Lloyd Carr

All these posts about Lloyd (good and bad) got me thinking. The team sure had a lot of great accomplishments during his tenure, and I think it's best to reflect back on the good times, rather than focus on the bad. Here's some interesting numbers I found on the intertubes about Lloyd's regime. Granted, since the intertubes are known to be wrong, wrong, wrong, feel free to point out any mistakes here.

• 5 Big Ten Titles in 13 seasons (1997, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2004). These include shared titles. Only the Bucknuts have more over that period, and they have 6. But, 3 of those titles were earned in the last 3 years so they were quite a bit behind until recently.
• 4 other seasons Lloyd coached the Blue to a 2nd place finish in the Big Ten. In fact, his worst finish was 5th 1996. Yeah, I was surprised 2005 wasn't the worst.
• 10 of Lloyd's players have been picked in the first round of the NFL draft.
• His AVERAGE wins per season was 9.4...not too shaby.
• His average finish in the coaches poll and the AP Poll was 11th. Michigan was only unranked to finish the year once while he was coach, whereas the Bucknuts finished out of the top 25 3 time over this period.
• He was 28-28 vs. the top 25 during his career. (Used some of Brian's great post here for that info: www.mgoblog.blogspot.com/2007/10/lloyd-carr-versus-coaching-greats-plus....)
• 11-15 vs. the top 10. That's a 42% clip. That might not sound great, but looking over Brian's post shown above, if you take into consideration only coaches that have taken part in 20 games against the top 10, only Bobby Bowden can hold Lloyd jock here as he is winning at a 43% pace in these games. Tom Osborne (God of Nebraska) only won 32% of such games.
• Michigan was pretty sack-tastic for Lloyd. They led the Big Ten 3 times in his career, most 1st place sack finishes during that time period amongst the Big Ten.
• We all know that Woodson won the Heisman in '97.....but here's a great list of other national awards under Lloyds tutelage:
  • Walter Camp - Woodson '97
  • Vince Lomardi - Woodley '06
  • Doak Walker - Perry '03
  • Bronko Nagurski -- Woodson '97
  • Fred Biletnikoff - Edwards '04
  • Chuck Bednarik - Woodson '97....geeezzz he really cleaned up that year...
  • Dave Rimington - Baas '04
  • Ted Hendricks - Woodley '06
  • 12 of Lloyd's players were voted First Team All Americans.

Alright, that's about as much fun as I'm willing to have on this right now. Actually it was kind of interesting researching some of this information. Maybe I'll try to dig up some more stuff at another time. Again, if you see any mistakes here, feel free to correct me.

On a side note, there might not be a funnier award than "Academic All Big Ten". I looked over the names on that list during Lloyds time as coach, and basically you'd see about 4 or 5 names you've never heard of and then 1 where you're like, oh....wow I had no idea this or that person actually got good grades. Most interesting to me was Brian Griese. Sure, he's well spoken, but man did he do some dumb ass things in his day. But, then I think about my buddy who went to Northwestern Law...he's a total moron sometimes. I don't get it. Anyway, here are some more names from that list that you should know: Rob Renes, Tom Brady (is there any stopping his awesomeness?), Jon Jansen, Drew Henson (?!), Jason Avant, Tyler Ecker, Will Johnson, ZOLTAN!!!, Adam Kraus (what's with all the O-lineman? It seems stereotype would label these guys as dumbasses), and of course almost as awesomer than Tom Brady is Mr. Jake Long. Seriously, someone needs to hook him up with that Sports Illustrated Swimsuit cover model or something.

No, this is not a team full of people named Lloyd.  Rather, in stark contrast to (and perhaps inspired by) Brian's Anti-Carr team, the Freep has put out their list of Lloyd Carr's Deservedly Appreciated All-Stars (maybe not quite in those words and sorry johnny at RBUAS for ripping you off so unabashedly):

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/gallery?Site=C4&Date=20080721&Category=SPORTS06&ArtNo=716002&Ref=PH&Params=Itemnr=1

OL: Jake Long, Steve Hutchinson, Rod Payne, David Baas, Jon Jansen

RB: Mike Hart, Anthony Thomas

WR: Braylon Edwards, David Terrell, Jerame Tuman (TE)

QB: Tom Brady

CB: Charles "Drink my wine" Woodson, Leon Hall, Marlin Jackson

S: Marcus Ray (and sorta Jackson as well)

LB: Jarrett Irons, Sam Sword, David Harris (was it not possible to find a game photo of Harris???) 

DL: Alan Branch, Glen Steele, James Hall, LaMarr Woodley,

K: Jay Feely

P: Adam Finley

After reading the mgo.licio.us article about Penn State and their supposed "Spread HD", there was an inset link to this article: http://www.altoonamirror.com/page/content.detail/id/509133.html?nav=5017

If you replaced "Joe Paterno" with "Lloyd Carr" and each corresponding PSU person with its Michigan equivalent, it would still sound just about right. (even the part about not throwing passes over the middle).

My opinion of why Michigan has always been successful against PSU was that it was looking at a mirror-image of itself. While Michigan typically struggled against teams that didn't employ their Pro-Style offense, Penn State's straightforward "conservative" playcalling played right into Michigan's hands. Of course, while we as Michigan fans could grumble about it from our own perspectives, it's always interesting to hear the same words being said about another team with similar deficiencies (hence, the Altoona Mirror Article linked above). Here's an excerpt of how it could have read if it were written about Lloyd Carr-era Michigan Football:

ANN ARBOR - Michigan can have all the offensive weapons in the world, but it won't matter if Lloyd Carr insists on being conservative.

Carr needs to do several things for the intriguing new Run, Run, Pass, Punt offense to be most effective:

* He needs to let his playmakers make plays.

* He needs to give Mike DeBord freedom to call plays that actually surprise defenses.

* He needs to allow his offense to take some chances on the road rather than constantly trying to win defensive battles.

If Carr refuses to take full advantage of his offensive weapons, Michigan will have another mediocre season. (And yes, 9-4 should be considered mediocre at UM.)

Before you get riled up about the topic, I have the utmost respect for the guy. He got us that elusive National Championship in the modern era. He cared for his players and their education. And this is not a ND-esque "Ty Willingham is responsible for AIDS, economic situation in US and ND going 3-9 last year" hatchet-job either. But to be really objective, there are a certain things we Michigan fans should get excited or atleast a wee bit optimistic about the new era ( or the lack of Lloyd, rather )

• Lloyd was really adamant about his methods. If coaches were things in an electronic lab, Lloyd was an inductor - extremely opposed to change. He really believed in his methods -- at every level. This will be the common theme in this entry. He was against change fractally ( if you zoom out in every scale, you could see Lloyd hated change ). He waited a whole quarter before he changed his offensive signals though someone alerted him that Northwestern is stealing his signals. He waited almost a whole game during "The Disaster" till he realized Mike Hart was picking apart the Appalachians. He waited until the bowl game till he realized that his 4th year QB in shotgun can pick apart a defense with his audibles.  Something to get excited about the addition of RR is, Rich looks for mismatches fractally. Be it a directional punt to nullify your returner or putting lighting fast small guys against your LBs / safeties or working your team out in the off-season, he looks for mismatches at every level.
• Mike Debord.   was an absolute disaster coaching Central Michigan. If there was one example of cronyism in sports, this was it. Debord was fired from Central Michigan but two years removed from that he finds himself coaching offense at Michigan. Even I can throw Rock, Rock and more Rock and I wish I was a friend of Lloyd. I hate Debord and Michigan fans aren't big fans of Debord and if you like Debord you are an Ohio State fan. This is a welcome addition by subtraction. Again, the first point manifests itself a little. When Lloyd fired Malone, he was incubating Debord and refused to look outside. Debord was coaching special teams and suddenly he's an OC. ( You have to go to the West Virginia to find special teams coaches promoted to HCs, but that's OT anyway )
• Belief about presence of a Running Game and a solid defense.  This was a comment made by someone in Victors Board. Lloyd played as if he had a solid running game ( in spite of opposing teams picking apart the Zone Blocking ) and a Solid Defense ( in spite of the defense getting gassed ). Rose Bowl against USC, Tied 3-3 at half. USC couldn't find any lanes running against Michigan. Steve Sarkisian and Lane Kiffin decide not to run again from the 3rd quarter. Lloyd sticks with his plan, hopes to score a field goal and hopes his defense can continue dominating USC's offense. Michigan's pass defense was picked apart by JD Booty. USC's pass defense was not even tested though Chad Henne, I think, may be better than the Stanford QB who beat USC next year.  Not to mention, Mike Debord says he hadn't seen certain blitz schemes from USC ever. Only Jay Paterno is probably worse.
• Not being gracious enough after losing / Press conferences.  I personally think that Lloyd was so devoted to Michigan and his players that he takes losing personally and is so disappointed that he's grumpy during handshakes and press conferences. Anyway, he doesn't really endear himself to neutral observers which is probably slightly worse for Michigan Football. Rich is afterall a snake oil salesman. http://runupthescore.files.wordpress.com/2007/08/ap02.jpg
• Special Teams. They weren't really special. When was the last time we blocked a punt ?  Brandon Minor is so not made for punt returns. Fake punts ? Fractally opposed to change.
• Performance against Ohio State. Just like whatever Penn State does falls into the lap of Michigan, Lloyd simply didn't have an answer for Tressel. Bad luck ( when he had the best defense, Troy Smith was winning Heisman ) or not, tOSU exactly knew how to beat Lloyd's teams. Now, if at all OSU has a weakness, it's defending Spread Option as evidenced by last year's Illinois game. And you can't find better Spread Option teachers than Rich Rod. Tressel is a wee bit nervous as he sent his assistants to USF this off-season to find out how USF beat WVU. Now this is a completely different Michigan team Tressel will face.. fact remains this won't be a Lloyd coached team.  As Rich gets players suited for his system and since Tressel doesn't run Spread Option (so his defense can't simulate exactly), when the top 2 athletic teams in the Big 10 face-off we can expect Rich to have his share of victories. ( Sidenote : Les Miles showed how to rattle Boeckman... Pressure him. )
• Strength and Conditioning. EEEEBarwis.

Again, this is just a one-side view of Lloyd. Lloyd's positives did outweigh his negatives, and someone should come up with that piece. Hope he has a great time representing Michigan in China.