After all my dogging of former Ohio State players for selling their precious charm pants (which they receive if they beat Michigan) on eBay, look what just showed up in the memorabilia auctions. It’s a 1980 Big Ten and Rose Bowl ring. Often the OSU gold pants auctions hide the name of the original owner; in this case the name is in giant letters on the side of the massive ring: Did this beauty belong to coach Bill McCartney, architect of the McCartney’s Monsters defense as Ufer described them, who was an assistant under Bo Schembechler on that great team? There were no other McCartney’s on the 1980 squad. Did Coach McCartney voluntarily sell his ring? Maybe not. The auction specifies that this is a “RARE salesman sample with all proper markings inside the ring”. Whew…perhaps the integrity of the Michigan coaching staff is preserved! McCartney left Michigan a year later to take over the Colorado head coaching position. He led the Buffaloes to a national championship in 1990 and retired following the 1994 season. Sample or real, this is quite a piece of Michigan history will significant ties to the present. Check out some of the names on the 1980 team and staff: Assistant coaches: Lloyd Carr, Jerry Hanlon, Bill McCartney, Les Miles, Gary Moeller Players: Mike Trgovac, Butch…
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Thanks Coach Carr
Major changes in Michigan football history are afoot as Coach Carr will announce his retirement at 10am today. Outside just a few feet away from the Junge Champions Center, trucks will be descending upon the Big House to start the multi-million dollar renovation to Michigan stadium set to be completed by the opening kick-off 2010. That ’10 season a mix of players, some who played and/or were recruited by Carr, and some from the first two recruiting classes of the new Wolverine coach. Bill Martin is going to be a busy guy over the next few months and years. I’m sure that he’ll find a classy way to allow the public to honor Lloyd Carr and I look forward to it.
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HBO’s ‘The Rivalry’ Reviewed
The brief letdown I felt on Sunday stemming from the losses this weekend has faded and I’m in full-on geeked mode for the Big One. The Lloyd Carr retirement rumors have raised it up a notch and it’s just been too long since the last home game – let’s do this! With the hype building for Saturday it was a great night to watch the premiere of HBO’s first documentary dedicated to sports: The Rivalry. Initial review by those that at pre-screening event was that it was slanted toward the Buckeyes and didn’t mention Lloyd Carr. I went in with an open mind: – The content definitely slanted toward the Buckeye side of the house. I’d say the last half of the piece was 80% focused on Ohio State fans and Woody Hayes.– Overall it was well done. While they didn’t have any mention/picture/video of Lloyd Carr, they didn’t exactly spend a lot of time on Tressel. But the Carr omission was a little weird. I mean, they showed footage of John Cooper and a lot of Earle Bruce, but and didn’t mention Carr?– The quotes from Bo were great. They talked about the gold pants that each OSU coaches and players gets if they beat Michigan (and later show up on eBay). One thing that never occurred to me…
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Carr to Retire after OSU game?
Oh boy – Brian of MGoBlog is posting that he’s had a few folks who are saying just that.
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Is Saturday Carr’s Last Home Game?
Is Saturday’s showdown the last in the Big House for Lloyd Carr? If so, where does his body of work put him inside the Michigan coaching Valhalla? Definitely somewhere below Yost, Schembechler and Crisler, maybe on par with Kipke and above the rest. It’s tough to compare eras but clearly it is getting harder to win consistently as the years pass. Overall Lloyd Carr has delivered. How will Carr remembered? Many of his critics have pegged Carr a great recruiter but a decent coach who should have competed for more national championships. Carr’s earned some of the criticism and deserves some of the heat for the way things started this year. Yet many if not most M fans will hold a fond place for Carr due to his performance on the field especially the 1997 championship and for his significant work for Mott hospital and other local charities. When he decides to leave Carr deserves to be honored and I’m sure he will. For the stat nerds, Carr is in a winning percentage battle with the man he succeeded, Gary Moeller. Coming into the year Carr (.75839) had a six thousandths of a percentage point lead on Mo (.75833). If Carr loses again this year he’ll dip below Moeller in this metric (and no doubt live the rest of his…
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Carr Loves Mo D?
Oh my nerves are shot. You get the feeling we really haven’t scratched the surface on the man that is Lloyd Carr. I just saw this link on mgoblog’s m.go.licious links. Pete Thamel of the New York Times was on campus this week and spent some time with our coach. According to his post Another Side of Carr, Thamel reveals prior to his Monday presser Carr approached him with a question, ““Do you know Maureen Dowd?”. Carr went on to praise Dowd for her intelligence and style. Dowd of course writes the ‘Liberties’ Op-Ed column in the Times and is a big time liberal. Along with Thomas Friedman, she is part of the A-Team of columnists appearing each week on Wednesday and the coveted Sunday editions. I doubt that a copy of the Times never made it to Bo Schembechler’s desk during his days roaming his building on State State, and if he ever got wind of Carr’s praise of Dowd you can bet he have a few words. Old Bo was a vocal conservative and I’m sure he kept things that way inside Schembechler Hall. Is our man Carr turning the political leanings of the athletic department toward those of our students, faculty and town? Elsewhere: Check out this week’s Sports Illustrated’s piece on the Detroit Lions practice squad…
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Path to Pasadena Now Clear
What a great win last night for this team and for Henne, the kind of gutsy performance that people will remember for years. By coming off the bench twice to save this game and this season, Henne put his footprint on this post-apocolyptic 6 game run right next to that of Hart. And hats off to Manningham and Arrington who played their butts off all day. Quick takes on this game: Fumbos in the Booth – Why wasn’t the Arrington catch in the endzone immediately reviewed by the replay officials? Carr had to use a timeout to get them to look at it- what were they doing? Just because it was correctly overturned (eventually) doesn’t excuse those clowns in the booth. That was a huge, huge play and if Carr didn’t step in it looks like it wouldn’t have been overturned. The Difference – Carr deserves a lot of credit here for how this team played. Other than Ryan Mallett’s miscues and a bad pass from Henne that resulted in a pick, the team played a very error-free game. Their first penalty wasn’t until the fourth quarter and you saw solid play in the kicking game and M didn’t drop many passes. This is a well disciplined team while Illinois could have won this game if not for bad penalties,…
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Team Survey Results
The Ann Arbor News posted the results of its annual team survey. They asked 18 players to answer a variety of questions and here are a few notes: Q. Will Lloyd Carr retire after this season? Don’t know – 11 votes No – 7 votes. Q: Best player in the Big Ten outside U-M (last year Troy Smith ran away with this): P.J. Hill (Wisconsin) – 4 votes James Laurenitis (Ohio State) – 2 votes Brian Hoyer (Mich State) – 1 vote Javon Ringer (Mich State) – 1 vote Q: What are you looking forward to most about the stadium renovation: More noise – 5 votes “Nothing” – 2 votes Q: Who’s the hardest hitter? John Thompson – 7.5 votes Q: Who should win the Heisman? Mike Hart – 9 votes Chad Henne – 1 vote Hart or Henne – 7 votes Chris Graham – voted for himself saying “I’m going to be a history-maker.”