Question regarding Carr's staff vs Bo's
Surely this thought has come up before and discussed however I was not around... How is it that there presumably was no head coaching talent worthy of succeeding Carr if need be, on Carr's staff ?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but Bo had at least FIVE coaches on staff that went on to become big-time coaches... Gary Moeller, Lloyd Carr, Les Miles, McCartney of Colorado (I think), Don Nehlen of WVA, Cam Cameron to NFL...anyone else I'm missing??
A quick glance and it appears that it is quite remarkable, the head coaching talent Bo secured, and the utter lack of it Lloyd had.
Someone in-the-know please shed some light on this.
Ron English is a HC....just not the one here
Viper... Well from what I have heard, English did not have what I'm referring to... big-time head coaching ability, and he was never seriously considered for the Wolverines head coach... so I guess English doesn't count in this regard. And I would presume someone will mention Hoke too but again, he wasn't seriously considered and thus likely not big-time.
only time will see if English does, i think he has done well overall..but give him a few more years to complete the evaluation.
Ron English was probably one of the top five assistants and top ten overall candidates in line to get a great HC job until The Horror and the Oregon Debacle. After that, his stock went downhill pretty fast. I still think he deserved a better job than EMU, though. EMU can ruin a coach's reputation through no fault of his own if he doesn't get really lucky there.
The silver lining is that if English can turn EMU into a winner, he will be a top ten "hot candidate" again.
Ability is a weird word to use when there has been so little opportunity for African American head coaches in college ball. Ron English deserves more than the O-fer season he got. He is a great coach and football mind.
I think the UofM would have loved to bring in an African American coach. The bottom line was they wanted to change and English was old school. Outside of English I don't there were too many African American candidates seriously considered.
English was the only real candidate from Carr's staff - IMO. Mike DeBord would have been a disaster. Bedford should have stayed, but is only now really getting his proper adulation. A couple good seasons could see his HC opportunity come knocking.
...but the day the Michigan head coaching job is based on race is the day I burn my 2 Michigan degrees.
I just want the best coach, regardless of race...
Amen... I was thinking the same thing.
...would you know for sure that such a hire was "based on race?" Methinks an assumption that such a hire was "based on race" is probably "based on race."
Burn your two U-M degrees? Really? Would you sell your fandom on eBay as well?
there. To question English's ability when the reality is that black coaches don't have the same opportunity is strange. To say English was not worthy- when he was interviewed is weak. Michigan has had a nepotistic bent wrt hiring for decades before RR was hired. Not hiring English was a big deal regardless of race.
I don't want race to be factor in hiring or admissions, but it is. This is a hot button for Mich outside of athletics. It has been for a long time. I don't think race was a factor in this hiring decision, but I'm aware of the disproportionate contributions of minorities in sport and in coaching.
English is not lacking in ability. He is a current HC. Also I don't think he was coaching the blocking assignments when our final field goal attempt was snuffed against Appalachian State.
Don't get me started on race. In my view there would be more Caucasian students in football if there weren't discriminated against at a young age.
I see this every year in the Pop Warner pre-season. The coaching staff will hold sprints, etc. and the African American kids will get the nod for the skill positions even when they were clearly beat. When the A team gets selected, guess how many African Americans end up on the B team? (a token one or two to play tailback)
So in my view there wouldn't be as much of a need for black head coaches if more Caucasian kids who clearly show potential were allowed to play the "glory" positions early enough that they didn't move on to baseball, soccer, lacrosse or swimming.
There aren't enough Sam McGuffies in this world, and even poor Sam was thrown to the wolves when he should have been given a redshirt year to bulk up and get an O line in front of him.
Sorry - down off my soap box ....
Um...
negged for barely cloaked racism.
Nope - I have no problem when one kid runs faster than the other, and handles the ball better getting the tailback position. My problem is when the opposite happens.
I'm saying there is a reverse thing going on when it comes to football. It starts at the elementary school age, and that is why we are seeing a declining number of white football players.
I've hosted Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities (RBI) kids in my home while they compete in the USA Baseball 18U tournament. Great kids, and great atheletes. The program does an excellent job of rounding them out as peope as well. The point of the program is to turn around the decline in black MLB players.
I'm just saying we may need to opposite in football.
If anyone is going to burn their degrees because the University is taking race into account....hasn't been following the Supreme Court and the State of Michigan ballots for years and years...
race? you mean like, 100m? b/c that seems like a good way to thin out candidates in the 1st round.
In his final year at Michigan, terrbile defense in losses to App State and Oregon (one could argue that he didn't have his guys ready to play defense when the season started).
As a HC his team was 0-12 and they gave up 40+ points in 5 games (45, 47, 50, 56, 63). They lost by a touchdown or less in only 3 of the 12 losses.
RR wasn't Michigan's first choice. Most of the attention was on Les Miles and (shudder) Kirk Ferentz. Where do you get the idea that the administration was focused on "change," other than the obvious fact that, by definition, any new coach represents change?
(Please don't misconstrue this as criticism of RR).
Wasn't Jim Harabaugh on Carr's staff?
No...he went to Western Kentucky after his NFL days were over as an assistant. Then to the Raiders, I think, as a qb coach, before breaking in at San Diego as a HC.
his Dad coached for Bo.
Edit: I can't type fast enough.
Harbaugh did interview for the QB coach position, but Carr hired Loeffler instead.
Bo Schembechler was one of the greatest coaches in college football history. You can't really criticize Carr because he didn't produce three assistants who went on to win national titles (and another in Nehlen who is a legend at his school). That is an incredible record/accomplishment that few if any coaches could match.
Larry Smith had a good career as head coach for Tulane, Arizona State, USC and Missouri. He worked for Bo in the early days.
Am I missing something? Didn't Les Miles corch at Michigan for a time?
but he left in '82 for colorado, then came back for Gary moeller, then left after gary resigned.
That Jim Herrmann was high on a lot of lists after 1997 but couldnt recapture that magic, nor did he ever get men like Woodson and Steele again, hindsight tells me he couldve received a mid-major position but was playing loyalty card that worked well for Moeller and Carr, he was hoping for the same luck, didnt happen.
Mike DeBord couldve fallen into a successor category but, you fail at Central you cant coach here. The man was 52-11 as offensive coordinator here at Michigan and wowed us with the 1997 "waggle" play etc. He was and good recruiter here and at Central Michigan. In the back of my mind I think DeBo wouldve had a higher percentage to make the transition to successor. MAC face plant and App St. loss ruined this seed.
If either of these guys made it to HC who knows how far the Carr tree wouldve expanded.
I'm sorry, DeBord was not all that. His offense was exactly average despite having elite talent. The guns he had on offense from 2005-2007 should have been able to do more than average. Chad Henne, Mike Hart, Mario Manningham, Steve Breaston, Adrian Arrington, ridiculous O-line including Jake Long...375 yards per game.
All of those guys are in the NFL. That is garbage.
I take it back, I'm not sorry.
Calvin Magee got 384 yds/game last year and i know that Carr's last years had better talent. I dont think DeBord will ever live down his role of being the OC when App St won..
I completely agree. That was a massive, coaching fail. Every time I see some replay of the final, missed FG attempt (usually in a commerical for "amazing this-or-that") I want to vomit.
But, its the Defense that really pooped the bed in that one, and it falls squarely on English. Spotting 34 points to a I-AA? C'mon.
I guess I was more put out by the total befuddlement in the Rose Bowl 9 months earlier. It's one thing to go into a game against App State with a conservative game plan and not be able to make the shift in the second half. Its another to complete a shoot out with Ohio State for the NC game, and then go into the Rose Bowl against USC and not have that shoot out game plan ready to roll out when you need it.
Don't you think that Ron English had about 8000% more to do with Michigan losing that game than Mike DeBord? Michigan did score 32 points that day. i didn't see DeBord in charge of defending the spread, that was English's job.
Horrible example.
I agree that English deserves more heat for that game than DeBord, but I would not give DeBord a pass. Our offense did nothing in the second and third quarters of that game. Yes, Hart was out during that time, but with a four-year starter at QB and a loaded WR corps, couldn't we have found a way to score without him? We had a hard time picking up a single first down when he was out of the game. Fortunately he came back (and produced one of the greatest runs I've ever seen on the 54-yard TD - which has sadly been forgotten), or else that game could have been a blowout.
Simply following the subject line on how Carr's staff lacked the tree that Bo formed. In no way shape or form was I rallying for a recount in hiring Debord. As far as coaching tree, wins and losses and administrative politics work if things went better for Carr, Debord MAY have been considered to pass the torch. So yes, all the guys Mike DeBord had a hand in recruiting are in the NFL. Recruiting ability is part of coaching too.
So let me recant your deposition:
DeBord=Poop
Good Players=NFL
375 yards=???ummmmm????
Pizza=Yum
Debord was HC for Central in 2003. That means he was trying to recruit guys in the 2004 class to play for CMU. *MAYBE* he had his hands on Manningham (class of 2005). I doubt it.
Funny how we romanticize the past. DeBord sucked as OC. Watch the 1997 MSU and OSU games again. The man had the dumb luck to be OC alongside one of our greatest defenses ever, and the D carried the load. The offense, which had quite a few future NFL players, was basically asked to not turn the ball over and punt. The fourth quarter of the OSU game, in particular, was gut-wrenching as DeBord showed zero faith in his offense, going straight rock-rock-rock against a D that was fully prepared for it and shut it down. Thankfully, our defense stopped them again and again.
In 1998 it was even more ridiculous. During a midseason four-game stretch against mediocre competition, we scored 12, 12, 21 and 15 points - but won all four games thanks again to terrific defense. This was with Tom Brady at QB. Giving DeBord credit for those wins takes a real stretch of the imagination.
In 1999 we had one of our most talented offenses in school history, with future pro talent everywhere (including a senior Brady). That offense never scored 40 points, and nine of our 12 games were close.
I don't think I need to rehash what went on in '06-'07 (other than to point out that once again, in '06 DeBord was bailed out by one of Carr's best defenses).
And of course, DeBord was even worse as a head coach, posting CMU's worst record in the past 50+ years. The coaches before and after him all managed to win. DeBord barely won a quarter of his games. It's frightening to think that this man nearly succeeded Carr. The past two years might not have been much different, but we'd have a lot less hope for the future with DeBord at the helm.
What was DeBord's overall record as Michigan's offensive coordinator?
Do you think that Lloyd had anything, ANYTHING, to do with the offensive philosophy, or was it all DeBord's fault?
Wasn't Ohio State number 4 when they played Michigan in 1997? Didn't they have a pretty darn good team?
And, I didn't see you complaining about the offensive playcalling when Michigan went into Happy Valley and throttled #1 Penn State in 1997. Please post again and whine about those 34 points so you are at least consistent with your post-hoc whining about a national title-winning team.
Wins and losses are attributed to the head coach, not the assistants. I maintain that DeBord was extremely fortunate to be our OC for two seasons (1997 and 2006) in which our defense performed extremely well, and was more responsible for our success than the offense was. And as I noted above, while the 1998 defense is not considered one of our better ones, it was largely responsible for our conference title as the offense sputtered horribly most of the season (again, I bring up the four-game stretch in which we scored 12, 12, 21 and 15 points, all victories). And again, it is mind-boggling that an offense as stacked as our 1999 unit could never score 40 points in a game, and needed one 4th-quarter comeback after another to salvage the season.
If you are suggesting that Carr in some way held DeBord back from being the OC he could've been, well, his disastrous tenure at CMU suggests otherwise. More likely, they're both very conservative in philosophy, and their shared perspective was probably a big reason why they got along so well.
That 1999 team finished 48th in the country in total offense, despite having 5th year Brady, Thomas, Terrell, Hutchinson, and Backus. I don't think you can chalk it all up to a conservative approach either, considering that our opponents were more likely to run the ball than we were and did it just as effectively (1450 yards on 3.3 per carry compared with Michigan's 1462 at 3.2 per carry).
One hallmark of that season that I think carried over to a lot of the Carr years was the inability to develop a viable second option or any diversity in the running game (Terrell was the second leading rusher on the 1999 team). With Hart, Perry, and Thomas, you had one guy being forced to carry the load for the entire rushing attack on a team where the coaches seemed to value establishing the running game. It is hard to play smashmouth football when the other team only has to worry about one guy and that guy can wear down late in games but won't get subbed out.
You can't just look at the run-pass distribution to determine whether an offensive is conservative or not. Many pass plays are essentially long handoffs, and this was especially true when DeBord was OC. In the Orange Bowl against Alabama, you could count on one hand the number of downfield passes we threw in the first half. This was something that drove me nuts about DeBord. Our idea of "mixing it up" within our regular offense was to throw WR screens and five-yard outs in between inside running plays. Only when we'd fall behind would we unleash the "scoring offense," in which we attacked the defense vertically. With Brady at QB and Terrell, Knight, Walker and Johnson at WR, this offense was devastating. It was a shame that we inevitably waited until we were behind to unleash it. Given our embarassment of riches at WR and TE, and our paper-thin depth at TB, it would have made more sense to emphasize the vertical game in our base offense.
I just think people view Carr as a run-oriented, smashmouth, "3 yards and a cloud of dust" coach when this is not really the case, in terms of either a commitment to the run game or in terms of overall production (even when we had great individual runners they operated as a one-man gang without a terribly impressive rush offense as a whole).
To me the inability to dictate in the running game went hand in hand with the issues you mention (a failure/reluctance to attack vertically in the passing game, especially early in games). Games like Oregon in 2003 and the two Rose Bowl losses to SC, saw us unsuccessfully trying to establish a predictable running game against an aggressive defense. In those three games our offense put up a combined three points in the first half, despite having quarterbacks who would go on to throw for over 300 yards on average. The passing game showed it could be effective when turned loose in each game, but early 3rd and longs and late deficits made the QB's sitting ducks for the opposing pass rush and the big leads we spotted the opposition proved insurmountable.
the most productive coaching tree. Bo's was pretty damn impressive. So was Hayden Fry's, with Bo Pelini, Jim Leavitt, Brett Bielema, Bob Stoops, Mike Stoops, Kirk Ferentz on the list. If you go through the list of assistants under guys like Bear Bryant and Darrel Royal, I think you'll find a similar lineup.
It makes sense, since a head coach is only going to be as good as his assistants. The best assistants will contribute to outstanding winning teams, and will themselves get HC positions when spots open up. I've always thought Lloyd was a damn good coach, but the fact that so few of his assistants have had HC positions (with only Hoke having any success at all) is an indication to me that his staffs were good, but not great overall.
English certainly merited an interview with UM when Carr retired, but assuming that race was 100% behind his not getting the job is stupid. He had never been a head coach in college, and there is no reason for the University of Michigan to be a training ground for guys with no HC experience. It's too early to make a judgement about English given the horrible situation he inherited at EMU, but 0-12 isn't a good entry line on your resume.
I'd add that one of Bo's best assistants coaches never even went on to become a head coach - Jerry Hanlon.
This is a fair criticism. You should not be negged for it. It's hard to understand how a coach who could post a good record for 13 seasons could not (as of now, anyway) produce any top-notch coaches from the ranks of his assistants. Carr was a good coach but he may have been overly loyal to certain assistants, and the overall staff may have suffered somewhat from it.
The reason falls in that Lloyd had 2 long standing assistant coaches, DeBord and Herrmann, that got derailed right towards the end of their runs. DeBord with the dismal CMU break, and return, and Herrmann replaced only in 2006, which didn't leave a lot of years for English to prove he could do it or not. (I think he's a better coach than some on here do, but a 2 year coordinator isn't going to become the next head coach at Michigan). Bo had a bit more turnaround. I mean, if Moeller had failed with Illinois closer to Bo's retirement, or if Bo wasn't the Athletic Director (which he basically took just so he could name his successor), Moeller's probably not getting the job. And many would be saying the same things about his stint at Illinois.
In my mind, Lloyd's biggest career mistake was mixing pressure with friend loyalty, and pushing Terry Malone out for DeBord after 2005. Herrmann had a lot of years of defenses that didn't live up to the hype, but prior to 2005, Malone, while maybe not the innovator that Rich is, was running a more up tempo, higher powered offense; not typical Michigan. He was a smart guy, with good values. I was always impressed with him. And in the rush to make changes, and potentially open up the spot for DeBord, he got pushed out after one lackluster season that wasn't really his fault. Yes, the O was bad in 05, but really there was a great string of injuries on the O-Line than I've ever seen on a Michigan football team. It reminded me of 93, where we just couldn't put it together, in that case because we had sent a line to the NFL and while there was talent, it was all young and inexperienced. (I'll never forget Rod Payne, who went on to develop into a pretty good lineman, looking completely lost vs. MSU as guys blew by him). With another couple of years under his belt, if successful, Malone would have been at the experience point to make the step. But the timing of the replacements derailed a careers and Michigan succession.
Not that I'm crying for anybody. Terry got a Super Bowl ring out of it. We got Rich Rod. Not so much playing a what if game, as another explanation for why there weren't as many coaches that went on to greatness. That, and the fact with like 8 less years coaching, Lloyd's assistants are 8 less years behind in their career track...and a lot of Lloyd's guys, for whatever reason, seem to move on to the NFL rather than college spots. Stan Parrish, Sheridan...number of them have Super Bowl rings. Sheridan was a D-coordinator...and got canned; but Cameron has been a mixed bag at his spots, and you mention him.
With the possible exception of Scot Loeffler - and of Jim Herrmann immediately following the 1997 season - Carr's assistants were rarely considered hot commodities. Anyway, DeBord wasn't really a long-timer; he was our OC for only five seasons, spread out over an 11-year stretch. That Carr, a coach with a .752 career winning percentage, failed to produce a top-flight coach among his assistants is one of those things that's just hard to explain.
Anyway, while I wasn't a huge fan of Herrmann's, the fact is that we actually performed better, relative to national averages, on defense than on offense most years under Carr. Our defense usually surrendered fewer points than the national average, sometimes by large margins, while our offense rarely exceeded the national scoring average. We've grown accustomed to low-scoring, defensive football, so we tended to focus our criticism on the D when we lost games in the 4th quarter. But you could just as often have blamed the offense for not putting games away.