I don't know what to believe right now.
Facts from Harvey's press conference:
1) TO let him know in early September that he was going to step down.
2) Eichorst toured the campus (by himself) and interviewed for the job Sept 9th.
Unless Harvey is lying about when TO told him he was going to retire, these dates line up.
3) Harvey says that he did this search by himself and he ruffled some feathers in Lincoln.
4) TO is one of the people who were upset.
5) He had TO talk to Alvarez and Alvarez gave Eichorst a thumbs up. (this happens many times with ex bosses. You would have to be a total failure for an ex boss to not say good things about you in this situation).
6) Search firm couldn't touch base with Bo.
The Bo thing doesn't make sense to me. Some say Bo is upset he didn't have a bigger part in this. If the search firm actually tried to get a hold of Bo and Bo knew what it was for, and he didn't call them back, then that's Bo's fault.
One thing that I do agree with though with Harvey, I don't like someone choosing who their successor is. TO isn't the one that has to live and work with this guy. He could pass away next week for all we know and the fans and the University are the ones that must live with the decision.
So, even though I think TO's input could be valuable and it would make a transition that much more smooth, I don't know TO in those situations. Maybe he is an over bearing person and demands his guy gets the job. I honestly don't know.
All that said, from the outside looking in right now, it appears that this could have been handled better. The last time we had someone stand up from the University and claim they did the entire search by themselves and made the decision by themselves it was a disaster.
I am extremely nervous about this hire but I will try to support him and the University as much as possible. Unfortunately, Harvey has put the new guy in a difficult situation from the beginning.