I've known the author of the petition for a very long time, and he means well, but he gets "out" there sometimes. The University does not hear a voice committed to excellence when it hears Engstrom speak. He is extraordinarily passive about decision making, and postpones and postpones. After five years, he has not done anything for the University. He did not even read the "settlement agreement" that he now actually touts as an "accomplishment" because it is a model for "universities across the nation," an achievement that is widely derided by legal scholars across the spectrum as a cave-in for due process and student rights.
He hired a PR firm and his own careless leadership "style" is such that nobody in Main Hall even noticed that the PR firm got UM mixed up with MSU, and had promoted MSU in its first blast. It's that bad. It is also representative of the quality of choices they make in the first place. And anybody watching the playoffs had to watch probably the worst ad ever produced to promote a University, repeatedly. There are some decent ads on the shelf, but nobody is paying attention. That one ran by default. It isn't just that somebody is asleep at the switch there, its as though there is no "switch."
He began the "layoff" meme himself when he let go two fine men. It is amazing that the football program came through that as well as it did; certainly a lot better than the University as whole. If ever there was proof that there was a need for change in "leadership," that was it, and subsequent events have shown it should have been Engstrom himself. "Sport" itself offers a good analogy. "Momentum" exists, on the field, in business, in organizations. And when the momentum is going backwards, you do something about it. If you are going three and out over and over and over, replace the QB. If you are getting interception after interception, change something, stop doing the same thing, and that's just as true for a University as a game against NDSU.
When he fired O'Day and Pflu, little did he realize he was setting something in motion that he could not control, and it may mean the end of his own career. The University is about $40 million down in accumulated cuts since Engstrom began his little firing spree and he is still, five years later, still entirely in a "reactive" mode. He started a fire he can't put out. It has never been this bad at the University of Montana.
Each quarter he will claim he has proof that the U has "turned the corner," and then six months later, confesses that more cuts are needed, larger and more devastating than the last. It's hard to tell if he is consciously lying because he just wants to hang on a bit longer, or if he actually believes what he says when he says it. Neither explanation is a good one.
He still has no strategic plan. That's simply unacceptable. It is a firing offense on its own.
