Gary Moeller. Undervalued? Easily forgotten? Overrated?

I was on the support staff for 4 of the years Mo was there (Student Manager), including in every practice, many meetings, and on the field for every game, standing next to him in many cases.  Here's my take:

The good:

1. A great human being, and you can't say that about all college coaches (Greg Mattison, not so much). 
2. He could recruit like an absolute motha'...  He did it for the last few years of Bo's tenure (Desmond, Grbac, Everitt, Elliott, Alexander, Toomer, Hayes, Irons, Wheatley, etc.) and through his years he continued to do it, with a great staff of recruiters like Miles, Cameron, and Fred Jackson. 
3. Don't forget he was a great position coach - DC for Bo and ILB coach with slow undersized guys like Steve Morrison, Erick Anderson, and others to his credit.
4. He had a great staff - but he also did a great job of delegating.  When he was the head coach, Lloyd was his DC, and Cam Cameron and to a lesser degree Les Miles were his offensive minds.   And very innovative - Some forget we ran the no-huddle offense for much of the 1990-1992 seasons, the Sam Wyche version that Cam learned while an assistant under Wyche.

The not so good -

1. Even in the no-huddle, he was still responsible for relaying the plays in from the sidelines, that Cam was calling... So in some respect he didn't delegate this detail that he should have.  As a consequence he would often disagree with the call coming from Cam, and they'd get in an argument on the headset before he relayed it in.  We had more wasted timeouts and delay of game penalties  than any no-huddle team should have.
2. He was not media savvy, in fact he rarely completed a sentence without running on into another topic.  This was largely before the current hypermedia environement we have now with ESPN 1,2,3,U, etc, Foxsports, etc.... so he mostly got away with it.
3. The way it went down at the excalibur club was absolutely astounding to me; he always preached to the players that they had to do things cleaner than other students, that the media attention made them special and as such they had to behave special, that there were always people looking to take them down, that they had to do things "the Michigan way" at all times.  On all our road trips, the coaches would often have dinner in the hotel restaurant/bar and most of them would have a beer or cocktail, but NEVER Coach Moeller.  His demise was so out of character because it went against anything he ever preached, and with this one exception he was always a man who did what he said, and said what he meant.   I still believe that if we didn't have those 4 loss seasons he would've worked his way out of it.

So on balance I believe he was a great coach, a very good adminstrator, and a pretty lousy media/alumni relations guy.  I still think he could've had a long successful career and might have won that 1997 championship. 

But of course I am biased...

After he was gone, because of the things he did.... he had a great hand on our success in the late 90's, and that indirectly carried us into the next decade. 

I thought he was a good coach, and he was one of Bo's boys.  Just made some bad decisions.  Lilpenny is correct though, he could of been the double for the dad on Wonder Years

Im 40 years old so I remember quite well the Moeller years. I do think he was both undervalued and overrated...if thats possible. I do know this. When I'm watching football with my Michigan friends who constantly want to down RR and lift up what LC did, I ALWAYS mention that the 1997 NC team was built largely on Moellers recruits. I think he was very good at some things and obviously lacked in others. I agree. If he had better and more constistent seasons, he may still be there. Who knows.

And I didn't know much about his tenure (except as a casual adolescent college football fan who thought Desmond was the shit) until I was called upon to GSI a class on the topic. From that perspective, learning about the Moeller experience exclusively on paper, it would seem "undervalued" would be the only applicable of the three answers given. This is especially the case considering that many of my students — who, though they were literally babies during his  tenure, had been lifelong UM fans — didn't know much about him either. He has a relatively unenviable spot, historically speaking, but still it would seem that someone with his track record as a coordinator and head coach, he'd be more widely recognized. 

4th and 1, throw it to Desmond in the end zone.  The man had balls.  I went to Michigan from 1990-1994, he's the only coach I knew and we all loved the offensive innovation and the domination over Ohio State.  He would have had Lloyd's career, if not better, without the unfortunate incident.

I've always wondered what would have happened at Michigan if the incident hadn't happened...As someone else noted, he was the coach who brought passing to Michigan football.  It would have been very interesting to see how he adapted as the game changed over the years. 

I was there for Moeller's first 4 years. We had powerhouse squads (we put up fantastic offensive numbers) and actually came very close to winning a National Championship. My answer to you would be that he was both underrated and overrated. I  say underrated in the sense that the product on the field that presided over was as good as any we've seen in A2. But he was also overrated in the sense that we never won a National Championship during his tenure (and we probably should have - especially during the 1990 season). But let's not forget that from 1990 through 1994 (my undergrad years in A2) Michigan tied or won outright the B10 title in 3 of those years. If the measuring stick is success in the B10, Mo was underrated. If the emasuring stick is national titles he was over rated. 

Oh and FWIW, Moeller had a higher winning percentage than LLoyd Carr. In my mind Carr was a hell of a coach. So what does that tell you about Moeller? 

Are still feeling the aftershocks of Moellers firing. Lloyd was a good coach. Moeller was a great coach. Bo spent 20 years building Michigans reputation up after our fall. He handed the team over to the guy he knew was going to lead Michigan down the same path or onto greater heights.

Lloyd was in the right place at the right time & did a good job but never took us to the next level. Yes we won a National Championship in 1997, but tell me I am wrong in thinking we didn't have the talent to do that on more than one occasion? Moeller was that guy, its too bad his time ended like it did. 

Yes definitely. Never feel like he gets mentioned or the respect he deserves. Have had this conversation with my friends on a few ocassions.

Also, his stint with the Lions in my opinion is only more evidence. He got that team to win. It was just unreal the difference when he was coaching and when he wasn't. Couldn't believe they didn't keep him on.

That 1990 season - MSU trip of Desmond, hangover loss against Iowa cost them

91 was a damn good season but FSU just overwhelmed them but the first half of that game was one of the most exciting first halfs I have ever seen.

I think Michigan fumbled 6 times against Ill in 92, Elvis gets hurt on a QB sneak against osu and they tie both games

93 Ricky Powers fumbles lost 2 games (Illinois the who the hell is Johhny Johnson game and the next week against Wisc.) That Illinois game was similar to the NW shootout years later substitue Powers for AT

94 Hail Marry just killed them, PSU had a team for the ages. Injuries killed them that year, Wheatley was barely healthy for the majority of the year after he decided to come back for his Sr year.

I thought sure as hell Cameron was going to be the next coach and really was disappointed with who they hired I couldn't believe it.

The same thing that Brady and Griese said about Loefler is what Collins and Grbac said about Cam. Maybe they thought he was too young or something, I don't know.

I will never forget Carr's speech on ESPN after the Moeller incident.

Can somebody explain this season to me?  I'm too young to remember it.  Should we have won some of those ties?  Was the team to conservative, or did we sneak out of some games M should have lost?