The person who began our descent into mediocrity, but gets none of the blame: Lloyd Carr

Anthony Wright had an interesting take. He said if Lloyd Carr retired after the 2003 season "like he wanted to," then Michigan could have hired Les Miles or another coach to avoid the whole Rich Rod/Hoke era and kept up with OSU.

Harbaugh has a better winning percentage than Lloyd and so far and has not lost to App. State or been upset by lesser opponents like Lloyd had on his resume' (other than MSU in 2017.)

Like I said to my friends this weekend it may take longer to beat OSU given the current landscape of college football.  The dynamics and recruiting are totally different than they were 20 years ago.  This is not going to be a quick 5 year fix.  Harbaugh has the train going in the right direction just be patient.

Carr’s team was ranked #2 going into the OSU game in 2006. Maybe he should have retired at the end of that year, but we have no idea who would have been brought on to replace him then (Les Miles would have taken the job but would Martin have made the hire considering internal resistance?).

We should have had the guts to hire Harbaugh rather than RR. Mallett and others would have stayed and we wouldn’t have gone 3-9. 

This is all Bo's fault. He brought Harbaugh here. He brought Lloyd here. He made us good again and gave us these expectations. He wouldn't cheat. Effin bastard ruined our program.

This will go well....

Dumb

LLLLoyd at the end was the problem.  He took the pedal off the last couple years from a recruiting standpoint, Tressel built a machine, handed it off the most corrupt coach in college football, no matter what a cheating pig, took the recruiting-talent to another level and now Day has a window to keep it going.  Talent will always trump (euchure, not President) coaching.  Bottom line, how many of our starters would be ahead of their counterpart on the OSU depth chart?  Maybe Bredeson on O? Hill as 2nd or nickel DB?  

There's a reason the finger gets pointed at so many different people (might as well throw Bill Martin in there too). Because the biggest problem with Michigan is Michigan. We are an arrogant, incestuous program that systematically rejects new ideas. That is why we are always behind the curve. 

Bacon's books are incredibly enlightening to this fact. Did you know that the reason Rich Rod hired Shafer as his DC is because he was on such a limited budget for assistants that he couldn't afford the guy that had coached for him for years and was the reigning coordinator of the year?

We need to stop thinking we are above everyone else and just play the game the rest of them are playing. We have the resources to be a top 5 program. There's no reason it can't happen.

We lost Saturday because of Lloyd Carr?

You're an idiot.

Carr meddled for sure but JH has had enough time to turn around the program. I think he has, but OSU is better than they ever have been and playing a different game. UM isn't getting past them anytime soon.

Thank you for the FuegoBox spicy hot take of the week

No, you are wrong.

It was that fucking Fielding Yost, who set an impossible standard to live up to in 1901, outscoring opponents 550-0.

It's his fault.

If there was no Yost, Justin Fields would not have made that scramble and TD pass with a brace on his knee.

Admit the truth.

I'll agree in part. 

Carr the last 3 years or so was, I think, tired and weary of the HC job.I think this really helped to start our decline. I'm not sure about the 'cupboard bare' argument, other than that he may have been positionally weak. Just because the

'02 class was 14th overall with 1 5 star and 7 four stars

'03 class was 5th overall with 2 5 star and 9 4 stars

'04 class was 6th overall with 1 5 star and 12 4 stars

'05 class was 5th overall with 2 5 stars and 8 4 stars

'06 class was 10th overall with 1 5 star and 8 4 stars. 

(all information from 247 sports. https://247sports.com/Season/2006-Football/CompositeTeamRankings/)

Those are decent classes. But as I said I didn't get into them positionally. 

I don't know about what he did with RR; but it sounds like it was decently documented; and yes, that helped in our cratering. 

All that said, RR was a $hit Show and likely would have been without Carr meddling. It's been stated before that Mallet was going to leave as soon as he came in because he didn't want to be in the read option (I've also heard he may have been leaving had Carr stayed anyway).  The man had a decent offense that wasn't great against good defenses but could shred alot of other teams; and seemed to think of good defenses the way I thought of proper nutrition in college 'Yeah, that'd be a great idea!. Finally I've read the basically abandoned recruiting in the State to MSU; and went in search of Florida talent. More than one HS coach I've read about disliked the guy. Carr may have hurt him but he would have failed regardless. 

Hoke meant well, and recruited well, and was a mess on the field. I never want to see a mess like concussion gate again. 

The only positives out of those eras that I can think of is that none of those folks were so focused on winning that they allowed a Nassar, MSU, or PSU type scandal come in; and for that I am profoundly grateful. 

Lloyd did less with more.  Those teams had outrageously good talent.  He could have buried Tressel his 1st year but gave him life   

Then he walked with no transition plan and left a shit show. 

Urban did the real damage with his recruiting.  Harbaugh has righted the ship and needs to keep fighting for it.  

Our biggest problem as a fan base is treating everything that is occurring as though it is the continuation of a bygone program.  That somehow Bo, Mo, and Lloyd and the Michigan program of the 70s, 80s, and 90s is but another chapter in a grand legacy of Michigan football.

The year is 2019.  Michigan has not been nationally relevant since roughly 2000 with a blip here and there, and even before that, 1997 was a snapshot in time, not sustained excellence on a national level.  Harbaugh is attempting to make Michigan something it has never been.  My guess is that it is considerably harder than he expected, and considerably harder than we expected.  It may not happen.

It isn't Lloyd Carr's fault.  Carr coached the only two teams that I have watched in Michigan during my lifetime that I would call truly excellent teams.   The game is not even the same as it was when he was coaching.  Recruiting has changed, transfer rules have changed, divisions have been created and reorganized and the conference landscape has been flipped on its head.  Carr may not have handed the program off gracefully but nobody forced Rodriguez to play a style of play, immediately, that we simply could not play and go 3-9.  With the personnel on that team, if he would have been remotely adaptable, that team could have gone 7-5 easily and the "rebuild" mantra wouldn't have even been necessary.

The primary issue with the perception of the Michigan fan base is that all we are seeking is the "continuation" of something already achieved.  Michigan never was that Michigan.  We badly want it to be, but we have not lost something, we simply can't find something we have been looking for for a long long time. 

Yeah, no shit.  I think everyone here knows that UM's decent to a program behind OSU started with Carr basically mailing it in, hanging on too long, and living in the previous decade.  OSU started to modernize under Tressell too and that's when things really went downhill in the rivalry.  This was a Tressell vs Carr thing that persists to this day.  Not to mention the Carr era players and staff trying to destroy the program when Rich Rod was hired.