Some Interesting Numbers on 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.
Both positions have more to learn than any other position, that is rookie OL and QB have a hard time transitioning to the NFL.
I have been a big fan of Lloyd Carr throughout the years, except when it's been really frustrating. How's that for basically defining the average Michigan fan?
For the record, here are Lloyd's numbers against teams based on their AP rankings at GAME TIME (rather than end of season), and comparisons to BO and MO, and U-M all-time (since poll began in the 1930s):
LLOYD vs. AP Top 10: 18-9-0, .667
MO: 7-5-1, .577
BO: 16-20-1, .476 (Rose Bowl did not help, here)
U-M all-time: 66-67-5, .496
LLOYD vs. AP Top 20/25: 42-26-0, .618
MO: 12-9-2, .565
BO: 37-34-1, .521
U-M all-time: 130-110-8, .540
Even though these numbers may not be as good as final season poll results for determining the full body of work of early-season opponents, as the season gets into its midsection, they're fairly valid. I mean, MSU or Minnesota starting out 7-0 or 6-1 against three non-conference creampuffs and four Big Ten teams is still nothing to sneeze at. If they get beaten by U-M at the last second and then take a nosedive when their confidence is shattered the rest of the season, then so be it... they were at least somewhat worthy of their rankings going in. That being said, the comparisons above tell us a few things:
1. Big Ten parity (duh). It's no longer the Big Two and Little Eight. In eight fewer seasons, Lloyd faced only four fewer ranked teams than Bo, and Lloyd in the second half of his career played far easier early-season non-conference schedules (though to be fair, we're ranking 21-25 now, and Lloyd on average played one game more per season).
2. I don't care what rankings you use: Lloyd's starting off 9-1 or 10-0 or whatever it was against the top 10 at game time was pretty darned impressive.
3. The U-M all-time numbers above obviously don't include Yost's teams. So in the modern era aside from the Crisler years, U-M all-time (including Bo and Mo) had nowhere near the success that Lloyd had in an era of fewer scholarships, greater distractions for players, greater money, TV, recruiting in the public eye, etc., etc., etc.
Also, to compare other percentages, how about all games? LLOYD .753, MO .758, BO . 796, All-time .745 (tops, baby).
In conference: LLOYD .779, MO .775, BO .850, All-time .696.
At home: LLOYD .860, MO .726, BO .869, All-time .814.
On the road: LLOYD .667, MO .792, BO .861, All-time .665.
Bowl games: LLOYD .462, MO .800, BO .294, All-time .487.
I haven't posted here very much, but I used to post a *lot* at UMGoBlue.com. Those that ever saw my posts there know that I have always been a big Lloyd fan. As already indicated, he was a good coach.
I find it comical, though, that we've already started reminiscing about Lloyd! No discredit at all to the Lloyd supporters on this thread, but 3 years ago it was pretty hard to find a kind word thrown Lloyd's direction.
It will be super-interesting to see how soon after the boys get their first loss under RichRod we start to see the haters talk about how much they miss Lloyd and all our success under his leadership!!
Just like everyone but the coach seems to know that the best QB is sitting on the bench behind the starter, everyone dreams of what a "great" coach would do for the program; in the case of Michigan, this meant ignoring that greatness that prowled the sideline every game.
All that said, I'm glad Carr got to leave on his terms and I'm thrilled with our (long-term) prospects under the new regime.
MVP
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