The person who began our descent into mediocrity, but gets none of the blame: Lloyd Carr
For the past 12 years, we've been passing the buck on why we can't beat OSU. It's RichRod, it's Hoke, it's JH, etc.
However, the more and more we struggle, it becomes clear that Carr was responsible for cratering the program in the first place, and no one has been able to clean up his mess since. He wasted his last five years in the program by becoming complacent and too loyal to his assistants, and clearly fell behind the curve on things like the spread. He also wasted insane amounts of NFL-caliber talent, such as (but not limited to) Mike Hart, LaMarr Woodley, Steve Breaston, Mario Manningham, Chris Perry, Jake Long, Leon Hall, etc. He quickly fell behind Tressel in coaching and recruiting, and the end was near.
But his crime wasn't struggling against OSU, but rather what he did when it was finally his time to step down. From interfering with the coaching search, to encouraging players to transfer when RR was incoming, to promoting his buddy Hoke when the job came open again, to many other transgressions, he's clearly set the program up to fail in his image.
I know a lot of people love to praise Carr as a "class act", and in many ways his upstanding work for things like Mott and helping his proteges and players indicate that he's a decent human. But his meddling in the program set us up for a decade of failure, and to remove us from the elite of college football. He deserves a ton of the blame that we've only won once since he's left, and it might be too much for any coach, even JH to resurrect.
December 2nd, 2019 at 10:48 AM ^
Michigan historically has been a 9-10 win team. That is what it is now.
If you think 9-10 wins is mediocre then you think UM has been mediocre since Crisler.
December 2nd, 2019 at 10:53 AM ^
Carr was in an impossible spot... impossible.. and he recruited Ohio like a champ.... don't forget he had Bo looming above him..... They knew what was coming with Tressel... instead of hiring him or doing more to block Tressel, Bo referred to him as "a snake in the grass" which to me seems sour grapes. Tressel began to win consistently...and thats the difference... our opportunity was to bring on someone who could keep up with Ohio.... Ohio would have sent Carr out on the spot and replace him with Dantonio at Cinci, the one guy who can beat Tressel, and keep getting the Ohio recruits. Those too young here, don't know how they sent Earle Bruce out on a rail, and he was a decent coach, because it started to slip, and he even beat Michigan and they still canned him!!!! THAT IS THE DIFFERENCE... Instead, Carr sticks with his guys, and they played well until the end.... but the succession plan was epic fail.... Bo was too old, and Martin had no business being involved... thus there were no proper elders above him to assist here. Carr was busy trying to coach. He tried to promote DeBord, and as much as Brian hates him, I'd much rather have had this alternative history of DeBord succeeding Carr., than the horrific tangent starting with RR, that has us where we are.
December 2nd, 2019 at 10:53 AM ^
This is stupid. College football was well on its way to its current present state, in which bagmen, meaningless bowls, and gross inequality predominate, long before Lloyd Carr. (Michigan, btw, has numerous advantages over most schools, just not enough of them over OSU.) And--yeah--Carr undermined Richrod, who I had high hopes for. But in retrospect it's probably better that things went the way he did. Richrod was not destined to win big here. We have a coach who's on course to win ten games in four of five seasons, better than Lloyd did, and better than any current coach in the conference. Shut up and live with it. Or get a room. That goes for you and you and you, too! Get off my lawn!
December 2nd, 2019 at 10:55 AM ^
Lloyd didn't tell our senior captain to jump on a 4th & 4 from mid field...
December 2nd, 2019 at 11:04 AM ^
Come on..why not blame Bo for hiring Carr?
It wasn't Carr's fault that several seniors, like Manningham, left the program early and Boren went to OSU when RR came on board. I believe some of that was due to RR's having a scheme he was going to run regardless and didn't have the personnel to do so. RR had largely average or below coordinators on D which didn't help. A pretty good Les Miles might have also come here had our fine AD at the time decided to be a bit more aggressive, not go on a vacation and maybe did things a bit more quietly.
December 2nd, 2019 at 11:32 AM ^
Or Congress for authorizing establishment of the university?
December 2nd, 2019 at 5:27 PM ^
Joe Roberson hired Carr. Bo Liked Lloyd as a person, didn't think much of him as a head coach, but always supported him for the good of the program.
December 2nd, 2019 at 11:08 AM ^
However, the more and more we struggle, it becomes clear that Carr was responsible for cratering the program in the first place, and no one has been able to clean up his mess since.
Pile on the OP all you want, but he's right. He did not hold Harbaugh blameless - "no one has been able to clean up his mess since." That includes Harbaugh. Do you think something that happened in 2005 can't have any bearing on something that is happening in 2019? That's insane.
There was a clear fall-off in Lloyd's last four years. We had a ton of NFL talent, an OSU that was very good but not as good as they are now, and a Big Ten that isn't as good as it is now, and managed to lose a total of 14 games. This included, of course, four straight in The Game. Then there were Carr's subsequent actions in the coaching searches, as described by the OP. You may be tired of hearing it, you may not want to discuss it because it was 12 years ago, but neither of those things matters or makes the OP's claims untrue.
The point I'm making, and I think the point the OP was making as well, is it's not either/or, but both/and. As in, it's not either Carr's fault for starting our decline or Harbaugh's fault for where we are now, but it's both. And as others have explained, at a systemic level, it's our refusal to adapt to the modern game in various ways (modern both at the time in the 2000s and today).
December 2nd, 2019 at 11:24 AM ^
I knew this would be an unpopular take, but I tend to agree with you. After 2003 Lloyd's recruiting and staff hires really tailed off and began the slide into irrelevance that still continues.
His coaching tree absolutely sucked and left us with no obvious heir to replace him other than Les Miles, which he then torpedo'ed. If we had at least hired Les when Lloyd left we obviously not suffered through RR and Hoke and I am confident we would still be better off than we have been under Harbaugh.
Lloyd was a class act in many ways and a solid coach, but the slide 100% started with him.
December 2nd, 2019 at 11:41 AM ^
Carr has been retired for TWELVE seasons now. His 2nd to last team in 2006 was ranked #2 in the country going into the Ohio State game.
Blaming our troubles 12 years later on Carr is just stupid. How many millions have been paid to the coaches since then? Maybe they needed to do their jobs better?
December 2nd, 2019 at 12:13 PM ^
Beginning of the end was 2005, and was ensured in 2009 when he told all the players to leave.
December 2nd, 2019 at 12:54 PM ^
In what alternate universe did Lloyd Carr tell all the players to leave in 2009?
That story was a pile of crap even when it was being told "accurately"; it's gone completely off the deep end now.
December 2nd, 2019 at 1:08 PM ^
He told him.
December 2nd, 2019 at 12:14 PM ^
I bet Lloyd Carr even supports people taking online classes.
December 2nd, 2019 at 12:21 PM ^
Lloyd Carr went 122-40 as HC at Michigan with 5 B1G championships. He left a stable of talent for the next coach, including 9 returning starters on defense, both starting WRs, QB, most of the OL and TE.
So shut the fuck up imbecile.
December 2nd, 2019 at 1:09 PM ^
He 86'd Les Miles. You know it.
December 2nd, 2019 at 2:03 PM ^
A whole lot of people were ready to 86 Les Miles. And, yes, Carr was one of them.
Miles is the kind of HC able to text a player after he's checked into his dorm room for the year to let him know he's taken away his scholarship. The athletic program's still run by people who think that sort of thing's way out of line. The fanbase is split on questions like that, and at a high level. It'd probably be a healthier program if those issues could get hashed out in public someday.
December 2nd, 2019 at 1:45 PM ^
Lloyd Carr most likely would have never been promoted to Head Coach if Moeller wouldn't have made an ass out of himself. He was Defensive Coordinator material at a Power 5 school, not Head Coach.
His offenses were boring, predictable and his teams often played to the level of his competition. When having to compete against teams with better coaching he often lost. Tressel owned him. His team was responsible for the most embarrassing loss in our program's history: Appalachian State.
He frequently underutilized talent and even pissed off Tom Brady so much, that he used that as motivation to become the greatest QB in NFL history. Belichick is on record saying that he couldn't understand why Brady's coaches at Michigan weren't saying better things about him prior to the Draft.
I don't understand why people cannot separate Lloyd Carr, the excellent man from Lloyd Carr, a mediocre to poor head football coach. And I don't give a shit if he was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame. I watched every one of the games he coached and if Charles Woodson wouldn't have saved his butt in 1997, the program might be in a completely different and better spot than it is now.
People often forget that Harbaugh applied for the QB coach position at UM after his playing days were over but Carr gave the job to Loeffler instead. Scot fucking Loeffler has had atrocious results everywhere he is gone. Imagine getting a fiery, uninhibited Jim Harbaugh at the start of his prime, instead of giving it away to San Diego, Stanford and San Francisco? You can thank Lloyd for that too.
December 2nd, 2019 at 1:57 PM ^
He left a stable of talent for the next coach,
Ummm. Threet and Sheridan?
Mmmkay!
December 2nd, 2019 at 5:56 PM ^
Threet was a perfectly serviceable drop-back QB and probably would have been fine in Carr's offense. He didn't fit Rodriguez's, but I don't see how that can be laid at Carr's feet. It wasn't his job to recruit for the next guy's scheme when he didn't even know who or what that would be.
December 2nd, 2019 at 8:57 PM ^
Mallet, Arrington, Manningham, Carson Butler and most of the OL were on the roster the day Carr stepped down.
Whatever happened after that day is not his responsibility.
Look up the facts, before you speak next time.
December 9th, 2019 at 12:59 AM ^
You're a fucking moron if you think a personal train wreck like Mallet would have made it through his eligibility at Michigan if he stayed.
December 2nd, 2019 at 12:25 PM ^
We are officially off the deep end and beyond the BPONE now.
December 2nd, 2019 at 12:30 PM ^
Harbaugh can’t beat OSU, or even really be competitive, in year five and it’s Carr’s fault? That’s painfully stupid.
December 2nd, 2019 at 1:03 PM ^
Tressel made Lloyd Blink. We have never recovered.
December 3rd, 2019 at 1:13 AM ^
This.
Carr created the OSU monster. He allowed a shit ass OSU team that finished the year 7-5 to come into Michigan Stadium and make good on Tressell’s guarantee against the 10th ranked team in the land. Michigan was down 23-0 against a team led by a QB making his first career start before they even scored their first points.
Even OSU people thought Tressell was a clown for having made that guarantee. Carr could have buried this guy right out of the chute but instead Tressell was elevated to god like status in Ohio in the aftermath of this victory. OSU has never looked back. This is where the series turned forever. Thank you Lloyd for not having your guys ready to play on that day.
December 2nd, 2019 at 1:23 PM ^
Harbaugh would play Lloyds last game as coach (beating Urban Meyer) to his coaches it might sink in.
December 2nd, 2019 at 1:31 PM ^
Never post again.
December 2nd, 2019 at 1:41 PM ^
I get what you're saying, but since Harbaugh has been here we are exactly what we were with Carr. You are under the impression that Michigan was elite at some point, but that's not true.
December 2nd, 2019 at 2:14 PM ^
He wasted his last five years in the program by becoming complacent and too loyal to his assistants, and clearly fell behind the curve on things like the spread. He also wasted insane amounts of NFL-caliber talent, such as (but not limited to) Mike Hart, LaMarr Woodley, Steve Breaston, Mario Manningham, Chris Perry, Jake Long, Leon Hall, etc. He quickly fell behind Tressel in coaching and recruiting, and the end was near.
But his crime wasn't struggling against OSU, but rather what he did when it was finally his time to step down. From interfering with the coaching search, to encouraging players to transfer when RR was incoming, to promoting his buddy Hoke when the job came open again, to many other transgressions, he's clearly set the program up to fail in his image.
Don't forget just deciding to retire from actually recruiting players about two years before he finally stepped down. Those shit recruiting classes gave RichRod some real dregs to try and implement his system with.
You're 1000% correct, OP. I've been saying it for years but no one wants to hear it because he won half a national championship last century. Everything that's plaguing the program - the inability to be modern, the lack of recruits, the one-sided curb-stompings at the hands of Ohio State - all of it originated with Lloyd. Appalachian State showed us but everyone is still wearing the 1997-tinted glasses.
December 2nd, 2019 at 4:55 PM ^
I agree with you and the OP completely. Many people are just being willfully obtuse in their replies. We can't look at something that happened in the mid-2000s and see that it has an impact in 2019? Bullshit. The gap between us and Ohio State - and the associated inability to win the conference - started when Carr got lazy his last few years, it accelerated greatly in part because of Carr's interference in the coaching searches, and now here we are. But, but, but... he won a national title with Moeller's players, so we can never criticize him.
December 2nd, 2019 at 2:20 PM ^
He gets an untouchable status because he won it all.
December 2nd, 2019 at 2:45 PM ^
This is all a stretch, going back to 2007 and the fallout since then. How about looking at the Ohio State side, hired Tressell who vowed to beat Michigan in his first year and then did it. How about Urban Meyer to got more speed and high powered offense?
It's really unfair to blame Lloyd Carr for 2019. I would agree about losing to Ohio State under Rich Rod. Hoke got one win when Luke Fickell was the coach in there 6 and 6 year in 2011.
So I respectfully disagree about the blaming Carr. Under Harbaugh, he needs to keep improving the offense and then get a new DC. How long can anyone blame Lloyd Carr? Next 10 years? Will it ever end?
December 2nd, 2019 at 6:38 PM ^
All these dipshits think it takes decades to recover from a coach who leaves a program in disarray.
Regardless of the kind of shape the program was in when Lloyd left it, a good coach could have turned it around in a fairly short amount of time. Like you said, Cooper left OSU at a down point and Tressel came in and turned that shit around within a year. Same thing when Meyer took over after the Fickell debacle.
There are countless examples of programs that were turned around quickly by the right coach. The idiots in here don’t want to acknowledge that, 5 years in, “THE SAVIOR” has come up woefu short of expectations. So they point to the guy who hasn’t coached a game in 13 years, and had far more success than Harbaugh has had, as the real issue.
It’s so delusional that It’d be almost comical if so many people didn’t actually believe it.
December 2nd, 2019 at 3:00 PM ^
Buckeye dickwipe Steinbrenner gets involved, and so instead of Tressel's first time in The Game going into the Big House against a veteran Drew Henson, he gets a not-quite-ready John Navarre. That doesn't happen, that game's probably different.
The games the next two years go as they did. Carr's 2-1 against Tressel going into 2004, maybe with a little momentum that game doesn't have such an inexplicable result.
The next two years were the killers. 2005 and 2006 were both a play here, a play there, and that just really sucked. 2007 was mailed in by an injury-riddled team and a coach who'd been through an awful start to the season and knew he was done.
Maybe without such a painful falling-behind against Tressel, someone besides Rich Rod wants to come here in 2008, the resulting cratering is mitigated, and Brady Hoke is never hired, because Urban vs Hoke is where we really got left in the dust, even though his teams did play them tough.
"But we've fallen further behind them under Harbaugh than under Hoke!" I can see why one could say that, but I just don't think it accounts enough for the utter dumpster fire Harbaugh had to put out and clean up. We were giving away tickets for buying Coke.
Maybe all of this is wrong. But I think we need to be past pinning it all on Lloyd. Ohio State made a conscious decision to cease the facade of the "student athlete" and just win football games. Michigan has not and likely will not.
December 2nd, 2019 at 3:39 PM ^
We aren’t mediocre. We’re a top 10 program. Ohio State is just oodles better than everyone else in the country over the Harbaugh time period except maybe Alabama and Clemson. We aren’t those 3 teams. I guess if that makes us mediocre then ok.
December 2nd, 2019 at 8:30 PM ^
Wrong. Harbaugh's prior four teams have averaged finishing at No. 18. We are right on track.
December 2nd, 2019 at 3:45 PM ^
He won a national championship. And this was so long ago why bring it up?
December 2nd, 2019 at 5:18 PM ^
A- Any idiot could have won with that team (see Carr, Lloyd)
B- The decline started on his watch and he intensified it by being an asshole during the search.
December 2nd, 2019 at 4:45 PM ^
Lloyd Carr and Mack Brown both led their teams down a path of mediocrity. Two fine coaches who stayed 2-3 years too long. Texas and Michigan are in similar situations years removed from those two being cast aside.
I always hoped Jim Tressel would do the same at OSU. He was heading that way, his last couple classes were starting to taper off and by 2013-14 he might have had one wheel in the ditch. Depth wasn’t being restocked. Instead those bastards fall face first into scandal and spend one year sucking before being better than they ever were under Tressel.
December 2nd, 2019 at 5:42 PM ^
Lloyd took his foot off the gas.
Rich Rod rode the break too much.
Hoke flat out put us in reverse.
December 2nd, 2019 at 9:06 PM ^
It's the philandering LES MILES. His affair with Moe's wife drove Moe to drink and have 4 consecutive 4-loss seasons, culminating in a wild night @ The Excalibur..
December 3rd, 2019 at 12:41 AM ^
why your point regarding NFL talent sucks:
Mike Hart - Hesiman trophy finalist, played injured through his entire career
Mario Manningham - was a first-team All-American, played well in The Game, solid NFL career
LaMarr Woodley - All-American, first round draft pick, played well in The Game
Steve Breaston - NFL vet, played well in The Game
Chris Perry - played on teams that beat Ohio State, won the Doak Walker, first round NFL draft pick, injuries in the NFL cut his career short
Jake Long - played on teams that beat Ohio State, 1st pick of NFL draft, multiple year Pro Bowler
Leon Hall - played on teams that beat Ohio State, first round NFL draft pick
These guys were all GREAT college football players. Ohio State fans would agree with that. They had nothing to do with why Michigan didn't beat Ohio State.
December 3rd, 2019 at 8:12 PM ^
Next hot take: “It’s just this war, and that lyin’ son of a bitch Johnson!”