U of M thread (in the Lions Forum) :)

[chemiclord]

Well its pretty clear Carr didn't like Rich Rodriguez and thought he was bad for the program. Guess what? He was 100 percent correct. Rod Rodriguez was a failure, not cut out for the job. With State, they hire a bad coach like John L Smith and everyone can agree that it was a bad hire, Michigan makes an awful coaching decision and they have to find some external reason on why this "offensive genius" didn't work out. Funny thing is they blame Carr for sabotaging it, the hiring was the actual sabotage.

Plus your story is jaundiced against Carr and not what I've heard how it went down. So its all a matter of who is talking to who.

I have no skin in the game on this. I couldn't stand Carr, but I correctly said you wouldn't know what you had until he left and on that account I am 100 percent correct.

pANDs

People keep on talking Harbaugh but everyone and their brother said he was destined for the pros. Guess what? He's in the pros. If Carr had some inkling that getting a guy not long for the university wasn't in the programs best interst, maybe he was right.

Rodriguez was the fallback option, nobody wanted him. There were two camps that pushed their guy to replace Carr. Carr's camp wanted Ron English. The other camp (led by Bill Martin), wanted a return to the old Schembechler coaching tree, pushing hard for Les Miles.

It looked like the latter camp started to win out, and the push for Miles was on. Meetings were made (discretely), initial offers were put together, and then one of Lloyd's buddies in administration happens to leak that Miles to Michigan was a "done deal" to Kirk Herbstreit, which effectively deep-sixed the entire thing. If Miles had seriously been considering it (which considering what happened this summer, he might not have been), there was absolutely no chance that it was going to happen at that point.

Now, I'm sure it's entirely possible that this buddy of Lloyd acted completely of his own accord to sabotage the hiring of a guy Carr absolutely loathed (Miles and Carr are not on good terms by any stretch of the imagination), but I highly, highly doubt it. Carr loves doing things by proxy, having others do these sort of things so that he can feign innocence.

At any rate, in response to this, the Schembechler camp completely dug in their heels and refused to even allow Ron English to even set foot in Ann Arbor. That duel of egos drug on so long that the Wolverines were so behind that they pretty much hired the first "big name" coach that was willing to step into that powder keg.

Enter Rich Rodriguez, who was looking for an out from some shady dealings in West Virginia, and a marriage made in hell was born.

So, yeah, Carr being 100% right that RichRod would fail was pretty much a gimme. There was no way it was going to end in anything short of disaster. But Carr's cronies rather forced that hand, and I believe Carr was directly responsible for that. It completely fits my experience with how the man does business.

That's the problem. His ego refused to let him be succeeded by Les Miles, and he intentionally sabotaged the attempts to do so. That's what I'm referring to, not the RichRod hire.

As for Harbaugh, no one ever considered him at all at any point. He was a traitor to the university as far as the people in charge were concerned. I only invoked him because U-M wasted no time branding Harbaugh a traitor simply for suggesting they were no better than anyone else, but Carr ruining a coaching hire out of spite is swept under the rug and attempted to be forgotten. Which one actually did harm to the university? It's part of that arrogance in Ann Arbor that I've come to despise. All that matters is that they appear better than everyone else; they don't care if they really are... just as long as it looks that way.

It's not so much who was right or who was wrong that in the end set my mind completely against Carr. Even if you do think he was given the shaft from the university, his actions since have demonstrated to me that he cares more about his own legacy and getting his way over the success of the program. How anyone can defend that baffles me.

[froot loops]

I've heard that story, but I don't buy it all, its too simplistic.


Carr is not on good terms with Miles for a very good reason. And that reason made him persona non grata at Michigan.

[chemiclord]

And now, with that said; I'm going to set aside my Carr hate, and say this:

Personally, I have to admit Carr was given the shaft, at least initially. Bill Martin resented the idea that Carr might become the next face in that "pantheon" of football greats at the U of M. Martin wanted to hearken back to the Schembechler tree and did everything he could to marginalize Carr's influence.

And yes, the expectations placed upon Carr's teams were much higher than what had been expected of Bo. That's not to say that the expectations were unfair (I do believe the Wolverines had teams that should have been national title contenders for much of Carr's tenure, and it never really materialized), but yes, the standards that the University set on Carr was considerably higher than anyone before him.

I know I rag on Carr a lot... and I really don't do a very good job explaining that it wasn't all him. That entire university is loaded with exceptional egos and arrogance, of which Carr is but one, even if he's one of the more visible ones.

I will readily admit I do not like Lloyd Carr, both as a coach and as a person. I think his game philosophy was borderline retarded, and behind the scenes he was a total jackass. I'm sure he had his good points, and I bet I'd have seen them had I allowed myself to.

So, sure, from my posts on this forum, it probably sounds like I'm horribly unfair to him, but rest assured, you don't want me to get into discussion about some of the other people who ran the show there. It was one of the reasons I did not like my internship very much, and why I abandoned the idea of being a professional sportswriter... it was jarring to see just how many assholes run athletics, especially at the amateur level.

[chemiclord]

I've heard that story, but I don't buy it all, its too simplistic.


Carr is not on good terms with Miles for a very good reason. And that reason made him persona non grata at Michigan.

Carr is not on good terms with Miles because Miles thinks Carr is a jackass and a moron (to put it in simplistic terms). The feelings are reciprocated. The two frequently butted heads when they were both coaching at U-M, from what I have been told.

There may be more to it from the university's standpoint, I suppose, but considering they have pursued him twice as coach at U-M, I don't think any of them are "persona non grata" caliber. Sometimes, the simple answer is the right one.

Now, Harbaugh on the other hand was and is persona non grata at U-M. Even when all the rumor was that they were talking to him this winter, I knew better, and he was not considered at any point no matter what the rumor mill said. They'd like to claim its because they didn't want the U-M coaching job to be a stepping stone to the pros, but the real reason is that Harbaugh attacked their pride, and that is a cardinal sin in Ann Arbor.

[froot loops]

I should have said persona non grata to some people at Michigan. It isn't just Carr.

[chemiclord]

I should have said persona non grata to some people at Michigan. It isn't just Carr.

No, it isn't... and I am terrible at explaining that the entire mess in Ann Arbor is more than Lloyd's antics. I certainly don't blame him for everything, even if it sounds like I do the way I rag on him endlessly.

[Jamie H]

Miles slept around with another coaches wife, supposedly Moeller's. Given that Carr and Moeller are best friends, Carr pretty much hates Miles.

Look, I'm a huge Bo fan, but all you have to do is look at the landscape of college football and you realize that Carr was essentially juast as successful as a coach than Bo was. Sure Bo had a better record (regular season), but look at who he played. The Big Ten was HORRIBLE in the 70's. And Bo was about the worst big game coach in history. He salvaged defeat from the jaws of victory more times than I can count. And his clock management skills bordered on being criminal.

Carr had some down years towards the end of his career, but was overall very successful in a MUCH more competitive era of college football than Bo. Plus Carr could actually win Bowl games.

[DanO]

"Given that Carr and Moeller are best friends, Carr pretty much hates Miles."
-------------------He should ahte Moeller's wife.

GO LIONS "11" !

[Jamie H]

He probably does. But I don't think she was up for the Michigan job.

BTW I don't know that it was Moeller's wife, but it was apparently another Michigan coaches wife.

[Marko69]

No, it isn't... and I am terrible at explaining that the entire mess in Ann Arbor is more than Lloyd's antics. I certainly don't blame him for everything, even if it sounds like I do the way I rag on him endlessly.

DanO's house after Saturday night?

[chemiclord]

I had actually forgotten entirely about the rumor that Miles had been sleeping around. It was rumored to be Moeller's wife, yes... whether or not it actually was, or that Miles was sleeping around at all... *shrug*. I dunno.

[froot loops]

There were other things as well. It wasn't just that rumor. Actually that rumor seems to be a little out there.

[Jamie H]

What were the other things you were hearing Froot? That was the worst of what I heard, and I heard it from some people that spend a lot of time covering the program (though that doesn't mean it still isn't just a rumor).

[froot loops]

The couple ones I've heard was he was outwardly campaigning for the job at the annual golf outing before he got the LSU job. And then there's that recruiting rumor that he said something about Carr's health to a recruit that ended up going to LSU.

Those are the two other main ones I've heard.

[Jamie H]

Oh yeah, I forgot about the recruiting thing. Yeah, supposedly he got wind of Lloyd's illness though his Michigan back-channels and then used it against Michigan in recruiting. Definitely underhanded if it happened. In fact, that would probably make Lloyd a lot madder than anything miles did or didn't diddle back in the 80's