BLUE

...the joy and despair of being a Wolverines fan.

January 31, 2007

COACHIOPLEGIA (COACHING PARALYSIS)

Any Michigan fan who thinks Lloyd Carr should be fired is…foolish. I was going to say “a moron,” but it would be a bad precedent to use “moron” in the first sentence of the first post in this blog’s existence. The real question is whether Lloyd can effectively coach the Michigan Wolverines any longer (there is no question, of course, that in the late 1990s he was effective indeed). In my opinion, the game has passed him by; others feel that 2006 was a success. Either way, this debate is important, even if it has been reported that Lloyd is thinking about retirement. What frustrates those of us who see a major problem with the football program are those out there who feel that even discussing the idea of a coaching change is a waste of time (i.e., Brian Cook at mgoblog, who on most other matters is the best in the business). The thinking is this: Lloyd is untouchable, so why bother discussing whether he should go or not? The answer is this: no one – including Lloyd Carr – lives in a vacuum. If he is a liability, then the sooner the noise level gets raised, the sooner Lloyd gets the Rolex and Associate AD title, and the sooner Michigan can rejoin the ranks of the truly feared programs in college football.  The squeaky wheel will eventually get oil. And that is what it’s all about: the greatest college football team in history not being a klunky Midwestern war horse totally outclassed by the fast, creative game that is modern collegiate football.

So the premise here is simple: Lloyd Carr is the reason the Michigan Wolverines are now a second-tier college football program. That is a football statement, not a value statement. He was also a big reason they won a National Championship in 1997. Hey, the Eddie Murphy responsible for 48 Hours and Trading Places early in his career also made Daddy Day Care and The Adventures of Pluto Nash later in his career.  Greatness can devolve into mediocrity when the same formula is over-utilized.

No one dismisses that Lloyd is a class guy who stands for something more than just a game; he will go down in Michigan football history as a special coach. But the football team is not great right now, and – using the standard of other elite programs, mind you – the prospects are somewhat grim. Does that hurt? I hope it does. Either you are in denial and think that Michigan is competitive at the highest level, or you realize the problem and it hurts. Twelve steps, baby: admit you have a problem.

If that’s the premise, what’s the argument?  The argument is complex, so the place to begin is at the beginning…where little, young Wolverines are born: in high schools everywhere (don’t run with that).  Yes, the slightly depraved world of recruiting.

If you can’t recruit in college football, you can’t win. Well, unless you’re Boise State. Or maybe the recent editions of Louisville. Rutgers. Let me start again - if you can’t recruit in college football, you may get lucky from time to time, but you won’t be a perennial powerhouse.

And Michigan is no longer recruiting to its potential. Don’t get me wrong, there has been talent and a lot of great players in recent classes, but there is a deeply disturbing trend as well.

The key to recruiting – as frustrated Buckeye fans used to tell me over and over and over – is keeping homegrown talent at home.  That’s the easy stuff. You figure most athletic kids growing up in a region will gravitate to that region’s most dominant program.  Young kids in any corner of the country break down something like this:

If you’re Michigan, you aren’t going to build a team hoping that the one out-of-state kid on the left is Tom Brady. If you’re Michigan, you need – as a foundation – your schools to supply your talent. If kids growing up in your backyard are not going to your school, there is a problem and you’d better find out what it is. The problem in Ohio was that John Cooper had lost the sense of tradition that makes Buckeye football great and so kids were looking elsewhere, frequently to a school up north. Now, kids like Jermale Hines – a four-star speed linebacker – use Michigan as a negotiating ploy to extract the scholarship offer they desperately want from an OSU program that picks and chooses from Ohio's best. After getting that offer, Hines had an extended sexual orgasm for a week before breathlessly calling up Coach Tressel to commit (OSU took six of the top ten in Ohio; Michigan struck out in Ohio for the first time in a long time).

While the analysis below is not scientific (in fact, it bears no resemblance to science), it does give a sense of the problem. Michigan kids are not going to Michigan.

Percentage of top ten prospects [Rivals] that commit to the school listed (2007 estimated)

Take a look at the current status of the top ten kids in Michigan. One commit at #10.

From Rivals

Rojo looks to be headed elsewhere, a Michigan kid passing on the chance to start as a freshman at CB at the University of Michigan where dwells the only CB Heisman Trophy in history, for crying out loud. This is what it should look like, in a state where the program has momentum:

From Rivals

Perhaps the last two years – where Michigan has recruited three out of the top twenty Michigan kids (assuming no Rojo) – are an anomaly.  I hope so. Florida, competing against Florida State, Miami and a nation hungry for southern speed, is 7 for 20 over the same two-year period in their home state.  

The reality may be that Michigan currently does not appeal to local kids, that trusty old Lloyd is like your grandfather: someone you admire, but not someone you want to spend more than 10 minutes with at the reunion.  You’d rather play pickup ball with Uncle Urban.  

And the current class has been saved from utter Titanic disaster by Ryan Mallett. In all likelihood, Ryan Mallett would be playing for Texas next year if they didn’t get Finched by John Brantley.  How many of those receivers that make up the strength of our class would have avoided Michigan without a big-time QB for the future? One?  Two? If Clemons is one of those, then Michigan would have finished this year without a top 100 player.

I can hear some of you screaming at this pessimistic recruiting ponzi scheme. The point is not to preach doom and gloom, but to diagnose the patient before it’s dead (i.e., Michigan basketball). This class isn’t bad – it will be the number one QB/WR combo class in the country. But this same class with Rojo, Barksdale, Colasanti, and Dionte Allen is a homerun, and homeruns start at home (and no need to hear why these four aren’t going to Michigan – that’s not the point).

Recruiting is one symptom of the illness. The Xs and Os are another. In-game adjustments are yet another. Thank God the illness – coachioplegia – has a cure.

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