Following Saturday’s 14-3 loss at home to Ohio State — the 6th time in the last 7 meetings Jim Tressel has gotten the better of him —- University Of Michigan head coach Lloyd Carr stepped down today, an occasion that can only properly be eulogized by one of his most ardent critics. Joey from Straight Banging, the floor is yours :
The Lloyd Carr football legacy is instead one of steady consolation prizes, no matter how many times his apologists tell you about the national championship of a decade ago or the five Big Ten titles sprinkled in through 2004. No one denies those accomplishments, but they carry less and less weight as bowl losses pile up, Ohio State losses sink in, and time marches on. A coach is ultimately to be judged by the teams he puts on the field. In the past five years, Carr’s have been poorly prepared for important games and incapable of executing the philosophy and strategy espoused by their leader. That’s damning, as is a 5-7 bowl record, a 5-4 mark against Notre Dame during a historic down period, and a 6-7 mark that was once 5-1 against Ohio State.
A similar melancholy will also forever define Chad Henne, Mike Hart, and Jake Long. The core of a Michigan program now officially owned by Jim Tressel, HH&L will be remembered as much for their inability to win big games as for their Rose Bowl appearances and four-year starting run. Players who gave so much of themselves to the program perhaps deserve better, and yet sports is about results and not rhetoric.