If you mean, defend him from accusations not made public or sourced, I'll be your huckleberry.
If Jeremy is accusing Donati of turning down a bid, why is he so cowardly as to do it from behind a paid message board? Afraid of getting sued?
Jeremy has a public X account; he should post a story there.
This is exhibit A of [ muschi ] journalism.
I have defended Donati in the past, over the Dixon/UCLA kerfluffle and the Schloss checking out matter. I felt that in both cases he handled things as they needed to be handled. My opinion was based on the things I was told, and surmised from what I was told, and little more.
In the present case,
I honestly don't know what to think because there are some odd, unexplainable things which have happened, and the main player is skipping town. While I stand second to no one in my contempt of ESPN, I hardly think they fingered us "send them to New Mexico! (evil laughter...)" for some deliberate slight. The scenario could be either 1.) Refusing a Bowl bid directly, or 2.) Playing coy and not giving an answer, until the Bowl said, "Fine. We'll invite
these guys instead!" The second scenario works, given the story we've been hinted, as does the defense of "We never turned anybody down!" Both of these could be true.
But, whatever. It is done, and the guilty party is now looking for a decent tailor, and a nice fern bar in Columbia S.C. He is no longer our concern. Hopefully we learned some lessons from his tenure.
