Jim Carty, the Ann Arbor News's beat writer, wrote a pretty incendiary article today asking pointed questions of Lloyd. I'm sure he won't answer them, nor should he: most of the questions are of the "when did you stop beating your wife?" variety. But I'm not married, so I'll answer for him.
Why did a defense that allowed an average of 18 points per game in its first eight games give up 33 points per game in its final four contests?Well, because Jim Herrmann has never figured out how to defend mobile quarterbacks. No doy.
What changed? Did opponents, starting with Michigan State, figure something out? Did the players lose focus? Or was it something else?MOBILE QUARTERBACKS.
Then there's the mobile quarterback issue.What mobile quarterback issue? I have no idea what you're talking about.
Having been shredded by shifty Ohio State quarterback Troy Smith for 8.1 yards per rush in their final game of the regular season, what adjustments did Michigan make going into the Rose Bowl to stop another running quarterback?Jesus, Carty, if you knew the answer already, why didn't you say so? Anyway, the answer to your current question is "hid head under blanket and pretended boogieman would go away."
Why did Michigan struggle to tackle against Ohio State and Texas?MOBILE QUARTERBACKS. Jesus!
Why did All-American safety Ernest Shazor disappear down the stretch?Why wouldn't he? The rest of the D did.
Why did linebacker Pierre Woods have little impact all season?He beats up puppies and steals from the poor. I mean, he allegedly does so. I heard it on the interweb!
Was linebacker Lawrence Reid - who's subsequently retired due to a neck injury - playing hurt? If yes, did his injury affect his play?Let me think... uh, yes? Obviously? A degenerative neck injury that causes you to retire from football after the season... yeah, that's probably bad.
Why wasn't linebacker Joe Sarantos, one of your best special teams players, asked back for a fifth season?Because Joey Sarantos is not good enough at football to warrant it (sorry, Joey). This is not unusual, Carty... don't try to make a common occurence that all players know is a possibility into some sort of scandal. Punk.
After leading the nation in turnovers earlier in the year, why did the Wolverine defense recover only one fumble and make only one interception over its final four games?Turnovers are mostly luck, and you know it you sot. What's a sot? I dunno. But it's not good. Also, MOBILE... well, you get the picture.
Herrmann's defense allowed more points during the regular season than every Big Ten team except Michigan State, Northwestern, Illinois and Indiana (none of which went to a bowl game). Since he's blessed with highly rated recruits at just about every position, how much of the blame for that kind of performance falls on Herrmann's tactics?All of it.
How, in Carr's evaluation, is the defensive coordinator held responsible?What? Does this make any sense to anyone? I think this sentence sucks.
Finally, how is Carr going to fix what went wrong?Ah. This is an actual question. I don't know. I don't know if Carr knows. But I'm willing to give the man the benefit of the doubt. When the offense was a problem, Carr addressed it. When the special teams was a problem, Carr addressed it. Now the defense is a problem. Carr will address it.
Ok, ok. I realize that this post was mostly snotty and not substantive in anyway whatsoever. There are issues there. But pointing them out in such an "ah-ha!" way is grandstanding. Dishonestly implying that there was something shady behind Sarantos' departure from the team or anything surrounding Lawrence Reid's unfortunate situation is sensationalist garbage. Congratulations, Carty. You got everyone's attention. You get to be the star, asking tough questions and DEMANDING ANSWERS(!!!). Now you have your revenge on all the mean boys who used to beat you up.
The verdict? Carty ackered up here.
1 Comment:
I think carty and the UM fans deserve some answers. The problem is carr never directly answers many questions, mainly he leaves them open ended leading to lots of speculation. Of course, he doesn't owe it to us to answer our questions, but wouldn't it be nice for him to be a bit more open and a bit more friendly to the media (See Ohio St. game 2003, half time reporter) Sure some of Carty's questions are a bit obvious or unreasonable for him to ask but I think much of what he is asking is what many of the other UM fans want to hear about.
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