Eloquent Incoherence

Well, what can I say? USC played a great game. They adjusted after a comatose first half that ended in a 3-3 tie, and we didn’t. John David Booty and Dwayne Jarrett had career nights, and our biggest playmakers Mike Hart and Mario Manningham were both non-factors. They pounded our secondary for 397 passing yards, most of it coming in the second half. They moved the ball seemingly at will on their fourth touchdown drive, going 85 yards in 4 plays. Even our usually reliable offensive line gave up six sacks. Overall, our defense looked unprepared and overwhelmed. And our offense looked uninspired and predictable. We failed to win our final two (and biggest) games for the seventh year in a row. We’ve lost four consecutive bowl games. An immensely promising season has fallen apart in dramatic fashion.

It’s becoming painfully apparent to all but the most naive that there is something wrong with the Michigan program. Lloyd Carr is a good coach and a class act, and I’m not jumping on the “Fire Lloyd Carr” bandwagon. But four consecutive bowl losses and a 1-5 record against Ohio State since 2001 are clearly indicative of a systematic problem. The offensive playcalling in the Rose Bowl was was horrendously predictable, which seems to have been the story in each of our last four bowl games. Defensive coordinators will privately admit that Michigan is an easy team to game plan against, given a month of preparation time. Defensively, things aren’t much better. We make the same mistakes and have the same vulnerabilities (running QB’s, option-heavy offensive schemes) year in and year out. After we lost the Alamo Bowl last year, ESPN analyst and former Notre Dame coach Lou Holtz remarked, “Michigan has been running the same plays since we played them back when they wore leather helmets.”

Although the coaching staff shakeups last offseason helped alleviate our chronic inability to close out games, this latest bowl loss and our ongoing struggles in big games indicate that problems persist. I think it’s time for a change in philosophy. It may not happen as long as Lloyd Carr is coach (and again, he’s earned the right to go out on his own terms), but I think we should look outside the Michigan family for his replacement when he does decide to call it quits. I had mentioned in a previous post that I thought defensive coordinator Ron English would make a good successor to Carr, but Monday’s loss has convinced me that it’s time for a fresh perspective. Bringing in some new blood that has never been trained in the ways of Michigan football might be the best way to bring a fresh perspective to the program. Six years ago USC, another tradition-laden program, gambled on a coach who had no ties to USC and whose prior experience was almost entirely at the professional level. That coach, Pete Carroll, has since returned USC to national prominence and is regarded as among the best in college football. It’s true that the Michigan Way has yielded a remarkable pattern of consistency and stability. But in the era of spread offenses and creative playcalling, an ability to adapt, adjust, and innovate is essential to compete as a National Championship-caliber team.

(I highly recommend that every Michigan football fan read Michael Rosenberg’s two columns in the Detroit Free Press linked to above as well as Jake’s take on the issue of criticism of Lloyd Carr over at Motown Sports Revival.)