I'm several days late on this and several dollars short since the game wasn't televised in New York, although it's on Fox Sports tonight, but I'll throw my thoughts in nonetheless. There's never been a bigger upset in college football, not in my memory, and it could only be more surprising if it happened to a team that wasn't coached by Lloyd Carr. He's been cruising on the memory of 1997 for years now, building teams that lose games that they shouldn't and/or losing games that they have to win to make the season worthwhile. I saw some comments he made after the game about starting over to try and win the Big 10 and to that I say who gives a fuck? Who cares about winning the Big 10? Michigan is content to be a semi-big fish in that pond without challenging for the national title even though they have every advantage in the world at their disposal to challenge for bigger prizes.
When they scheduled the game with Appalachian State I criticized the Blue for scheduling the game because I thought it was beneath them to have a game at Michigan Stadium against a non-D1 opponent. It wasn't so much that ASU was a bad team, I had barely heard of them let alone seen them play and they were back-to-back champions, but because I thought Michigan should only be playing teams that were on their level. I was wrong, obviously, because not only was ASU of a high caliber but the Wolverines weren't up to the task. Mountaineer fans deserve to do all the gloating in the world, check out Popcorn Dreams for a nice roundup, and Michigan fans and boosters deserve better answers from Carr than the team wasn't prepared to play. Why weren't they? What steps are being taken to assure that it doesn't happen again against Oregon and Notre Dame?
I think Carr was already retiring when this season was over, now there's really no chance he's back for another go. Big 10 title or not, there's nothing to gain from more Carr on the sidelines in Ann Arbor. He's used the lack of preperation excuse so many times that it boggles the mind to consider that he still has a job. After all, when your job is about preparing a team how is it okay for the excuse to be that the team isn't prepared. The same problems crop up every single year, MGoblog has a depressing review, Carr refuses to make the changes necessary to build a better, more consistent program and the future needs to be in the hands of a different man.
Interesting to examine about the Michigan fans and boosters deserve better answers,although the post is also brilliant.
Posted by: Dissertation | December 28, 2010 at 05:04 AM