Full interview with WMU President Russ Kavalhuna discussing controversial Michigan win

And one guy who is dealing with this is Western Michigan President Russ Cavaluna, and he will join us right now. All right. Yeah. Hello, Russ. How are you? Good to see you. Go Broncos. Can you hear me? Go Broncos. Oh, yeah. Can you hear me? OK. You are leading Bronco Nation with this. And let's get into right away what we're seeing right now. The MAAC is taking up your cause and putting out an appeal to the NCAA about what's going on here. The first question for you, because after the game on Saturday, you guys had one position about how you might accept it. But now there's this appeal by the MAAC saying that maybe you don't accept it. What did you find out in the time from then to now that has changed and changed your opinion? Yeah. I'm glad you're asking that question, because it is a thing that I think has been lost in the last several days. And I'll just say, you know, we're only in the second business day since that football game. So things are moving pretty quickly. But we haven't changed our position at WMU. Our position at WMU is we don't make the decision about what happened at the end of the game vis-a-vis the officials. That's a question for the NCAA, the MAAC conference, and the Big Ten. Our position has always been we'll line up and play against anybody. We think we won that game. We think that we were the better team. And frankly, we're hearing a lot of folks now in this issue, but all over the country, that when something goes wrong, what their answer is, is my team won or somebody cheated. And the truth is, that's just not reality for the way we live our lives. And when you start looking at the world like that, either I win or someone cheated, then you cheat yourself from the opportunity to grow from this kind of adversity. So our position has always been the leagues are going to figure out what happened at the end of that game. Look, I think if I were an official, I would say it looked to me like the game was over. And the MAAC now is starting to ask questions about that. But I'll just say to you, our position has always been the same. We were the better team on the field that day. We would have liked to have won. But it's up to the officials and the leagues to decide what the answer there is. Russ, you are a former federal prosecutor. Did this case eventually become less about football and more about following rules? Well, I frankly don't know. In fact, on Saturday night, I was on the field there. And I knew a lot less than I do now about the rules associated with instant replay. I've had to get up to speed on it pretty quickly. But I'll just tell you, the entire nation's not really clear on rules. And it seems to me that this game that we played our hearts out on and now the MAAC is saying that the protocols weren't followed. It seems like the NCAA seems to say that that's probably true. And now that as a result of our game, if a coach or if a president or if a bunch of student athletes like the Western Michigan Broncos encounter something like this again, it's likely to not have the same problem, which seems like a good outcome. I also think this game can be about what happens when you get really upset about a result. And you even might think you've been treated unfairly. What are your options? Well, your options, and we believe this deeply at Western because this is in our culture. It's, you know, Western's where I went to school. It's where I'm really proud of. We don't whine about things we can't control. We move forward. And as we move forward, my hope is that this team shows what I know about it, that it's a great team. And if we are blessed to have a conversation about what the postseason looked like, that's a human subjective analysis that the college football playoff selection committee will look at. And they'll look at records, of course, but they'll also look at quality of teams. And I'll say, if you watch that game, irrespective of which clock you're watching, you can see one team was better. Oh, I wholeheartedly agree. And I also agree that, you know what, it's not a question of which clock I was watching. There should only be one clock. And right now we're seeing that some of the rules have been changed because now it's all about, hey, the clock in the stadium is now the official deal. So there has been some progress. What, how important is it for the NCAA to acknowledge that you should have been credited with the win, even if the official record can't be changed? What's most important is that if this team shows that it's great by going out and winning more football games, that those that are evaluating the body of work see and recognize who is the better team that night. And you know, the NCAA has told the Mac that there's no mechanism to change the outcome of a game. I would just say everything's impossible until it's not. Um, and I would also say that this is a, this is an opportunity for the entire game to improve. Go ahead, Brandon. Get in. Yeah. President Cavaluna, Brendan Shabath from 97 won the ticket. I've got a couple of questions. I think on behalf of the general public, I'll also ask them on behalf of my mother, who's a Western grad, um, smart lady, I've never even met her. I think one thing people are wondering is, you know, Woody just referenced the statement from the NCAA that they can't change the result of a game. That was said from my understanding, based on reporting to an ESPN reporter and not necessarily made public the CFP, which is of course a separate entity has also said it's reviewing the appeal and we'll come out with a decision. How final is this to you? And does it feel like there's still a chance this could change? I gotta be honest. I haven't spent a lot of time worrying about that question. I can understand why you're asking it, Brendan, because, uh, look, I'm a fan of college football and I'm a fan of Western Michigan university and I'll be blunt. I would like to have the outcome of that game changed, but I haven't spent much time thinking about it because I have the blessing of having the best college football coach in the country and the most underrated and most gritty football team in the country. And they're not focusing on those questions. I mean, I'm in that building with them almost every day. I can tell you, coach Taylor is focusing like a laser on the future. And that happened within minutes after this event. And that's when I started to realize that, you know, I got to actually advocate for my team behind the scenes, but I also need to see what greatness exists at Western. And when we walked off that field, I went to the locker room and I watched what was possibly the best post game speech I've ever seen. And I, you know, I'm a washed up athlete. I got 11 varsity letters in high school. It wasn't good enough to play at Western, but I can tell you, I've seen my fair share of post game speeches. It was inspirational in its brevity and its clarity. This team is holding together and they still have all their goals ahead of them. And this coach is leading them forward and it has nothing to do, the future and their goals have nothing to do with what the NCAA or what anyone else decides. What that does have to do with is if they keep going up, lining up and playing smash mouth football with tenacious defense, really excellent special teams. I mean, that special teams exposition was exquisite. And the truth is, if they keep doing that more and more and more, we're going to see that we all know who won that game and it will be less and less consequential. Russ, let me ask this. How much fuel does this give the rest of your program and coach Taylor to maybe run the table? I mean, I have to think that, you know, everybody in the locker room and everybody in that on that team right now is saying, hey, you know what we got, Rob, let's go out and prove to everybody that we belong. These guys, these guys are, if you've ever been around a team that actually believes in each other and that together they can do more than they could individually, you can feel that. And in the second half, in fact, the whole game, I was on the sidelines, which is what I do. And the whole second half, I could feel it, particularly the defense as they came off the field. You can feel that energy and it is even more now than it was when they were coming off the field in that second half after stop, after stop, after stop. So I got to tell you, yes, the fire is in the belly, but we got a tough schedule. Every game is serious. Every game is important. And every game is an opportunity to show that what happened in Ann Arbor was not a fluke. So what you're going to see is what you will see if you send your kids or like Brendan's mom. If you come to Western Michigan University, you show grit. You don't ask for anyone to give you anything. And when someone does something that you don't like, even that you think is unfair, you don't complain about it. You go forward and you prove your worth. Rich, how do you like what they got going on Western, huh? Well, I'm a big fan of the Mac. I mean, Mac football is the real deal. It seems like every year a Mac team will beat a Big Ten team and, you know, there's a lot of football left. So I congratulate the president. It was a great game and you have a great team. And that's the bottom line. You know what, Russ, let me ask this question to you. You've emphasized turning adversity into a teaching moment. What is the lesson for the NCAA in this? Well, I think they're having the national discussion about that right now. What should we be doing with instant replay? Who manages control of the clock? And I would add to that, does it make sense to have a black line rule that you'll never review the outcome of a game? And they're looking at that. They'll figure that out. But I'll just say, you know, the focus, I think, should be on the future of these games. And and I get the impression that the NCAA and the Big Ten and the Mac are working on trying to evaluate how to improve the game. And this is a human endeavor with a bunch of student athletes playing the game hard. Presidents and football coaches and football staff trying to do their best. Look, we're going to have to continue to always evaluate the intersection of sport and technology. And that's OK. What bothers me sometimes is people take this to the next step and they start to cast aspersions on people's judgment and people's character. And I got to tell you, I've watched Lance Taylor close. I know him deeply. He is a fantastic football coach, but he's an even better person. And you know, our society right now is a little bit a kilter that some of the attacks that he receives, some and I'll just tell you more and more and more, I'm more convinced. If you look at the world where only your team wins and if no, if your team doesn't win, the other person lied or cheated, you're not setting yourself up for success because the reality is that's not what the world is. We don't want people who look at the world like that in our neighborhoods and in our families. And what you saw from Lance Taylor was that just that I'm not going to say anybody lied. I'm not going to say anybody cheated. I'm going to say we could probably have done better in some places and we're going forward. So I'll leave it to, you know, folks that are smarter than me about what the lessons should be on orchestrating the rules of football. But at Western, we're going to keep going forward with the best coach and the best team, frankly, that I've seen us put forward. Well, you know, we talk about lessons and we're finding out, in fact, we're learning lessons right now about your program, your team, your coach, everybody associated with that program and the high road that you guys have taken, you know, moving this forward, because I'm sometimes imagining if this shoe was on the other foot, what would that other school be doing? Would they be running to a judge in Washtenaw County right now saying, hey, hey, hold it. Wait a minute. You know, so we don't know what's going on. But the example that you're giving is one that I think everybody is going to want to follow because they see that it's measured. It's it's reasoned and it's not like a knee jerk thing. You know, sportsmanship used to be a thing, you know, I mean, you know, you know, you get on this field and look, anybody who's played a sport knows that there are referees making calls. And if you agree with every single call that every referees made, then you're probably not being honest. Nobody is right all the time. The goal should be to be as hardworking and as gutsy and gritty as law as all the time. And, you know, there's a lot to be said for teams and leaders and people who go out there and have sportsmanship. And it takes some of us to call that out a little bit more. And those student athletes, imagine this. They were this close to having the upset of the history of my institution's 123 years long. They've never beat Michigan. They were 28 point underdogs. And they came in there and outplayed Michigan. And imagine that they thought they deserved it and it got ripped away. And then what they do? They calmly exited the field. You've not heard one gripe on social media from anybody in that organization. And they've continued to say, look, we're stronger. We're going together. And I just want to say, you know, we should start lifting up young men like this. And we should start saying sportsmanship actually has a place because it actually makes better people when they're infused with that idea. Russ, thank you for coming in and joining us tonight. We appreciate you coming into the sports office. That is Western Michigan President Russ Cavaluna. There's more to the sports office coming up after this quick message.