Sorry that this post is long but when your team appears to be switching head coaches you got to cover it in detail. Yes I know I didn’t cover the UM basketball coaching change on this blog so save the comment.
It is becoming very apparent that Lloyd Carr will be retiring at the end of this season. It’s even possible that he announces his retirement after the Ohio State game and before the bowl game. There is simply way too much smoke for there not to be a fire. Reports out of Ann Arbor are that everyone from the secretaries to the janitors are wondering about their job security right now. Even the most ardent resisters to the rumors are now saying that retirement looks imminent. I’m not saying this is written in stone but I am saying that you would have to put the odds at somewhere around 75% anyway.
Reasons to be concerned:
1. This is distracting the team from a very important game this weekend.
2. Will the school ignore Mike DeBoard and every other stupid candidate to take over?
3. Will the school fully get behind the new coach or will the decision be controversial and divisive?
4. Will the coaching change cause ethics complaints throughout the college football world since we might very well be taking a great coach away from a well-respected program?
5. How big of a blow to the ’08 recruiting class will result?
Reasons to be excited:
1. Lloyd is retiring!
2. We might be getting a new coach who can take us to the USC/OSU/FLA stratosphere.
The candidates for the new job fall into three categories:
Proven college head coaches at the BCS conference level. This would be Les Miles, Jeff Tedford, and possibly Kirk Ferentz and Rich Rodriguez. It can’t be someone whose name is associated with another top 10 college program because his story has already been written. It has to be someone who has experienced great success at a program traditionally outside of the top 10 but still pretty darn good in its own right. So no coach (past or present) from Notre Dame, Ohio State, USC, Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Alabama, Florida, Miami, or Tennessee. Note- I don’t mention Penn State and Florida State because they have essentially had only one coach each. This makes the guys above who have experienced great success at LSU, California, Iowa, and West Virginia seem most appealing. College assistant head coaches and coordinators simply do not rise to the level of Michigan head football coach candidate.
It is becoming very apparent that Lloyd Carr will be retiring at the end of this season. It’s even possible that he announces his retirement after the Ohio State game and before the bowl game. There is simply way too much smoke for there not to be a fire. Reports out of Ann Arbor are that everyone from the secretaries to the janitors are wondering about their job security right now. Even the most ardent resisters to the rumors are now saying that retirement looks imminent. I’m not saying this is written in stone but I am saying that you would have to put the odds at somewhere around 75% anyway.
Reasons to be concerned:
1. This is distracting the team from a very important game this weekend.
2. Will the school ignore Mike DeBoard and every other stupid candidate to take over?
3. Will the school fully get behind the new coach or will the decision be controversial and divisive?
4. Will the coaching change cause ethics complaints throughout the college football world since we might very well be taking a great coach away from a well-respected program?
5. How big of a blow to the ’08 recruiting class will result?
Reasons to be excited:
1. Lloyd is retiring!
2. We might be getting a new coach who can take us to the USC/OSU/FLA stratosphere.
The candidates for the new job fall into three categories:
Proven college head coaches at the BCS conference level. This would be Les Miles, Jeff Tedford, and possibly Kirk Ferentz and Rich Rodriguez. It can’t be someone whose name is associated with another top 10 college program because his story has already been written. It has to be someone who has experienced great success at a program traditionally outside of the top 10 but still pretty darn good in its own right. So no coach (past or present) from Notre Dame, Ohio State, USC, Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Alabama, Florida, Miami, or Tennessee. Note- I don’t mention Penn State and Florida State because they have essentially had only one coach each. This makes the guys above who have experienced great success at LSU, California, Iowa, and West Virginia seem most appealing. College assistant head coaches and coordinators simply do not rise to the level of Michigan head football coach candidate.
Up and coming college coaches. This is where you would find Brian Kelly (Cincinnati) and Greg Schiano (Rutgers). I am not going to focus on those guys right now but I will say that I am hesitant to suggest that Michigan should hire someone that has had his highest level of success at only the Big East level and only recently (yes I know I have Rich Rodriguez listed above). That said, I would not be totally against UM going that direction.
NFL coaches. The three names you hear are Cam Cameron (could he possibly be having a worse resume year with the Dolphins), Jon Gruden (Bucs might keep him), and Bill Cowher. I won’t go into the NFL guys right now either because I think the “proven college head coaches” level is the most likely and best option for Michigan. I will simply say that there has empirically been a rough rode for most NFL coaches trying to make it in big time college football. See Bill Callahan (Nebraska), Dave Wannstedt (Pitt), and Al Groh (Virginia). Plus there are always concerns about how good of a recruiter the coach will be and how good the coach will be with young college kids (see Charlie Weis).
With all that said, the two leading candidates seem to be Les Miles (the clear number one) and Jeff Tedford. I will briefly review them both in my next two posts.
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