Continued Fallout: Baddour Resigns (Updated 3pm)

This chaos clearly still isn’t over for the Flagship.

Today, AD Dick Baddour “resigned.”

Dick Baddour announced his resignation on Thursday in order for chancellor Holden Thorp to find a new football coach.

Thorp said he would interview interim candidates today but would not name a successor for football coach Butch Davis, who was fired on Wednesday.

From Chip Patterson at CBSSports.com:

Baddour’s contract is set to run through June 2012, and he informed the media that he has told Thorp to begin the search for his replacement “as soon as possible.” Thorp elaborated that Baddour would join the school in representing the program in Indianapolis before the NCAA Committee on Infractions. Once the school selects a replacement, Baddour will step aside from day-to-day duties but he will remain under contract until it expires in June.

Meanwhile, Holden Thorp offers more nonsense on why Butch Davis was fired (WRAL.com):

Thorp said that he believes that Davis was unaware of any improprieties that were going on that led up to the investigation and the total buyout package could add up to $2.7 million.

“I don’t believe Butch Davis knew about the things that went on,” Thorp said. “This was really about the cumulative effect on the university.”

$2.7 million…well, that makes as much sense as the rest of this, no doubt about that.

Dennis Dodd at CBSSports.com offers his confusing take, albeit one with which most UNC fans probably agree, “North Carolina killed Butch Davis:”

North Carolina football killed Butch Davis. Not the other way around.

Sure, Davis is to blame for allowing the program to go rogue on his watch but that’s part of my logic. A coach successful enough to get to the highest level of the NFL, a man diligent enough to bring Miami back from the brink of scandal in a relatively short amount of time, a man who then basically delivered Miami a national championship, caved.

He caved because he knew North Carolina was not your normal salvage job. Even in the mediocre ACC, North Carolina’s football mediocrity stood out. The last coach to win 10 in Chapel was the first to do it in 16 years. Mack Brown got the hell out 14 years ago because he knew it couldn’t last. Butch Davis took the job because he was the latest in a line to believe he could make a difference.

But knowing the history of North Carolina football Davis was desperate enough to hire John Blake, a guy he had known for 30 years. That’s what makes the events of Wednesday even more tragic. It wouldn’t have taken much because Carolina fans don’t demand much.

That was Davis’ greatest mistake. He should have known better. He didn’t have to hire Blake, the coach by his notorious nickname “Black Santa”. Davis knew Blake’s recruiting coordinator’s rep. Hell, it looks like he hired Blake because of the dark side of that rep.

Davis ultimately concluded that Blake is what Carolina needed because it’s Carolina. There are reasons why the administration failed time after time to get it right, why a school with a glorious athletic tradition elsewhere has averaged 5 1/2 football wins since 1998.

1:45pm Update:
A couple ESPN folks have more to say.

Heather Dinich on the cost to UNC:

“We recognize that $2.7 million may be what this ends up costing us,” chancellor Holden Thorp said, “and I’ve reached the conclusion that even though this is a terrible time, the athletic program will need to pay whatever it is we need to pay to make the separation happen.”

Oh, they’ll pay.

It will cost them fan support.

It will cost them recruits.

It will cost them years.

It will cost them wins.

It will cost them their longtime, loyal athletic director, who announced his resignation effective June, 2012.

And the NCAA hasn’t even begun to levy sanctions for nine major violations.

Dave Hooker talks about its impact on recruiting and has some comments from 2012 commits.

The L.A. Times compiles the response of writers from various news outlets around the nation, who all agree that the timing of this makes no sense whatsoever. It’s hard not to suppose something else is going on that forced the issue rather than waiting until a more opportune time.

If there was any doubt that Carolina garners national attention as one of the premier programs in the NCAA, the sheer magnitude of the response to this by the national media erases it. But let’s see how one of the local folks reacts:

Season Ticket holder Dion Graham was also surprised by the firing.

“They fired him? You’ve got to be kidding,” he said.

It’s also a good time to once again point out, to all you Carolina faithful out there: it’s Tar Heels (two words), not Tarheels (one word). But don’t fret, Butch probably didn’t know that, either.

3pm Update:
All along, there have been questions about whether the 216 phone records would be turned over, and what they would look like after Butch self-redacted them. With such precarious timing for his firing, it’s certainly plausible that the 216 records at least factored into the decision. Well, Dan Kane of the N&O blogs that we may never know:

Davis told reporters last week that the university reviewed the records in the fall of 2010. That’s true, but the university never made copies.

“He didn’t give us the records,” said Nancy Davis. “We hired outside legal counsel to take a look at them, but he retained the records, and he has them now.”

Nancy Davis said she did not know what the university’s counsel reported back regarding Butch Davis’s personal cell phone records, but it so far has not been tied to any NCAA violation. Thorp said Thursday that there are no new allegations surrounding the cell phone or any other information requested by reporters.

To see what others have been saying, go here.

Since you’re probably dying to talk more about this, in addition to the comments below, you can head on over to the SFN Forums.