A day after I trash the Free Press for focusing on things like Tae Bo instead of information, Mark Snyder puts out an interesting piece about the '97 championship and the ballboys that saved it. This is literally the headline: "How 2 ballboys stopped opponent's signal stealing, saved UM's 1997 title."
The story: two student managers ferret out that Northwestern has somehow stolen Michigan's offensive signals, and run over to the other side of the field at half time to urge Lloyd Carr and company to change things up. After being bottled up in the first half, scoring thirteen points, Michigan explodes for... uh... ten in the second. Without the student manager's contribution, Michigan could have lost to Northwestern by negative one touchdown. The final score was 23-6.
Okay, so the story is oversold. It's still pretty interesting as a tall tale from the past, and you should read it if you've got a few minutes. My take-home message was vastly different from what was intended, I think.
Sitcom football
Some key passages:
"There was a guy on their sideline that day, and he had our signals down pat," Datz said. "Every time, he would scream into the defense what we're going to do -- pass or run -- and he was almost always right. ...
"They were blowing up draws, calling our counters and destroying our screen passes -- all a big part of our plays that year. I was just screaming mad. Youtan and I are thinking to ourselves, 'This guy has us.' "
Raise your hand if you think you could predict with 80% certainty whether a Michigan play would be a run or pass. It is possible they just co-opted a cranky 50-something Michigan fan.
Anyway, the kids run across the field and tell Carr early in the third quarter. This is the result:
"I absolutely remember that," Carr said recently. "The reason I do remember it is I don't ever remember anybody else offering advice or information during a game.
"Those are all bright guys that get into those positions. But that's the only time I remember one telling me something."
But that still wasn't enough for the coaches to change their signal calling. So later in the quarter, Datz said he ran around the field to repeat the message to Magnus.
The play that finally sold the U-M coaches on the need to adjust came on a third-and-25 with less than three minutes left in the third quarter. That's when U-M tailback Clarence Williams ran a sweep -- an odd call for that down and distance -- and two Wildcats grabbed him behind the line of scrimmage.
It's only after this play that Michigan grabs Jason Kapsner and starts sending in multiple sets of signals. But this is the kicker:
In 1995 and '96, Hansburg said, all he had to do was watch U-M center Rod Payne, a one-handed snapper who apparently placed his opposite hand on the ground for a running play and on his thigh for a passing play.
This was the plot of an episode of Coach. When the Minnesota State Screaming Eagles play for the national championship in the Pioneer Bowl, ditzy assistant coach Luther Van Dam (Jerry Van Dyke) gets concussed and has to watch from the hospital, where he notices one offensive lineman has totally different stances for run and pass. He calls in the tip and Hayden Fox gets a Gatorade bath. I was 14, and 14 years later I remember this clear as day.
Reading Johnny's piece yesterday was the love side of my love-hate relationship with Lloyd Carr. This is the hate side. ONE: Michigan didn't bother employing multiple signal-callers -- a zero-cost activity -- from day one. TWO: It took them a full quarter and a second prodding to actually act on the information provided by the student managers when the cost of listening was zero. THREE: They ran a sweep on third and twenty-five. FOUR:Michigan football was outsmarted by Jerry Van Dyke.
Silver spoon, coal spoon
None of this should surprise you. This was a program that would run 95% of the time it lifted its starting wide receivers. Lloyd Carr thought deception and trickery had their place in football, and that place was Northwestern.
When you are at a place like Michigan and you have been inculcated in the culture of the program for the vast majority of your coaching career, I think you take certain things for granted. One of them is the belief that a paramount focus on execution is enough. That if you motivate and educate and drill better than the other team, you will win. It did very well for Bo until he got to Pasadena, and it did pretty well for Carr until Tressel showed up (and, it must be said, Carr had a real run of rotten luck re: actually getting to use his senior quarterbacks), but it was always giving something away. You have a limited amount of time with your charges every week; there is always time to work on your poker skills. Michigan's been bad at poker forever.
Rich Rodriguez focuses on execution and motivation -- see Barwis -- but he also makes deception his stock-in-trade, creating a modern version of the triple option that has intricate variations and one end result: linebacker confetti. In a way, the spread 'n' shred is terribly predictable. They run, they run, they run. But you do not run more than all but five other teams and finish top five in YPC three years running unless you know when to bluff and when to raise.
Rodriguez comes from a wholly different background than Carr, coming up through the ranks at NAIA schools and Tulane and Clemson and West Virginia. Until Pat White showed up he never had a significant talent advantage agaginst the vast majority of opponents. He never, ever had the luxury of lying back and thinking to himself "if we out-execute the opponent we will win," and it shows. He invented a whole new offense and used it to exploit inefficiencies in recruiting. To seal the Sugar Bowl against Georgia he called a fake punt, exploiting inefficiencies in fourth-down playcalling. For the past seven years he has played Moneyball at West Virginia.
To me, the exciting thing about Rodriguez is not necessarily his system but his mindset. He's looking to squeeze out every ounce of expectation, make every resource stretch as far as he can, and now he's been provided resources few other coaches have. When Moneyball moved to Boston in the personage of Theo Epstein, Pedro Martinez got a hat:
Now that Lloyd Carr is spending his days golfing and his nights at manga conventions, it's time to go over this career. First we play nice, assembling the Carr Era dream team. First up: the offense.
Rules: each season is judged independently. It makes no sense to compare one year of Drew Henson with four years of Chad Henne. Each player can only appear once: no receiving corps of Braylon, Braylon, and Braylon.
Update: Yes, NFL careers and draft positions do have some small bearing. These teams are based solely on college performance, but fans can wildly mis-rate players they've watched. NFL draft status and the performances they put in early in their careers can provide a valuable check.
Lamarr Woodley, 2006. Woodley was consistently excellent from the midpoint of his freshman year on, but it was in 2006 he did this:
co-captain ... Lombardi Award winner ... Ted Hendricks Award winner ... American Football Coaches Association All-America ... Walter Camp Football Foundation All-America ... Football Writers Association of America All-America ... Associated Press All-America first team ... The Sporting News All-America first team ... Rivals.com All-America first team ... Rivals.com National Defensive Player of the Year ... SI.com All-America second team ... CollegeFootballNews.com All-America second team ... Bednarik Award finalist ... Ronnie Lott Trophy quarterfinalist ... Bronko Nagurski Trophy candidate ... Outland Trophy candidate ... Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year (coaches and media) ... Big Ten Defensive Lineman of the Year (coaches) ... consensus All-Big Ten first team selection (coaches and media)
The Ted Hendricks Award is another one of those fake-o awards that just popped up in the past few years and is awarded by the Upper Skokie Elks Club, but the Lombardi has been around a good long while and a Michigan player had never won it until Woodley reeled it in. Woodley was a killer pass rusher that year, tying David Bowens' school record with 12 sacks, and was also a major factor in Michigan's suffocating run defense. The only thing he couldn't do was run the 4.3 40 that would have gotten him to Troy Smith before he could get his passes to wide open WRs off.
MGoBlog is particularly indebted to Woodley, since it was his scoop-and-rumble to cap the f-ing beatdown of Notre Dame in 2006 that inspired "Brady Quinn for Heisman," which I can still watch six times in a row:
For this, and many other things, Woodley is the winnerest.
Glen Steele, 1997. Steele was one of a number of mid-nineties Michigan defenders with quintessential football names, (Jarrett Irons, Sam Sword, and Rob Swett were also charter members) and Steele lived up to his. The other All-American on the Michigan defense during the national championship season, Steele was a terror against both run and pass.
When Ohio State trailed Michigan by six points late in the 1997 edition of the Game, it was Steele who throttled the Buckeyes' final drive with two sacks and another TFL. It was also Steele, along with Swett, who forced Stanley Jackson into the worst interception ever (4:46 in) and gave Michigan the 20-0 margin they'd defend for the rest of the game.
Steele went in the fourth round to the Bengals and spent several years as a backup in the NFL.
Second Team
James Hall was always terribly underrated. He didn't even make the All Big Ten team his senior year -- though, bizarrely, he was an All American to the Sporting News and a Butkus semifinalist -- and went undrafted. He's still in the NFL.
And, finally, the great disappointment of David Bowens, 1996. It was Bowens' record that Lamarr Woodley tied in 2006. Bowens' accomplishment may have been even more impressive since he did it in just eleven games (he missed the bowl game due to academic suspension, IIRC, and the twelfth game didn't exist then) and was just a sophomore when he did it. But he bombed out of school and ended up at Western Illinois. Rats.
Defensive Tackle
Alan Branch, 2006. Defensive tackles are by nature statistical wastelands and must get by on reputation. Or, if you're Alan Branch, one of the most iconic photos in Michigan football history:
The 6'6" terror from New Mexico was statistically unimpressive during his final season in the winged helmet, racking up a paltry 25 tackles, 6 TFLs, and just two sacks, but the above impact and many others like it didn't register.
You can see 6'6", 330 of angry New Mexican hauling the tail end of that graph down like a black hole in spacetime. That's Alan Branch. 33 percent! On third and one! Six of eighteen! SIX OF EIGHTEEN!
When he entered the draft after his junior year, Michigan fans universally expected he'd be a top five pick and were notably disoriented when he fell to the first pick of the second round. No other Michigan defensive tackle under Carr has come close, statistics be damned.
Jason Horn, 1995. I confess I remember less than zero about Jason Horn. I was 16 when he was a senior and not quite the raving fanatic would become later. (When high school extracurricular events would interfere with games I would just find out what happened later I remember listening to Colorado try a Hail Mary the year after the one that worked in a car.) So when I perused the Bentley Library's records of the 1995 team and saw two All-Americans, one of whom was named "Jason Horn," I said "who?"
Well, in 1995 Jason Horn had 67 tackles, 11 sacks, and 18 TFLs and was named All Big Ten and All American by everyone. No Michigan defensive tackle can match that set of statistics and accolades, not even Branch.
Second Team
Will Carr, 1996. For God's sake don't give him the ball. But, like, other than that Carr was pretty good, lodging an incredible 160 tackles over his last two years and being named a first-team All American in 1996.
Gabe Watson, 2005. It's either him, Rob Renes, or Josh Williams. Renes was an All American to TSN in 1999 and All Big Ten; he was drafted in the seventh round by the Colts and stuck around the league for a little while. Watson was a planetoid force of nature more interested in cheeseburgers than weights who spent half the game panting and half the game wrecking fools. Do you want the scrappy overachiever or the guy who kinda sorta wasted his potential? Maybe it's too much Fire Joe Morgan, but screw that Eckstein noise: I'm taking Watson.
Linebacker
David Harris, 2006. Harris will forever be the gold standard for Michigan middle linebackers. Agile, fast as hell, brilliant, and a crushing tackler, Harris probably should have won the Butkus his senior year. The insane badassery of Michigan's defense held his tackle numbers down, though, and the award went to some undeserving Penn State guy, like it usually does.
Harris started nine games in the NFL last year, racking up a season's worth of stats: five sacks, 127 tackles, and one traded Jonathan Vilma. Michigan's run defense took a spectacular nose dive.
Michigan listed two "inside" linebackers throughout most of Carr's tenure as Michigan stuck to Jim Herrmann's odd player designations that treated Michigan's players like they were in a 3-4, but in reality the two outside linebackers had more in common with each other than the true middle linebacker. Michigan would often flop players from the strongside to the weakside over the course of their careers, causing a logjam of killer weakside linebackers and a paucity of good senior guys on the strongside. So I'm discarding the distinction, declaring all OLBs OLBs, and picking two of these gentlemen:
Player
Year
Tackles
TFL
Sacks
PBr
Int
Honors
NFL
Larry Foote
2001
82
26
6
7
0
ABT, BT DPOY, 1 1st team AA
4th round, average starter
Pierre Woods
2003
67
14
7
N/A
2
ABT (2nd)
undrafted, end of roster
Victor Hobson
2002
99
17
6
1
0
ABT(1st), 1 4th team AA
2nd round #53, average starter
Ian Gold
1999
95
10
4
2
1
ABT(1st)
2nd round, #40, 1 Pro Bowl
Shawn Crable
2007
90
28.5
7.5
1
0
ABT(1st), many second-team AA
3rd round #78
So there are two gentlemen here with eyepopping TFL numbers: Foote and Crable. Crable is out despite his Michigan record of 28.5. The defense this year was terrible against the run. Crable himself spent much of the year at defensive end against the spread, frequently gave up contain when not making his TFLs, took a bunch of personal foul penalties, and was the final goddamned nail in Michigan's coffin during the Horror. No.
Foote, on the other hand, is in, as the only Michigan OLB to come down with Big Ten defensive player of the year honors in Carr's tenure, and the only one to pick up a first team AA nod. For the other spot you're really splitting hairs between Hobson and Gold. My personal preference is for Hobson, who I remember being more of a safety blanket for me. Hobson was also the one really good player on a front seven featuring Zack Kaumfan as one of the other linebackers and a line of Rumishek-Bowman-Heuer-Stevens. Gold got to play with Dhani Jones, Rob Renes, and James Hall.
So there you go: Larry Foote 2001 and Victor Hobson 2002 join Harris.
Second Team
In 1996, Jarrett Irons finished up this third straight year of more than 100 tackles and was named a first team All American by multiple outlets. Sam Sword ('97 and '98) and Dhani Jones (2000) can't measure up.
The outside linebackers: Gold and Woods from above.
Cornerback
Charles Woodson, 1997. This needs absolutely no justification, but I can give you plenty anyway. In 1997 Woodson had eight interceptions, second-most in Michigan history (Tom Curtis had ten in 1968) despite being avoided as much as humanly possible. Michigan finished #1 in total defense, scoring defense, and pass efficiency defense en route to a perfect 12-0 season and a national title.
And, like, all this stuff:
Update: oops... should probably include the Woodson highlights.
He also won that Heisman thing.
The obvious out of the way, we're left with two candidates for the other starting spot:
Leon Hall, 2006. Hall was a Thorpe finalist and first-round NFL draftee and the best player in Michigan's secondary during their other great defensive year. Minuses: could to little to stave off Troy Smith's passing in the Ohio State game and got dusted by Dwayne Jarrett late in the Rose Bowl.
Marlin Jackson, 2002. This was actually Jackson's sophomore year. In his first game he spectacularly battled Washington's Reggie Williams, who would be amongst the top receivers drafted that year, into an unproductive game. He would set a Michigan record for pass breakups in a single season.
Again, we're splitting hairs here. Both players were physical corners with great technique. Both were outstanding tacklers. Both were a little vulnerable deep. My slight preference is for Hall, who was slightly higher-rated by the NFL and made all manner of subtly excellent plays in 2006.
Second Team
Jackson 2002, obviously, and then how about Jeremy LeSueur in 2003? LeSueur came a long way from his "brain freeze" against Michigan State in the Spartan Bob game. In 2003 he was second-team All Big Ten and Michigan's best corner on their excellent 2003 Rose Bowl team. He essentially shut out Mike Williams back when Mike Williams gave a damn. Unfortunately Markus Curry got burned twice by Keary Colbert, John Navarre was under siege all day, and USC got gifted a fluke touchdown when Braylon Edwards back-heeled a ball right to a Trojan defender, but none of that was LeSueur's fault. He was drafted in the second round by the Broncos.
Safety
This has been by far the weakest position over the course of the Carr era. The only All-American listed by the Bentley Library is Ernest Shazor, who was indeed an All-American up until the moment he disemboweled Dorien Bryant and saved the 2004 Purdue game. After that, uh...
And, like, there's more. (That first video was posted by a Spartan, who gloats that Shazor is slow and Spartan Bob must have crowned the field at the Big House... in a video from the 2004 Michigan-Michigan State game! Remind me how that turned out again? Sparty, no!)
Anyway, Shazor earned his rep the first half of the season and... er... blunted it in the second half. By the time the NFL draft rolled around, Shazor had plummeted all the way out of it. He cannot be added to the list.
Who's left?
Marcus Ray, 1997.
Ray's senior year in 1998 was marred by a six-game suspension for contact with an agent, so 1997 was it for Ray. It was a pretty good it, though: one #1 ranked pass efficiency defense, one SI cover, one national championship.
Jamar Adams, 2007. Don't get me wrong, Jamar Adams was a fine safety. I can tell because I didn't hate him despite his existence during the era when I carefully comb over every play the defense makes in case there's something to hate therein. Any college team would be totally satisfied to have him as one of their starters.
But Adams is the only player on the first team to never make first-team All Big Ten (he was second-team) and is one of very few to go undrafted. As one of Michigan's best safeties over a 13-year period, uh... that's depressing.
Second Team
There is no second team. Seriously: Julius Curry? Tommy Hendricks? Ryan Mundy at West Virginia? There is no second team.
Now that Lloyd Carr is spending his days golfing and his nights at manga conventions, it's time to go over this career. First we play nice, assembling the Carr Era dream team. First up: the offense.
Rules: each season is judged independently. It makes no sense to compare one year of Drew Henson with four years of Chad Henne. Each player can only appear once: no receiving corps of Braylon, Braylon, and Braylon.
Navarre has the most yards, touchdwns, and interceptions but he also has the most attempts by over 100. His YPA was a healthy 7.3, but Brady (7.6), Henne (7.6), and Henson (9.0!) exceed it. He's out. Griese goes, too, as the pilot of an efficient-ish but by no means dominant 1997 attack. His YPA also falls short. Mallett... uh.
We're left with Brady, Henne, and Henson. You know all about Chad Henne, whose senior season might have dusted everyone on the list if he had, you know, got to play it. Brady is the god-king of New England, currently siring a litter of future foot-bots with supermodels. Drew Henson is nothing, a failure at both football and baseball, the man who subjected all of us to John Navarre's 2001 season.
And... he's the guy. 9.0 YPA is ridiculous. 18 touchdowns against 4 interceptions is ridiculous. Completing over 60 percent of your passes for almost 15 yards per is ridiculous. Doing all this despite missing Michigan's opening tomato can games against Bowling Green and Rice is even more ridiculous. Michigan's 2000 offense scored 30 or more points in nine of twelve games, lit up Penn State, Ohio State, and Auburn to close out the year, and averaged 34 points per game. Henson benefited from a host of weapons, a killer offensive line, and that year's nightmare secondary (which forced Michigan to keep the pedal to the metal at all times), but... Jesus, the numbers don't lie. Damn you, Steinbrenner.
Second Team
Tom Brady 1999. I spent the first half of the Orange Bowl screaming, writhing, pounding the floor, begging them to "throw it to Terrell." They did, eventually, but only after finding themselves in a 14 point hole.
Third Team
Chad Henne 2006. Sigh.
Note: two of the best three seasons from a quarterback under Carr were from juniors whose senior seasons more or less didn't happen. How much different does Carr's legacy look if "Henson 2001" and "Henne 2007" are two of the top three?
Wide Receiver
First Team
And now for the least surprising selection ever ever...
Name
Year
Rec
Yards
Avg
TD
Braylon Edwards
2004
97
1330
13.7
15
Braylon's 2003 season is a close runner-up, but two things put his 2004 over the top: sheer production (12 additional catches and about 200 more yards) and the single most dominating performance by a Michigan wide receiver in the last six minutes of an embarrassing loss turned ridiculous victory ever:
Yeah, a winrar is he. Now we're left deciding between these gentlemen:
(Toomer isn't eligible since he left right before Carr's first season (1995), but I just wanted to throw out his stats so I can ask this question: how in the hell did Amani Toomer average over twenty yards a catch and only have six touchdowns?)
There's not much to choose from, but some context: Manningham managed to haul in all those passes despite being saddled with Ryan Mallet a third of the year and a broken Chad Henne for another third. Walker was the lone threat on Michigan's dire 2001 offense helmed by a not ready for primetime John Navarre. TE Bill Seymour was next on Michigan's receiving charts with 27 catches. The year before, Terrell had Walker as a competent sidekick and Drew Henson throwing to him.
Could it be that Mario Manningham's 2007 season, which virtually every Michigan fan was disappointed with, was the second-best in the Carr era? Maybe. But I remember David Terrell as an all-around threat who could beat you deep or catch a slant, and though he flamed out in the NFL he was the #8 pick in his draft year. I
Second Team
Walker 2001 and Manningham 2007 are significantly better than their challengers...
I will accept my stoning at noon tomorrow: it's not Mike Hart. It's not even close to being Mike Hart. Hart's best season was probably his junior year, wherein he had 1562 yards on 318 carries, 4.9 per. He had 144 yards against Ohio State in a sorta-kinda close loss.
In 1995, some guy with a funny name did this:
His name was Tshimanga Biakabutuka, and in 1995 he had 1818 yards on 303 carries, six yards per. 313 of those came against Ohio State in a 31-23 win. 1818 yards remains the Michigan single-season rushing record. Michigan football comes up regularly in conversations with my mother and about twice a year she lingers over the many syllables of "Tshimunga Biakabutuka" two or three times apropos of nothing. He was selected in the first round of the NFL draft and during the brief period in which I played fantasy football, he was always but always on my team, injured half the time (always when playing) and running for 160 yards and two touchdowns the other half of the time (always when benched).
And I wasn't even a little mad.
Second Team
Statistically, this is Anthony Thomas. His 2000 season is the second most-prolific in Michigan history, with 1733 yards at 5.4 YPC and 18 touchdowns. And if it's not Anthony Thomas, it's Chris Perry. In 2003 Perry rushed for 1721 yards and 18 TDs at 5.0 per. Against Michigan State he set an all-time record with 51 carries. In the history of game-worn jerseys, his is the most worn.
But... Mike Hart's offensive line in 2006 was Jake Long and four guys who can only see an NFL game if they buy a ticket. And he never fumbled. And he windmilled his little legs and stoned Dan Connor over and over again, and I just like him better. So it's Mike Hart 2006, with apologies to the aforementioned duo.
Fullback
First Team
I guess it depends what you want in a fullback. Do you want a quasi-tailback? Then BJ Askew's your guy. Do you want a quasi-tight end? Aaron Shea's your guy. Do you want someone to crush a linebacker into a white-hot furrow of snapped limbs and smoke?
Maybe I've been hopelessly biased by this lingering image of Chris Floyd giving the business to some poor Wisconsin defensive back (in the snow, no less), but for my money Floyd was your #1 limb-snapper fullback in the Carr era. He was such a badass that Michigan gave him the ball some 30 times his senior year lest he eat one of the freshmen.
Second Team
If Floyd was the #1 limb-snapper, Chris Dudley was 1A. He plowed a path for Mike Hart's breakout freshman season. Also, Owen Schmitt didn't play at Michigan or under Carr but he did play for Rich Rodriguez, who has met Lloyd Carr, and is so awesome that we should figure out some way to claim him, too. We will never rest until everything good about West Virginia has been appropriated for our purposes!
Joppru came from nowhere to be John Navarre's safety valve and go-to third down receiver his junior year. He is now the shining archetype of a bad-senior-gone-good that excessively optimistic types trot out every fall when things like "Chris Graham, starting OLB" are suggested. Tuman caused Michigan fans to fall in love with the waggle. 1996 was actually Tuman's sophomore year; his '97 was slightly less productive and by '98 his YPC came down to around 9.
This is terribly close and depends on what you value. 16 YPC out of a tight end is something else, but Joppru was the Jason Avant of 2002. Joppru seemed to be more integral to the offense, with a knack for spectacular catches and critical third down conversions, and was more highly regarded by the NFL, so I think he wins.
Second Team
Tuman; flip a coin between '96 and '97.
Offensive Line
First Team No stats here, but no need:
LT Jake Long, 2007. All American, first pick in the NFL draft.
LG Steve Hutchinson, 2000. Two-time All American. Four year starter. Probable NFL Hall of Famer.
C Rod Payne, 1996. All American.
RG David Baas, 2003. All American, Rimington Award winner (in 2004).
RT John Runyan, 1995. All American. Long time NFL pro bowler.
Holy God. The best way to sum up this collection is to list the players left out: Jeff Backus, Jon Jansen (All American, 1998), Maurice Williams (longtime NFLer), and Jonathan Goodwin. There is some weakness at guard, where Damon Denson was the best prospect left out and David Baas' junior season was used so Rod Payne could get on the hypothetical field.
Second Team
LT Jeff Backus, 2000 LG Jonathan Goodwin, 2000 C Dave Pearson, 2003 RG Damon Denson, 1996 RT Jon Jansen, 1998
1/1/2008 - Michigan 41, Florida 35 - 9-4, 6-2 Big Ten 1/2/2008 - West Virginia 48, Oklahoma 28 - 11-2, 6-2 Big East
Fireworks, Hong Kong.
Every year in February, people around the country who happen to be something other than Chinese vaguely recognize the existence of the Chinese New Year, a holiday that seems simultaneously old and strangely futuristic, much like the odder outposts of Chinese cooking. ("Oyster cake." The mind reels.) Chinese people, of course, go nuts for the biggest holiday on the calendar.
It's later than it should be, it's flashy, enticing, and rousing, and it seems vaguely superior* to old fashioned New Year's largely because of unfamiliarity: the past two days have been Super Chinese New Football Millennium for Michigan fans.
It was nice to send out the old regime with a rousing win. It was better to see it happen with an offense that looked remarkably similar to Rich Rodriguez's spread 'n' shred. And, truthfully, it was better still to watch West Virginia carve the nation's #9 scoring defense into Sooner tots and hold the nation's #3 scoring offense 15 points under its average. Hell, if West Virginia wasn't forced to play Ryan Mundy they would have yielded two fewer personal fouls and one fewer 60-ish yard pass reception and possibly turned the game into the laugher it always threatened to become.
Rich Rodriguez put that team together, and though he was absent the framework of that team's offense and defense were his responsibility. That team's offensive and defensive coordinators will be Michigan's offensive and defensive coordinators. That team's recruiting coordinator will be Michigan's recruiting coordinator. And that team was a national-championship-caliber one cobbled together from quarterbacks LSU wanted as a wide receiver and terror-beast fullbacks from Division III schools in Wisconsin.
This might have been a good hire.
Meanwhile in Orlando, Michigan put on a show that was at once tantalizing and depressing. Let's be clear: Michigan's ability to put up numbers like this would not have saved them against Wisconsin and Ohio State, when Ryan Mallett and Chad Henne's busted shoulder combined to put up the worst back-to-back quarterbacking performances in Lloyd Carr's career, but it's impossible to watch Michigan refuse to punt after the first quarter and not wonder "what if" about a half-dozen games over the past decade. Even the one standout piece of Lloydery, Michigan's final run-run-run-oops-let's-FG drive, was apparently the result of a screwed up Henne check instead of Lloyd Carr giving his old "how to lose in the fourth quarter" playbook one last spin.
(Not that there should have been the option for a run check there anyway, and it is mighty suspicious that Henne would prefer said run, as it makes no sense unless you've undergone some serious protect-ball-all-costs brainwashing. But nevermind all that. It doesn't matter.)
And any questions about said lose-it-late playbook were obliterated when Ron English did what he'd done all day: make the Florida offensive line look like Ohio State's in the Not Fiesta Bowl last year. He attacked.
The whole team attacked; the whole team looked entirely different, like a group of people determined to make the future something of their own devising. One of the most frustrating aspects of the Carr era was the frequent appearance that Michigan is coached like it is afraid of a poor outcome. For an example, check any late-game punt from inside the opponent's 40. Too often Michigan has passed up the right call in favor of the safe call, and it has cost them.
But not this year, and not in the future. Michigan took control of the Heisman winner, battering him until his final pass wobbled skyward and fell to the ground. West Virginia met every attempted Oklahoma comeback with a thunderous riposte. No shells. No idly hoping things fall your way. No waiting to be given something. Reach out and take it. It's a new year.
Bullets:
And so it goes when Michigan plays the SEC. Even leaving aside the Vanderbilt game, Michigan is 5-1 against the home of "southern speed" in their last six bowl matchups. Why does the SEC suck so much? Why can't they be competitive against us? Am I enjoying being as parochial and narrow-minded as virtually every football fan south of Maryland? No, not really.
Do we like the 3-3-5 a little more now? The final numbers were respectable for Oklahoma -- 419 yards and 28 points -- but WVU was ahead so much most of the night that OU was in desperation mode from midway in the third quarter on. OU's final two drives netted a useless 76 yards as WVU was correctly in a full-on prevent; without those this team held OU 100 yards under its season average. (This is obviously not quite fair, but if WVU had been grinding the clock out instead of, like, scoring on the first play of every drive those yards would never have happened; WVU's D faced 14 drives, a hefty total.)
And that was with OU almost literally holding on every play, the sort of holds that get called "egregious" by the announcers, not the sort of holds Penn State fans envision whenever someone in a winged helmet deigns to block anyone. OU picked up a half-dozen holding calls; another half-dozen must-calls went unnoticed. WVU dominated one of the most grinding, powerful offensive lines in the country with their speed and angles. They did this without the use of their best defensive lineman for most of the night.
Jeff Casteel would be A-OK by me.
FOX is a terrible network to watch college football on. At points during the Fiesta last night we were treated to the following instead of onfield action: 1) an ad for some stupid movie, 2) an inversion of the "dingle berry" picture that lit up the hur-hur-hur sections of the blogosphere earlier this year, and most egregiously 3) completely inert Gatorade containers. Anyone who wasn't Pat Haden was completely useless.
B&B made mention of this, and it's true: the gap between Mike Patrick and Todd Blackledge is immense. Blackledge made the most salient point I've heard an announcer make all year when he pointed out that though Tim Tebow has a gazillion rushing yards and touchdowns, he's not Dennis Dixon or Armanti Edwards and the threat of Owen Schmitt taking off and rumbling through your secondary just doesn't come with the same elevated threat level. I actually said out loud to no one in particular "huh. That's a really good point." Meanwhile, Mike Patrick called Arrington "Harrington" for most of the first half.
The one downer in an otherwise schwing kind of game yesterday was the parade of personal fouls; twice WVU got not one but two on the same play; both times one of the offenders was Mundy. This is probably a fluke; I'll take a look at RR's penalty yardage over the years at some point in an attempt to confirm. Also, we can blame that on interim head coach Bill Stewart.
Achtung, pounding PA FB/HB Christian Wilson and your potentially iffy commitment:
This offense... it's not so bad for you.
(*Less chance of waking up with a raging hangover and an ominous creaking/neighing sound coming from the other side of the bed; also the parades seem way more fun.)
What happened, considering Miles' earlier indications that he wanted to return home to the school he played at and was an assistant coach under Bo Schembechler?
A source close to the situation said what was always a close call was pushed the breaking point by the two-week interval between Carr's retirement and the SEC title game, and the combination of LSU's hefty contract offer and the ESPN report on game day made Miles opt to stay.
The source would not comment when asked if Carr's silence on Miles candidacy - widely interpreted as a sign of animosity between the two men and Carr's opposition to Miles succeeding him - was a factor in the decision.
...[Miles] had been in contact with Michigan through back channels for weeks. Through intermediaries, Miles’ representatives and Michigan were hammering out the terms of an agreement.
Miles knew Michigan was prepared to offer a five-year deal. He knew how much money Michigan was prepared to offer. He was fine with it.
But the key word here is “prepared.” Despite what you may have heard or read, this was never a done deal.
Never.
And Miles knew it.
Rosenberg's theory is that the money getting worked out was but a prelude to a job offer, not the result of one:
Martin was not going to hire a coach without an extended one-on-one interview, and he couldn’t conduct that until after Saturday’s SEC title game. ... He just needed to know the Michigan job was his. And Michigan couldn’t make that promise.
This is scenario A: Martin, weirdly, operates in an inverted paradigm where you work out the financial details of a contract, then interview for the job. Michigan went through the first portion of this process with Miles agent and a tentative agreement was reached on the numbers.
This explains the "done deal" stuff as soon as the Ferentz thing passed. This also explains the weird split on the information I was receiving: pro-Miles guys knew about the tentative agreement and made the reasonable assumption any sort of "interview" would be strictly PR, since a 36-6 coach who loves the university more than life itself is obviously the best man for the job. Meanwhile, guys nearer the search committee were hearing that Miles had to dance for Carr and Martin as part of a full search process that, given Carr's strident opposition to Miles' candidacy, could well end with no offer.
The source from the LSU side of things is very well connected and offers up this explanation of events from the other side:
Vincent (AD) evidentially gave Miles an ultimatum. He told Miles that if he was considering the UM job that he would be fired on the spot and not be able to coach the SEC championship game.
So Miles told his agent to work out the details with LSU for a contract extension. That’s why he went on ESPN at 1:30 and sounded as though he was totally pissed off about Herbstreit. Had Kirk not said anything and ESPN not reported on the rumors, Miles may have talked to Martin yesterday.
This has been widely mongered on the internets, and though it seems far fetched -- LSU would fire the head coach on the eve of the SEC championship game? -- please consider this is the South and crazier things have happened in the SEC. Hell, Michigan fired Frieder on the eve of the NCAA tournament. It could have been a bluff, but put yourself in Miles' spot: LSU has threatened to fire you unless you agree to a contract extension. Meanwhile, Michigan refuses to assure you that you'll be offered the job and you know elements of the athletic department wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire. Do you take the risk of calling the LSU bluff and possibly finding yourself without any job?
Well, you probably call Michigan frantically to see what's going on, to give them an update of your situation, and attempt to work something out now. Which is apparently what happened. And Michigan did not respond. Thus the press conference and Miles keeping the LSU job. If you are so inclined, you can hear some bitterness in Miles' postgame press conference:
I certainly love Michigan. I love Michigan. I will always be a Michigan man. I will always root for the next head coach there. I will wear those colors when it comes down to the Ohio Michigan game. I'm going to root and pull for the Blue, and they will eventually win that game (laughter).
There's a proud tradition, and they have to do the things they have to do. I'm for them, and if there's any way I can help them, I'd love to help them. But I'm not going there. It saddens me at times. I can't be at two places.
On Saturday I wondered what an extra 500k or 1m per year would do for an already rich man, as if it was Miles' fault he wasn't coming to Michigan. I don't believe that anymore. This was a colossal screwup by Bill Martin, aided by Lloyd Carr. But they probably don't see it like that. They see it as protecting the program.
How do you not have an extended one-on-one interview with the man obviously most qualified for the job at this point? Michigan has known Carr was retiring since September, and Martin knows literally dozens of Miles' friends. Hell, John Wangler is his BFF. Call Wangler into your office, have him call Miles, and have a goddamn interview on the phone. There is no excuse for failing to hammer out whatever potential differences existed months ago. All this interview stuff is purely for show if we are operating under the assumption Martin has an IQ above 60.
We do assume that around these parts, so the inescapable conclusion: Michigan essentially passed on Miles. If Michigan really wanted Miles, Michigan would have him. That much was made clear by Miles' season-long "woo Michigan" campaign of newspaper articles and TV appearances. Hell, the week of the Ohio State game you couldn't turn on a sports talk station without hearing Miles wax poetic about Bo. Everyone near the program knew Miles wanted the job more than anything. He loves the program.
But his love is unrequited. That has a tendency to embitter people towards the object loved. When LSU made it very clear they wanted Miles, had no reservations about him, and were willing to make a hefty financial commitment to prove it, it was an easy decision. Michigan wanted him to prostrate himself. Good football coaches often being prideful, this was not likely to happen, especially with the pressures imposed by LSU and ESPN. Thus: this.
Two weeks ago, Carr retired. In his press conference he stridently declared he would have only a minimal role in the search and that the timing of his retirement would have no effect. Two weeks later, he maintains plausible deniability. But only just.
Assorted bullets:
If Michigan hires someone who fails and gets fired real quick, the Herbstreit report will be the fan equivalent of the Kennedy assassination. Who told him? Was it, as Miles suggested, "an Ohio State plot"? Miles said that in jest, but the way everything worked out could not have been better for OSU.
There are two main theories on the leak: Desmond Howard, his ESPN co-worker and a member of the search committee, and Jim Tressel. Howard obviously has a vested interest in not telling Herbstreit anything. Tressel, OTOH, is interesting: that move would be the Machiavellian genius I now, sadly, expect from Tressel whenever Michigan blunders into his path. The "AND they're getting Tenuta!!!" bit is apparently without even the slightest grounding in real life -- Tenuta denied having even spoken to Miles yesterday -- and implies that maybe the whole thing was just batty nonsense. Who would have the pull with Herbstreit to say "and, like, Tenuta, dude" and get it aired? (Not that Herby is complicit here; the theory is he's Tressel's dupe.)
That is totally crazy, sure. But maybe I'm a little crazy.
Debunking myself: we assume that Herbstreit actually unearthed anything because he was the guy who said it. If you believe this, you are forced to believe that Mark May is busy unearthing all sorts of scoops. Hell, he's finding out who our next coach is right now!
Another possibility: someone else at ESPN heard it and it was put in pretty boy's mouth to make the talking heads look more credible.
More in the Rosenberg piece:
Two people familiar with the process say Cincinnati coach Brian Kelly is not a candidate. He will not be a candidate. I don’t have a specific reason, but Kelly has rubbed people the wrong way at various points in his climb up the ladder.
Great. Raise your hand if you think the 1968 version of Bo Schembechler would be even slightly considered by this set of decision makers. That's what I thought. "Rub people the wrong way"... the entire athletic department has been infected with this crap.
List of people guaranteed not to rub anyone in this AD the wrong way: Jim Grobe, Mike Debord, Brady Hoke, Ty Willingham.
What now? Schiano's name is getting thrown about a lot, as is Tedford, but by media folks. Given the way the search has gone so far, with Michigan high on Ferentz early (yes, I screwed up my first post about the Ferentz situation, but he was a very serious candidate), lukewarm about Miles, and apparently uninterested in Kelly, it's clear Michigan has different priorities than sane most people.
It appears they're actually serious about the Lloyd clone bit... but who is that? Terrifyingly, Grobe seems the closest.
So much for "light posting." I'll continue to update over the weekend as coaching search things trickle in; nothing big but if there's news I'll post it.
11/14/1907 - Fielding Yost 1, New York Times 0
On November 14th, 1907, the New York Times announced that Michigan's current coach, beleaguered by accusations he had relied too heavily on one star player, had decided to hang up his spurs after the big season-ending game against Penn. The coach of a team in the south, a Michigan alum, was to replace him. The news, as they say, was fit to print.
Yost coached Michigan until 1926, winning national titles in 1918 and 1923. The New York Times overcame the embarrassment.
Late on December 7th, 2006, The Birmingham News reported that Rich Rodriguez had accepted an offer to become Alabama's head coach. I struck up an IM conversation with resident Alabama Fanhouser Pete Holiday, forwarding along the link and offering up congratulations for what looked like an excellent hire. Pete's reaction was interesting. Paraphrased, it was "that's the Birmingham News; it's worthless." Sure enough, Rodriguez announced he was staying at West Virginia soon after. Pete Holiday 1, Birmingham News 0.
Four days ago -- as much of the sports media world scoffed at this blog and its report that Lloyd Carr would retire -- ESPN, the AP, and a whole host of other outlets reported that Houston Nutt was gone based on a brief article at a local news station. The result? Not so much:
"It seems some media outlets chose to falsely legitimize baseless rumors today with unknown details from unnamed sources without first seeking the benefit of fact from the university," UA spokesperson Tysen Kendig said in a statement.
Score pending on this one; Nutt's probably gone anyway.
The lesson in all this: consider the source. The Birmingham News, apparently, is not a reliable institution. Political bloggers will argue the same about the New York Times or Fox News. Embittered quasi-journalists with subscription models to protect and about half of Official Journalists will argue the same about MGoBlog. Various kind commenters and this blog's track record will argue otherwise.
The obvious counter-argument is that other than the bit about "falsely legitimizing baseless rumors," that Arkansas spokesperson could have been speaking directly about me. The sources were indeed unnamed, the details unknown, and this blog did not seek the benefit of fact from the University. However, this is all in the richest tradition of the media. Anonymous sources have been the backbone of reporting for fifty years -- thanks to the Fanhouse, it took me sixty seconds to findthreeexamples in the past day -- and I had anonymous sources with track records and details. If it was a rumor, everything the media does other than write down quotes from press conferences would be rumor. It's not a rumor.
Meanwhile, columnists and quasi-journalists groused that Carr should have "his day" and not be subject to these terrible rumors before the time came, as if Let's Be Nice was part of the credo of journalism.
Why did I post it? It was true. Why did others keep it quiet? Either to protect their access or because they didn't have the sources.
You pick the journalist out.
And, hey, I was right. Mostly. It would be nice if I hadn't backed out on the stridency of my declaration the next day based on some contradictory scuttlebutt. It was hard to stick to my guns with so much riding on it. I was nervous.
But Lord, give anyone a solid internet report that causes a kerfuffle and then two wishy-washy MSM things that say nothing clearly caused by the solid internet report and newspapers will leap to report it. A fairly typical example:
Earlier this week, PA Sportsticker reported Carr was leaning toward retirement with a formal announcement coming as early as next week, according to a source close to the program. Teddy Greenstein of the Chicago Tribune reported Tuesday that "two industry sources with connections to the program" told him they believe Carr would retire after the season.
The website PA Sportsticker — which bills itself as “the global leader in sports information” — reported Tuesday that “Carr is leaning toward retiring as the Wolverines’ coach,” adding an announcement could come next week.
First, what the hell is the PA Sportsticker? And what kind of track record does it have? And does Teddy Greenstein know anything? I mean this honestly: Teddy Greenstein knows two guys who "believe" Carr would retire after the season. I know 107,501 people who believe the same. "Believe" is not news. "Expected" is not news. "Is" is news.
Meanwhile, ESPN led that night's 6 PM Sportscenter with the "is" news, attributing it to "internet reports." This is because ESPN is an awful corporate monolith with no ethics whatsoever. Anyone who expected better hasn't been paying attention.
(As SMQB details, ESPN's bias is not so much against blogs or the internet; it's against everything that isn't itself. Over the past few years ESPN has proven time and again that they will steal scoops and claim them as their own no matter their provenance -- no matter how implausible it is that Mark May has learned anything. Bloggers and newspapermen alike can join hands and sing a song of omitted attribution, credit assigned to talking heads instead of scouring fingers.)
Virtually none of the aforementioned save the Daily and, oddly, Dienhart managed to reference the post without getting some snark in, but whatever. I have personally ripped on every single one of the above guys or institutions; I can take some eyerolling about BLOGS(!) as long as readers are given the opportunity to judge this site on its content, which I believe speaks for itself.
That's all I'm asking, and all blogs should ask for: a chance to be judged on their merits. If newspapers and other media outlets refuse to allow your readers access to the primary source you're referencing, this is not "responsibility." You have replicated the "rumor" and passed it on; you have contributed to the maelstrom. You've made it worse by allowing it to flap in the wind, unsourced, instead of tied to a specific, very blamable person.
Ignoring the source of news is not journalism. It's the arrogant assumption readers that are incapable of judging the trustworthiness of a source for itself, the fear that once loosed into the great wild yonder they will find your content tepid, and the tacit acknowledgment that meritocracy is very bad for you.
PS: It has been brought to my attention that recently, this blog neglected to properly attribute the evocative picture of Ohio State coming in wholly unfettered on Mike Hart. This was an oversight: it's the work of Vijay from iBlog For Cookies. From time to time, I end up with something from a message board or email that I have forgotten the provenance of; if this ever happens please notify me and I'll make sure you get credit.
I have not seen it covered in print anywhere but I have heard Bill Cowher's name mentioned again n a few circles....I know he was rumored at one point right after he retired from the Steelers .....and now they are back.....any thoughts? any ties to U of M in any way?
Cowher's name gets thrown around by any school looking for a new coach these days, but AFAIK there has never been any official or unofficial but insider-sanctioned indication that Cowher was a serious candidate. It seems unlikely Cowher's interested in returning to coaching at all; he now lives in North Carolina but turned down NC State, his alma mater, last offseason.
Brian,
I agree that this year sucked, and a large part of the blame has to go to the coaching staff, for reasons that you've documented and that are painfully reiterated on your message boards every day. Perhaps this year would have gone better if this staff was coaching the team. However, I don't think you can blame Coach Carr for hanging on too long. When should he have retired? Maybe after the 2005 season? I suppose. But we have to remember how last season went. There may have been mutterings about Debord's playcalling and that sort of thing over the course of the 11-0 start, but only the most horribly pessimistic of Michigan fans were calling for Lloyd's head amid the Yakety Saxing of Notre Dame, the gutty win over that otherwise-perfect Wisconsin team, and the AMFB assassination of Morelli. 2006 was a great season.
The OSU game was a classic, a well-coached, evenly-played game that might have gone differently had a safety stepped up to make a tackle, or had a questionable late hit not been called, or had any number of things happened. Not that OSU didn't deserve to win, but still, you can't have expected Lloyd to retire after that.
The Rose Bowl might have been a sign of a washed-up coaching staff, but it was just one game, and a coach who loses his confidence and drive after one bad game is one who never gets a job at Michigan in the first place. Plus, retiring in January could have seriously hurt last year's recruiting class, and as rough as this year was, what would have happened had Mallett and Warren decommitted and Carlos Brown transferred? Plus, he was returning perhaps the best back in Michigan history, a fourth-year starter at quarterback with a rocket arm and robot nerves, a severely badass first round pick at left tackle, and at least two big-time receivers, and going into what promised to be down years for ND and OSU. You projected and 11-1 season. You can't blame Lloyd for giving it one more go.
Should he have retired right after Appalachian State or Oregon? I say no. You say Mike and Chad and Jake deserved better than this, and I think Lloyd had their best interests at heart when he decided to stick out the season. Stability in the coaching staff was probably still the best chance they had to salvage a Big Ten championship and Rose Bowl win, considering that anarchy seemed to be breaking out in the locker room, and landing a top out-of-the-program coach in mid-September would be very, very difficult. Lloyd's resignation would have led to Debord or English as interim head coach, which would likely not have resulted in any more wins this year, and would mean that the interim coach would be more likely to be retained. I know for a fact that you don't want Mike Debord or Ron English to be the next Michigan head coach because I've seen a picture of your trapper keeper.
That was way longer than I meant it to be. Part of it is me venting after watching the presser; part of it is me procrastinating work. So take it for what you will. But I would like to know when you think Lloyd should have resigned. I think that he knows exactly when to quit, and that this is the perfect time. Yeah, he was stubborn and arrogant and made questionable hires and retentions and all that, but I believe that knowing when to go, and doing it with dignity and class, should preserve his legacy as a guy who loved Michigan and put the best interest of the program before his own arrogance and stubbornness as well as he could.
Geaux Blue.
John Eagal
John makes a convincing case here that I won't disagree with entirely. I do think leaving at the right time is leaving before you have a year like this one; Carr wanted to leave after last year and probably should have.
There's plenty of evidence Carr lost his fastball after the OSU game last year. Michigan was beset by an unprecedented rash of discipline issues from Chris Richards to Johnny Sears to Eugene Germany to Carson Butler to Mario Manningham. The special teams, other than Zoltan (praise be his name) and Kicking Competency Lopata, were atrocious. The offensive line was throughly whipped at key positions and forced to re-insert a clearly out of shape Alex Mitchell late in the year with predictable results. Michigan was completely unprepared to take on a I-AA foe in the first game of the year. All of these things point to a team that suddenly went from pretty well coached to very poorly coached, probably because Carr didn't have the energy for the job anymore.
I know he said he wasn't tired in the press conference, but he also said...
"...I still have a great passion for the game and the players and the competition. But I also know that there are some things that I don't have anymore. So, it's time. That's all I can say to you."
...which is basically "I'm tired and can no longer execute all the things I need to if I am to keep this job." This is a remarkably self-aware thing to think and perhaps Michigan's saving grace in a situation that could have gotten (more) depressing if extended indefinitely. See also: Penn State, Florida State. Carr stayed on a year too long, IMO; John's right in thinking this would have been really hard to perceive in anything other than hindsight.
Hi Brian,
I was wondering if you (or gsimmons et. al.) might expound on the philosophy of a “running” quarterback in college versus preparing for the professional game.
I had the opportunity to watch the WVU – Cincinnati and Texas Tech – Oklahoma games on Saturday evening. Obviously, Pat White, Ben Mauk and the TT quarterback (name escapes me) are very active within their offensive schemes. Yet, this does not seem to be something that’s valued at the professional level. Michael Vick had limited success. So, if one the purposes of college football is too groom quarterbacks for the pros and the professional teams do not embrace that offensive philosophy, why implement it? As a high school quarterback, whose ultimate goal is the NFL, I’d be leery of a scheme that would not prepare me for that level.
Am I totally confused or is there some merit to my thought process?
The thing with Michael Vick (and, to some extent, Vince Young) is that neither of them would be in the NFL if they didn't have the athleticism they do. A certain subset of quarterbacks are only NFL prospects because of their combination of arm and legs; it's hard to envision a system that would have prepared Vince Young or Michael Vick better given their skillsets. They have to be on the field, and the best way to keep them on the field is to start them off with simple things they can do and expand those things as their skills improve. You could clearly see this trajectory with Young, who went from a glorified running back to an actual quarterback over the course of his time at Texas. (Michael Vick's two-year supernova was too brief to detect any real development.)
So no, I don't think guys like Vick or Young or this year's uber-recruit Terrelle Pryor look at an offensive system predicated on taking advantage of their mobility as a negative. If forced into Michigan's offense they would likely fail, and benched guys don't often make the NFL.
There is a theory out there that seems plausible, though: as more and more teams move to the spread option, appealing places for the Peyton Mannings and Tom Bradys narrow, increasing the chances Michigan has at a smooth progression of highly-touted pocket passers. Personally, I would rather Michigan recruit whoever wants to come and fit the offense to their skills rather than adhere solely to one archetype, and Miles appears to agree.
Brian,
I thought I would drop you a note to tell you a short story about Lloyd Carr, given that he is retiring today and given that you are the guy that broke that story. I am a 36 year old attorney in Chicago. I didn't go to the UofM for college or law school. My Dad, however, grew up in Dexter, Michigan (just outside Ann Arbor) and attended Michigan's law school between 1964 and 1967. He developed a life-long love for Michigan football. In 1979, when I was 8, he took me to my first game, a 49-0 shellacking of Northwestern. I was hooked. For the next 28 years there has been no sports allegiance (or religious one for that matter) that I have valued more than the Big Blue. In the intervening years, my Dad and I watched some astonishing games in Ann Arbor -- the two that stick out most were our near upset of Miami in 1988 and the comeback I never believed possible against Michigan State in 2005. Tim B's ripping OSU for over 300 yards was also obviously a great moment.
In January 2006, my father was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. This was a crushing moment in the life of my father and my family. In the days and weeks that followed, we reeled. Several weeks after his diagnosis, I drafted a lengthy letter to Lloyd Carr explaining who my Dad was and what he was going through. In an utter shot in the dark, I asked if he wouldn't mind placing a cold call to my Dad to give him a pep talk and tell him to hang in there. Several weeks later, Lloyd Carr left a message on my folks' machine at their home, offering his words for encouragement. In a bit of irony, my Mom (not understanding the significance of the message) DELETED it before my Dad could hear it. But still, I was pretty darn impressed that Lloyd had responded to that letter out of the blue and placed a call to a man he didn't even know.
Here is where, in my mind, an already great story gets better. Lloyd called back. About a week later, he made a second attempt to reach my Dad, this time calling from his car phone. He reached my sister instead and left a message. My Dad was touched to the core by Lloyd's overtures. I, for one, was pretty surprised that a person with Lloyd's schedule wouldn't consider one attempt to reach out sufficient. It speaks volumes.
You can say a lot of things about Lloyd Carr. But can you say more than that he is the type of person who will pick up the phone and call someone he doesn't even know in order to help them along? I don't think so. Aside from the national championship, the top recruiting classes, the top 10 winning percentage, the great record against the Top 10 -- at core, Lloyd Carr is a good human being who cares about others, even others he does not know. As Lloyd announces his retirement today, and for days hereafter, I will never, ever forget what he did for my Dad. If you want to share this story with others, feel free. If not, read it knowing that it's additional evidence for how lucky we were to have Lloyd Carr as part of the Michigan pantheon.
Last November Lloyd Carr stood in a steel-gray Michigan Stadium to eulogize his mentor and friend Bo Schembechler. This is who Carr is when not beset by irritants on all sides; it stands as a tribute to both men.
Michigan is not going to replace this.
In many ways, Carr was an accidental coach. But not in all ways.
"Before I take any questions I do want to address one issue of the timing of this announcement. My timing is based on one thing: What's best for Michigan. What's best for Michigan football. There are no other motives. This announcement is made at a time when the recruiting process can be handled in a way that this program can go forward. To do it any later, to do it after a bowl game, would've been absolutely ridiculous. I did it for this program, as I've tried to make all of the decisions that I've made since I've come here. So, any of those rumors about anything else... This is much to big to be about me or somebody that's gonna coach here, and I want to make that clear."
This is obviously a direct response to the irresponsible speculation going on in the mainstream media about what the timing of Carr's announcement says about his relationship with Les Miles; Carr later pointed out the precise rationale behind the "this is for recruiting" claim:
"Rather than me go out and waste visits - a head coach only gets one visit when he goes in to a recruit's home or in to his high school - this timing will enable, when that coach is named, [him to] immediately go and visit those kids and secure those commitments. Plus, we have 7 or 8 left that we wanted. It's about holding on to a recruiting class. Because if this recruiting class falls apart, 4 years from now there's a hole in Michigan football. The only important thing here is this program. It's not about me. It'd be easier for me to wait, because I wouldn't have to be here today. It's about this recruiting [class]."
If Carr were to stay on he'd either have to waste those visits or inexplicably not take them. Carr was asked directly about Miles:
"When it gets to discussing any potential candidates, I defer to Bill Martin. This process will be developed and executed by Bill, so I'm not going to get into all of the things that are his job.
I can say that there's a lot of things happening along the recruiting trail. It's a very competitive business. Those are things that you put to rest. For some of those rumors that are out there, I'm not going to answer all of them. I'm not going to talk about candidates, because that's not my job. I do want to make it clear that I'm not here to name the coach and all of that baloney that some of you have written."
This is as close as we'll ever get to an admission from Carr that he was pissed off by some of his head-to-head battles with Miles over certain recruits, most prominently cornerback Jai Eugene, who decommitted from Michigan to attend LSU late in the year. So, yeah, Carr would probably prefer someone else, but he's also made it clear that it's not his call. Also, irresponsible speculation is again bashed. For shame. Hang thy heads low, ink-stained wretches, hang thy heads low.
Carr said two things about the program going forward: Miles is not my favorite; I won't interfere if he's the choice. Given the widespread support for Miles amongst other important players (both literally and financially), that should be a small hurdle.
Meanwhile... Bill Martin also did his share of media-talking, taking what looks like a direct shot at the man in Palo Alto:
“I want to know how many driving-under-the-influence (citations) a potential coach has had,” he said. “I want to know if he's a deadbeat in terms of paying his bills. I want to know anything that is a pattern in terms of past behavior that could be an embarrassment to Michigan.”
That number is "one" for Harbaugh, two less than his count in the all-important "public outbursts that accuse the program of impropriety" category. Next.
“It was very disappointing to me,” Martin said of those comments. “It clearly did not reflect Michigan and I think if you were to talk to his teammates from that era, they would think the same.”
When asked if that would hurt Harbaugh’s candidacy, Martin said with a sarcastic laugh, “Brilliant Brilliant.”
(Have we signed a secret marketing agreement with Guinness?) Not that this is news, but Michigan isn't going to hire a guy who's won three games in I-A.
Martin said he hoped to have a new coach by the end of the year.
“That would be great,” Martin said.
... “I want to find a former high school history teacher,” he said, “because that's what Lloyd is.” Martin said he probably could find coaches who would equal Carr's winning percentage of .752. “But will they represent the university in all the ways Lloyd has?” Martin said. “That is going to be tough.” ...
“After an emotional loss, what do they say? How do they look?” Martin said. “Those are the important things.” ...
“It's far more than just winning on Saturday,” he said. “These positions aren't jobs. They are a way of life.”
The "coach by the end of the year" thing is mildly alarming. More later. Now, bitchy copyediting snark opp:
He said he would consider paying the next coach $2-3 million a year, commiserate with the top salaries in the game.
Commensurate!
And one last article highlights an area certain rumored candidates are deficient in:
Head coaching experience: "You've got to have experience to come here. This is the winningest college football program in history. Lloyd has pushed that percentage rate up. To me that's the benchmark. This is not time to experiment (with coaches). This has to be a very careful, considered process."
This would eliminate Mike Trgovac, not that he seemed a serious candidate to begin with.
Back to the now. The idea that Michigan will press Miles for a departure soon after the SEC Championship Game is beginning to take hold in certain places, including some insider mutterings (insider mutterings that, I would like to make clear, in no way constitute anything remotely solid) that are beginning to make their way across the internets.
Miles' most recent press conference, the one in which he steadfastly refused to answer questions about his coaching future, had an interesting interlude related to this:
"It's unfair to Michigan to say that they should. It's unfair to me and my team. I promise you this, what I'm doing is what you should do — let it rest. I'm playing football for LSU. I love this team."
Miles teared up and paused for 15 seconds before composing himself. "And I'll not do anything to hurt it," he said as his voice broke. "Any questions?"
Miles finds himself in a difficult position. The job he's always coveted has come open for the first time in 40 years; this is his only opportunity to ever be head coach at Michigan. Remarkably, he is kinda sorta busy leading his current team to a potential national title.
I don't like the idea of Michigan pressing Miles to leave LSU while the national title remains in play. If the Tigers lose before bowl season, sure, pick him off and move on, but a national title is too rare an opportunity to trifle with. Miles is clearly broken up about potentially screwing this up for his players and LSU in general; if we're serious about maintaining the integrity Martin lauds as a key component of the Carr era and the program going forward we should acquire Miles in a fashion that does the least damage possible to our new coach's current set of kids. Get a commitment from him, then let him finish the year.
Besides, hiring the coach of the reigning national champions would be a PR coup that would offset whatever disadvantages there are to hiring a coach January 8th instead of in mid-December. There's a two-week recruiting dead period at the end of the year, so the functional difference there is two or three weeks at most. Michigan should wait it out.
"To give you an analogy: You always know you're going to die one day,'' punter Zoltan Mesko said. "But it's a different feeling when that day is actually here.''
Haven't you self-scouted, son? Oh, Notre Dame fans, you are so deeply hilarious at all times:
Lots of talk will circulate, as it already has, about Les Miles taking Llloyd’s place, but frankly we at HLS can’t imagine why anyone would want to take this job, in the middle of such a nightmare scenario. As Llloyd Carr has proven over the course of 13 years, you can’t do much more than kinda, sorta win half a national title and a few conference titles in an extremely mediocre conference.
Indeed. Michigan in the Carr era: 121-40, one national championship, two BCS bowl wins, five conference titles, five bowl wins, no losing seasons. Notre Dame over that same span of time: 94-62, no national championships, no bowl wins, four losing seasons. Michigan's "nightmare scenario" -- 8-4 -- is better than Notre Dame has done 6 of the past 11 years.
Also hilarious. College Football News has fallen off the radar around these parts recently, but it used to be a regular target of derision for a simple reason: it regularly publishes the dumbest stuff you can think of about college football. Pete Fiutak on the Michigan job search:
For all you LSU fans worrying about the distractions with the Michigan head coaching job opening up, let me help you sleep well tonight.
Les Miles absolutely, positively will NOT be the next head football coach at the University of Michigan.
Wow, he must have some super secret inside sources and a really good reason for saying this...
We’re talking about IBM here. We’re talking about North Carolina basketball. We’re talking about a football program that’s the equivalent of a dish of vanilla ice cream topped off with a vanilla wafer while being cheered on by 111,941 fans about as boisterous as a glass of warm milk. Miles would be a double dose of rainbow sprinkles, and that's not Michigan football.
...or he could just be making stuff up so he can deploy his awesome rainbow sprinkles analogy. This isn't nearly as bad as Matt Zemek's column/novella on the Georgia-Florida game, which I believe to be the worst single item ever written about sports, (it's apparently disappeared from CFN, or at least the link has changed, so the previous is a message board C&P) but it's pretty mindbogglingly stupid.
Argh, stupid. The All Big Ten teams are fairly remarkable. Would you believe Chad Henne is the coaches' pick for All Big Ten? O rly? Ya rly. The media went with Boeckman; Kellen Lewis was second-team to both. I'm not about to comb through old All Big Ten teams, but this has to be the first time the teams have different first-team QBs who don't appear on the other team even in second place.
Also, this is a yearly complaint but whatever: the defensive teams are so frustrating. The media's first team All Big Ten defense has four defensive ends, three middle linebackers, and four cornerbacks. The coaches managed to get Iowa DT Mitch King on the first team but succumb to all corners and all MLBs, too. I could maybe see the argument that all linebackers are basically the same and the really good ones tend to get shoved into the all-important middle linebacker spot, but DEs != DTs and CBs != safeties. In the bowl interregnum I'll put together a second annual MGoBlog All Big Ten, and it will acknowledge the existence of, you know, reality.
Etc.:Carr-related quotes from the Freep; Ty Wheatley talking to CSTV re: OSU (warning: pre-game, contains woofing that sounds silly now).
A day after I trash the Free Press for focusing on things like Tae Bo instead of information, Mark Snyder puts out an interesting piece about the '97 championship and the ballboys that saved it. This is literally the headline: "How 2 ballboys stopped opponent's signal stealing, saved UM's 1997 title."
Hats! Hats for all! And to all a good night!
