Carr Featured in SI

SALINE, MI Coach Carr was featured in Sport Illustrated this week as a pre-cursor to the game. Here are a few solid quotes from the piece by Austin Murphy.

Many of the vocal critics in Wolverine Nation bayed for a new direction. One of the reasons that Michigan is No. 2….is that Carr agreed with them.

On Woodley and the defense:

If Michigan has a face this season….it is the glowering mug of defensive captain and sackmeister LaMarr Woodley..[who] is the soul of the baddest defense in the country.

In introducing star defense coordinator, SI validated one of my takes [see Jim Herrmann’s Head, Sept. 2006] by stating:

Where Herrmann installed opponent-specific packages each week, sometimes overwhelming his players, English simplified the scheme. The result: ..athletes working from a streamlined playbook.

On Michigan’s policy toward the media:

The spirit of Bo lives on in the team’s policy toward the press: No Division I-A program is less accomodating.

And in closing, on Carr’s legacy at Michigan

Even if Carr gets his 114th win at the expenses of the Buckeyes, however, it is his fate to be misunderstood and underappreciated, the kind of coach of whom most Michigan fans will say, once he is gone: Who was that masked man? We never got a chance to thank him.