Good News: MSU AD Says Mork Isn't Getting Fired

I also don’t recall any votes of confidence from Brandon regarding RR.

+1 for the Dave Brandon statement.

He'll probably step aside before being "fired".....semantics!!!

The University also has a larger legal budget.  Mork quits he'll have to find his own lawyer to defend against all these lawsuits that are going to be coming down after Lou Anna Simon's criminal trial. 

Beekman HAS to say this. Recruits are listening.

Who are you calling Shirley 

Not sure what gives you confidence he can pull off another 9 win season in the next few years.  Their recruiting has tanked to levels far worse than its ever been.  He may still be able to 'coach up' 2 & 3 stars, but there's less to work with when unranked players come to town.  Also, 2-stars like Ronnie Bell are far and few between and Mike can't go around the nation looking for them.  Not only do they have to recruit against UM, OSU, and PSU, but Cincinnati and UK are also decent programs right now.  Recruiting wise, they're fucked.

Furthermore, they have the same stagnant coaching staff they had 6 years ago - nobody leaves because no other team wants them and Mick won't jettison them.  The schemes they use on both sides are obsolete and haven't been updated since Narduzzi left.  The last coach they had that anyone wanted is Narduzzi (and honestly, how he still has a job at Pitt is beyond me).

Its bad for MSU right now, and the longer Mack stays the worse its going to get.  He's already had his moment of pride.

And his recruiting tailed off.  

I was big-time pro-Carr while he was here, but in retrospect I think of how much talent we wasted. We had rosters that should have competed for national titles, but there was always a boneheaded loss every year and Tressel really ate his lunch once Cooper got defenestrated. 

But: Michigan was way behind the curve with regard to the hiring of coordinators. USC was trotting out Norm Chow and then replacing him with the Kiffin/Sarkisian teamup (how good were they? Their whole careers are built on how well they used all that talent at USC). Carr was reheating Stan Parrish and Mike Debord. 

This may have been a function of Michigan's increasingly outdated unwillingness to shell out cash for coordinators. Carr teams only knew how to play one way, but it wasn't so much that Carr was unwilling to try new things as that his staff was unable to execute new things.

Because when they tried to adapt new ideas with some frequency and failed. Remember the spread punts they tried in 2003? They were awful. The adoption of zone run blocking? Comically inept. Carr didn't have guys on his staff that could execute this stuff. He couldn't get a really good OC that could turn his talented QBs into killers that he had the confidence could consistently deliver the ball to his talented receivers. He couldn't lean on a tactical sharp to take advantage of the weaknesses of opposing defenses. And, when the game had passed a guy like Jim Hermann by, he couldn't fire him and expect to hire someone better.

Not sure if Carr would have taken advantage of these options if they had existed--he is a loyalty-type guy, maybe the same guys would have been here getting more money--but the option was never available. 

I maintain that Lloyd didn't groom a successor because his own ascension to Michigan head coach was totally unexpected and bizarre.

Yes, he had plenty of years to think about a succession plan. However, humans are funny and many of them will let important tasks creep up on them as the years pass, or fly, by.

I agree with Carr that RR was never a good fit for Michigan. Starting RR's reign with a 2 AM meeting at a diner in the middle of nowhere is the kind of skullduggery that just doesn't pass the smell test.

However, I also feel that Carr could have handled himself better during the entire episode. I believe Lloyd had good intentions for the football program and university but his execution was quite poor.

Dave Warner for HC!