincinnati’s John Cunningham has Michigan ties and is on the rise. And do not sleep on internal candidates who worked under Manuel and know where the skeletons are buried.
For Michigan football, the immediate impact is minimal. Interim coach Biff Poggi has the team lined up for a solid 2026 season. But the long-term stability of the program depends on getting this hire right. Manuel spent nearly a decade building relationships and infrastructure. Ripping that up and starting over during the NIL and revenue-sharing era is not simple.
Ann Arbor is about to find out how big of a deal Warde Manuel actually was.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
