So Henne was good...really good.
Wow. I started watching UM football in 1981. I have fond memories of Henne. I remember him as a good QB. I don't remember Henne being this good. I know we live in an era where star QBs play 2-3 years and then bolt to the NFL....but dang. Math never lies:
#GoBlue
October 27th, 2023 at 7:07 PM ^
Love Henne, he also was a 4 year starter in the modern passing era so his career total will be great.
October 27th, 2023 at 7:07 PM ^
He was really good and had some amazing wideouts. Lloyd had some stacked teams and at the end that’s why he was nudged out. The game started to pass him by. Enter Jim Stapleton.
Annnnnnnd I’ll see myself out. Cheers to the weekend!
October 27th, 2023 at 7:08 PM ^
He was great. Just didn't have a great coaching staff like today around him.
October 27th, 2023 at 7:18 PM ^
Carr won a national championship, 5 BigTen Titles and only 4 times in 13 seasons failed to finish 1st or 2nd in the BigTen, and has an equivalent winning percentage to Harbaugh.
October 27th, 2023 at 7:23 PM ^
Very true, and I know it's still early in their careers, but I'd say that Sherrone Moore + Jesse Minter > Terry Malone/Mike DeBord + Jim Herrman/Ron English
October 27th, 2023 at 7:24 PM ^
+1 Fair. Loeffler was a good QB coach though.
October 28th, 2023 at 12:29 AM ^
Michigan's reluctance to go outside and pay big money for staff seriously hamstrung the program in the Carr years, particularly the late Carr years. There's just no question about it.
A crucial sign of this was 2003, when Michigan briefly tried to adopt the new (at-the-time) spread-punt concept in a year where special teams was a weakness. They couldn't do it at all and were forced to revert to the original punt concept just to avoid serious breakdowns.
Special teams were significant, probably *the most* significant factors in the losses to Oregon and Iowa that year.
It's not that Carr was unwilling to adapt to modern football developments; he was unable to do so, did not have the staff capable of doing it.
October 27th, 2023 at 7:26 PM ^
Look closely, though. Specifically, at the years after 2003 (Henne's years). Different picture.
October 27th, 2023 at 7:32 PM ^
Other than the year of infinite pain (lol) it is the same picture. And even in 2005, IIRC, we were ten minutes away from a share of the Big Ten.
Yes, that loss was a bad loss for Carr.
October 27th, 2023 at 8:24 PM ^
To me some of the worst losses are to Tyrone Willingham led ND teams in 2002 and 2004, and Charlie Weis led ND in 2005 at home. Also OSU whooped our ass in 2004 despite being 6-4.
October 27th, 2023 at 8:35 PM ^
Interesting. I can't find one good loss in the Carr era, at least after 1997. All the losses were horrific and inexcusable. And that's why I find that there's so much Carr hate. Because he didn't go undefeated every year.
October 27th, 2023 at 8:57 PM ^
I can, 2004 vs Texas. We were really good but Texas had Vince Young who made them just that much better. Still one of the greatest games I've ever watched.
October 27th, 2023 at 9:26 PM ^
I remember having a near aneurism yelling at my TV for Lloyd to take one of his three timeouts when Texas had the ball trying to run the clock out.
October 27th, 2023 at 9:34 PM ^
Lloyd was smart enough to know that those timeouts could be redeemed as cash at the Gandy Dancer for Sunday brunch.
October 27th, 2023 at 8:57 PM ^
2002 OSU would have to be a "good" loss, I imagine. We went toe-to-toe with an undefeated team on the road and may have won without a very iffy offensive PI call on Braylon.
October 28th, 2023 at 12:50 AM ^
Michigan always had at least one head-scratching loss under Carr, really except for 1997. And the first road game of the year was a minefield after 1997 (when they didn't play a road game until Indiana).
There were still some "defensible" ones, if you will. People gripe about QB rotation against MSU in 1999 but that was an excellent MSU team and Michigan's late charge under Brady was always going to be a late charge because Carr always waited until the team was down multiple scores to get aggressive with the passing game. Losses to Tennessee in 01 and Iowa in 02 were losses to better teams, the one-sided nature of both games being the sore spot rather than the loss. The 03 season-ending loss to USC was no shame at all, and as mentioned the 2004 loss to Texas wasn't a bad one either (except that we could have won!).
But this is amidst galling losses against teams with worse talent, games where the team went on the road and really didn't seem to know how to adapt for a couple of quarters when it got punched in the mouth, games where the team had significant leads and blew them (99 against Illinois--Anthony Thomas was nicked and Lloyd thought the game was in the bag and sat him! Choked away 18-point leads against both Purdue and Northwestern in 00 and nearly did the same against OSU). And games where you're going to lose occasionally but the *way* they lost was bad, like the TN and Iowa losses mentioned above, Syracuse in 98, Oregon in 03 and 07. And they lost to Ap state.
This feels like bagging on Carr; I basically still think he was a B+ coach and there were some department circumstances that worked against him. He won a national title, recruited well, did well against OSU until late. And he was good in bowl games and good against the SEC in bowl games, the ugly loss to Tennessee and a loss to Bama balanced out against wins over Auburn, Arkansas (the year they were a title contender with Clint Stoerner), twice over Florida including the Urban/Tebow team, and that Orange Bowl win over Bama that was only exceede din the Carr era by 1997.
It's a mixed bag but there are some really good treats in there.
October 27th, 2023 at 7:32 PM ^
Then explain how a top QB, rb, good wrs , good oline and defense split 1 big ten title in 4 years have one of the worst losses in college football history. Carr was great in the 90s and early 2000s, imo by 04 he was going down hill. Good,not great by then.
October 27th, 2023 at 7:37 PM ^
Lloyd Carr's career win percentage was 76.8% in the 9 years before Henne. His winning percentage was 72.0% during the 4 Henne years. He retired as Henne left.
Not knocking Henne, just saying Carr was good.
October 27th, 2023 at 7:46 PM ^
Sure, he was good. We're looking at this from different perspectives. Yours may be more valid.
Four of the five championships occurred before Henne's era. They lost to OSU for all of his years. Recruiting started to tail off after 2004. (You can see this if you look at the '05, '06, and '07 classes. RichRod could be blamed for some talent development, but guys like Brandon Graham could be used to counter that argument.) Two awful losses in '07 (one understandable, one ... not, at all).
October 27th, 2023 at 7:56 PM ^
And Harbaugh had zero Big Ten titles until 2021. I mean, whatever, anytime Michigan doesn't win the conference it feels like some huge underachievement. Carr was good, Harbaugh's good, JJ's good, Henne's good, let's not fight.
October 27th, 2023 at 8:01 PM ^
No fightin' here ... pretty much agree.
We're looking closely at the Henne years and how they fit in Carr's body of work.
Carr's plot was steadier than Harbaugh's for sure. He didn't have a year close to Jim's COVID year and he was winning championships much earlier.
October 27th, 2023 at 7:35 PM ^
Carr's assistants were not nearly as good as Harbaugh's have been. Cant think of a single one that went on to be an even good head coach, except maybe Brady Hoke (not here!).
October 27th, 2023 at 7:48 PM ^
If Stapleton is on the blog he'll stop by to offer a dissenting opinion.
October 27th, 2023 at 8:38 PM ^
you'll know it's him from the grammatical and punctuation mistakes culminating in vague legal threats
October 27th, 2023 at 8:59 PM ^
That’s a scurrilous claim!
/s
October 28th, 2023 at 8:25 AM ^
there are any number of great coordinators that turn out to be meh head coaches. totally different skill sets.
and vice versa - i used to say that one of the reasons the 97 defense was so great was because they no longer had lloyd carr coaching them. that’s not really a knock - they just never seemed aggressive enough (“and the michigan defense bends but doesn’t break” was the tv refrain for lloyd’s bo defenses, to the point where saying that was a running gag with me and my buddies). they never seemed willing to take their true talent advantages and unleash it.
October 27th, 2023 at 8:03 PM ^
Carr was fine until the game evolved to spread offenses and running Quarterbacks. Honestly I think Gary Moeller was leading Michigan to some special seasons until Les Miles and an open bar upended him.
October 27th, 2023 at 7:09 PM ^
Chad was the QB for my senior year in AA. I remember everyone thought Matt Gutierrez was supposed to be the heir to John Navarre's throne (a folding chair). Then out comes this true freshman against Miami (NTM). He slung it like a Pro Bowler. The rest is history. He was the best.
October 27th, 2023 at 7:19 PM ^
I remember it was either game day or the day before when it was announced Gutierrez was injured and Henne was starting.
October 27th, 2023 at 7:28 PM ^
I think it was game day, because I recall an audible gasp from the crowd at the stadium when it was announced that Henne was starting. I think online people knew before the game, but fewer people were into sports internet back then.
October 28th, 2023 at 8:26 AM ^
it was game day. i was listening on the radio, and they came back from commercial with a, “we’ve just been told that…etc.” thing. they were as surprised as everyone else.
October 27th, 2023 at 7:44 PM ^
Crazy coincidence but many of us also saw another future 2 time SB winning QB play his first game 2 years before when Michigan hosted NTM. Where has the time gone?
October 27th, 2023 at 7:12 PM ^
The fact that Shea Patterson is 6th on that all-time list should tell you that there are some factors in play besides just whether you're "good" or not...
October 27th, 2023 at 7:13 PM ^
JJ coming back would obviously be awesome, but I only really see it if we fall short this year...
On a side note, I always wonder what a Jr/Sr Denard would have done in a poten spread offense. He probably would've won the Heisman if he played in a spread oriented offense today.
October 27th, 2023 at 8:26 PM ^
Agreed. Damn you Brady Hoke! Damn you Al Borges!
October 27th, 2023 at 7:13 PM ^
Henne was hurt in his last season so that's the lasting memory of him but his freshman year showed a ton of promise and he really came into his own as a junior. The career TD mark is mostly due to longevity but he was absolutely a dynamic QB who was able to play in the NFL for so long because he was talented and a smart guy as well.
October 27th, 2023 at 7:21 PM ^
I think he has the misfortune of being one of the last "True" QB's. His prime playing years were also the start of a lot of spread concepts, and more mobile QB's. He was an awesome QB, but not the type of threat running most teams really needed.
October 27th, 2023 at 7:13 PM ^
I under-appreciated Henne in the moment for the most part. But after The Horror and the sequel (Oregon), he was a force. Gutted it out through a pretty good season, even though it didn't end well with OSU.
And of course, once healthy, he was unleashed in the Corporate Name Citrus Bowl and it was like, man, what should have been.
October 27th, 2023 at 7:16 PM ^
Yes, Henne was good. Always hard to compare stats across eras (Henne's below), but he couldn't move like McCarthy. And I'm not sure if he could process what was happening on the field in front of him as well as McCarthy. I doubt he ever played as well in a Michigan uniform as McCarthy did last Saturday.
October 27th, 2023 at 8:20 PM ^
That seems right. Henne was very good--had an incredibly strong arm. The game has obviously changed, but--for perspective--it seems at least somewhat relevant that Cade's stats from 2021 as a "game manager" were comparable to Henne's best year as a junior.
Cade McNamara:
*2021 Michigan Big Ten JR QB 14 210 327 64.2 2576 7.9 8.0 15 6 141.9
Not taking anything away from Henne, who was clearly more physically gifted and had the upside that translated into a lengthy NFL career. Henne's freshman year made me think he could be a Heisman-caliber player by his senior year, but thanks to our offensive style and his injury (and, if I'm remembering, some issues with touch and accuracy) it wasn't to be.
October 27th, 2023 at 8:23 PM ^
Cade's stats from 2021 as a "game manager" were comparable to Henne's best year as a junior.
In 2006, Henne threw 22 TD passes in 13 games. In 2021, Cade threw 15 TDs in 14 games. A significant difference there.
October 28th, 2023 at 2:40 AM ^
This is one of the more insane things ever posted here. The tenth exponent or Cade’s greatest day as a QB is four standard deviations below Chad Henne at his rock bottom.
October 28th, 2023 at 8:36 AM ^
avatar checks out.
nope, that’s ridiculous. the 2005 notre dame game, for one, was as john o’korn-level quarterbacking. 2007 ohio state was brutal, too, but he was hurt. cade never had games like that. even at iowa!
October 28th, 2023 at 8:43 AM ^
i don’t know, man. henne never quite had one of those towering, omygod games, but he was a week-to-week assassin.
and he absolutely murdered sparty. four games, all wins:
- 2003 - 24 / 35, 273 yds, 4 td, 0 int
- 2004 - 26 / 35, 256 yds, 3 td, 1 int
- 2005 - 11 / 17, 140 yds, 3 td, 0 int
- 2006 - 18 / 33, 211 yds, 4 td, 1 int
that’s 79 / 120 for 880 yards, 14 touchdowns and 2 picks. killer.
or, as brian used to joke, just a robot, week in, week out (with a couple of glaring exceptions, below)
October 27th, 2023 at 7:24 PM ^
Very disappointed this wasn’t HenneGivenSunday.
October 27th, 2023 at 7:28 PM ^
Was it Matt Gutierrez who was supposed to be the guy but Henne started as true Freshman..was it because of injury?
October 27th, 2023 at 7:30 PM ^
Yeah, Gutierrez had a shoulder injury IIRC. It seemed a last minute surprise though.
October 27th, 2023 at 8:23 PM ^
Tore his labrum in pregame warmups.
October 27th, 2023 at 8:25 PM ^
IIRC, Gutierrez got hurt about a week before the game, although they didn't know the severity until late in the week. There were internet rumors during the week that Henne would be the starter, but Carr kept quiet on the subject until game day.
October 27th, 2023 at 7:28 PM ^
If JJ had the receivers Henne had his numbers would be even better and that's no hate against Henne