1993 Michigan Football - 3 All Americans & Still 8-4?!

Submitted by uofmfan_13 on January 5th, 2021 at 1:15 AM

That 1993 had 3 All Americans, including an All American Nose Tackle, All American Corner (Law), a great RB (Wheatley), and a darn good QB who went on to play in NFL a long time (Todd Collins).  A close loss to a decent Notre Dame (at home) could maybe be explained. 

But how in the hell did that team lose 3 big ten games (yet stomped Ohio State 28-0)? 

The past few seasons have been frustrating for sure but this 1993 team would have driven the fan base ballistic with that much talent and these results! 

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jmblue

January 5th, 2021 at 11:32 AM ^

Good players were more evenly distributed back then, pre-playoff. 

The population was also distributed differently then.

In 1990, Michigan's population was 9.36 million.  Texas's was 17.6 million.  Florida's was 13.2 million.  Georgia's 6.6 million.

In 2019, Michigan's population was 9.98 million.  Texas's was 29 million.  Florida's was 21.5 million.  Georgia's was 10.6 million.

What's more, the participation rate for high school football in the South is higher than everywhere else.

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Magnus

January 5th, 2021 at 8:38 AM ^

LOL. Sorry, but I think it's kind of funny that if EVERY coach is "doing less with more" then either...

a) There's something systemically wrong with the school going back 30-50 years.

OR

b) Your expectations are too high.

Virtually every fan out there thinks the coach of his favorite team is underperforming. There's simply not enough room for every recruit to pan out, for every coach to win 11 or 12 games, for every coach to produce oodles of NFL talent, etc.

IMO, you can't just say Moeller, Carr, Harbaugh (and presumably Rodriguez and Hoke, maybe Schembechler) are all underperforming. It just doesn't make sense. Some of those coaches did/have done just fine.

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AC1997

January 5th, 2021 at 8:46 AM ^

Thanks Magnus.  This is part of the issue facing every coach we consider or hire - the myth of perfection.  While it pains me to see OSU, Alabama, and Clemson at their peak right now the fact is that Michigan has never really been at that level unless you go back to Bo or maybe Yost.  And making matters worse is that college football's current system has decided to define success as perfection so anything less is failure.  

This post is sort of silly in many ways but 1993 was my freshman year and I remember it well.  My grandparents had season tickets starting in 1980 and I grew up going to games and wanting to attend.  When I did, and joined the MMB, I was thrilled for every game.  Excited to face these teams, maybe win the conference and go to a Rose Bowl - something Michigan had been doing for the previous 15 years.  I was disappointed by losses and wished for Mo and Lloyd to do more with talent - but it didn't ruin the experience for me and I knew that one loss didn't end the season.  

Now?  Most of this board doesn't even want to call 2016 a successful season which means we're left with about 2-3 in the last 30 years by their standards under FIVE coaches.  I long for a better system that doesn't require perfection in a sport that drives you to cheat to achieve it.  But here we are....whoever the coach is next season I hope the fans will support them even if they don't win every game.

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stephenrjking

January 5th, 2021 at 11:06 AM ^

Michigan hasn’t been at the level of Bama/OSU/Clemson for a long, long time.

The problem is that the idea of 3-4 teams being at the level they are maintaining at the same time is virtually unprecedented. Teams have sustained great runs before; Miami from the 80s into the early 90s, Bobby Bowden’s run of FSU greatness, etc. But not 3 or 4 (Oklahoma is always the 4th one here) teams this long without so much as a drop. Even great Nebraska and USC programs, for example, couldn’t sustain things for this long.

Bama has been dominant for over a decade. OSU since Urban came on in 2012. Clemson doesn’t miss the playoff ever.

We’re not talking about a failure to reach a traditional level of excellence. We’re talking about a level of excellence that has never existed before. 
 

 

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jmblue

January 5th, 2021 at 11:21 AM ^

Yes.  And this is what has changed my thinking about the playoff.  If there was still the annual turnover in great teams that there was in years past, I'd be fine with a 4-team playoff (or the old BCS).  But now three programs claim spots in the playoff every year and the rest of the country is fighting for the one remaining spot - and an independent ND, which sets its own schedule, has claimed it a couple times.  

Everything short of the playoff is now viewed as failure, but making the playoff is brutally difficult.  This is not a healthy situation for the sport.  The only solution I see is to expand access to the playoff.  

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MMBbones

January 5th, 2021 at 9:17 AM ^

Do you have the stats that show what other coaches around the country did with an equivalent level of talent to what Lloyd had? That's the only way to be objective. Magnus is spot-on with his critique of where we all are emotionally. 

My memories of Bo were always losing one stupid game a year. Such as when he lost to Lou Holtz's Minnesota for absolutely no apparent reason. 

No, I'm not still bitter....

We could argue Carr under performed in '97 by failing to win by large enough margins to avoid sharing the title. 

I suspect, without proof, that JH under performed this year demonstrably. But I will wait for the numbers before going on a rampage.

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JFW

January 5th, 2021 at 1:51 PM ^

Different era. He won three, yes. But one was a tie win (when they had that sort of thing) and the other two he won with a 9-0-3 record and a 10 win record. It was easier back then to win the B1G. OSU wasn't even close to what it is now. PSU was just entering in '94 I think. And you could win with a tie. Wisconsin and Minnesota weren't what they are now. Purdue was fun to watch under Tiller. Illinois was great D laughable O. Iowa seems almost unchanged since then. 

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energyblue1

January 5th, 2021 at 8:34 AM ^

The ND loss was explainable but the rest were not.  Losing to msu was just meh, Illinois was a much better program then producing a lot of nfl players compared to today.  Those were some battles with Illinois.  That said beating Penn St and Osu drubbing osu told you how much better this team should have done. 

But the early mid 90's often were such with Michigan football.  I recall an article heading into Fall of 97 that title How Bad is Michigan How Good is Michigan.  And it related the previous four years and four loss teams with tons of NFL talent still losing to unranked teams and then turning out stunning wins over undefeated osu teams or going into a game against a top ten team and winning yet losing to Michigan st or unranked Nw or Wisconsin.. 

It was highly frustrating.  And getting over the ND hump in 91 seemed like we were set to compete for National Titles and yet the inexplicable losses continued until 97.  And there were quite a few close calls in 97 as well.  Michigan football in the 90's was very much to conservative either defensively or offensively always waiting for the other teams mistakes.  Rarely did they really ramp it up till 97, and that was defensively.  97's offense was very conservative Lloyd ball...

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trueblueintexas

January 5th, 2021 at 2:03 AM ^

Yes, the blog would have been up in arms after every loss wondering why Michigan was not using the talent properly up until the last game when all would be forgotten because Michigan beat OSU.

I also bet it would have been clear what the offense and defense was trying to do and execution would have been fairly consistent. Deficiencies would probably be rightfully attributed to youth and not because of massive gaps in recruiting from prior classes. 

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