Dan doesn't know how bad things were under Hathaway. I can point to things Warde did that Hathaway would have failed at (or did fail) - keeping the Michigan game at the Rent, getting fundraising for the practice facility and getting the actual construction started, signing KO to a multi year deal (OH NO IT TOOK A MONTH LONGER WE MIGHT HAVE LOST ONE OR TWO RECRUITS LETS ALL DRINK BLEACH), telling PP to take GDL out of the OC duties, hiring Cavanaugh, scheduling Boise and BYU in football, Maryland, Florida possibly Stanford for MBB... all of this evidence doesn't count because it doesn't support the conclusion. So - ignore the data. It's like trying to convince a Fox News watcher that Obama actually is anything other than a muslim socialist - they already have it ingrained in their head as an article of faith and no mountain of facts or reality will change that.
Now, I am not saying Warde is on the same level as Tom Jurich. He's not rockstar level, that was a pithy quote that maybe Herbst shouldn't have said. But he's not a bumbling dunce either. He's not the type to make public rah-rah "we're awesome every other school can usck it" statements, or to say "waaaah our conference situation sucks" either, so all the boneyarders who feel the need to have the AD mirror their every emotion will always be disappointed.
I think he's got some okay accomplishments, but since we're stuck in the AAC (thanks mostly to DeFillippo, FSU, and Tom Jurich), conference affiliation takes precedence and everything else is ignored. Perhaps if the football team only goes 5-6 wins then we'll see Warde make a tougher decision and then we'll have a something meatier to evaluate him on. I hope we manage to get 8 wins somehow though just because it would start the program finally coming out of the doldrums.