WTKA Roundtable 7/16/2026: Al Capone's Secret Tomb

Things Discussed:

• The Warde Report: Did they find anything? Apparently not. Do we get anything? Apparently not. Really? Eleven months of waiting and the answer is "nothing to see here?"
• Do we get a "report"? Does one exist? To avoid FOIA it's possible that the findings of the investigation were delivered orally so that they could not be used in litigation (e.g. Shiver's). That's a sad state of affairs, because we are interested parties who deserve access to the findings.
• The WSJ's thing: Claims Warde was aware of the relationship enough to warn Moore not to bring Shiver on a trip. Doesn't mean anything, unless you really want to stretch it, because the timeline shows the program conducted that investigation after it was brought to the university, and didn't have enough to do anything until Shiver came forward in December, at which point they fired Moore on the spot.
• Relitigating the scandals and "scandals." Craig says again he thought the Mel Pearson situation was handled correctly, which gets a lot of pushback. Seth says Warde wasn't playing the long game with the NCAA, and his indifferent approach to the buildup of Ohio State influence plus Harbaugh's inability to separate the little reportable stuff from the fights made all of it into a maximal storm over really miniscule events. The one thing that bothered in all of it was letting people into the building during COVID. That's a minor violation that should have been reported.
• The Bad Faith people—sparties, buckeyes, haters—don't need to be reasoned with. Just block and move on, because trying to reason with hate is a waste of time.
• Summary of status: They spent $X million(s) on an investigation, the results of which did not lead to the immediate termination of Warde Manuel, and which are not being shared. There is talk of a buyout, which means he's not getting removed now, and probably not for a year at least (there's 3 or 4 years left on his contract). There's clearly a faction that wants him gone, and clearly a faction that needs convincing, and this report did not do any convincing. I feel so....unsatisfied.