The Silver Lining in Michigan's Defeat.

Last Saturday, Michigan suffered the indignity of perhaps the biggest upset in college football history.  They lost to a Division 1-AA school, becoming the first ranked Division 1 school to do so since the AP Poll began about 30 or so years ago.  Even though the school was the 2-time defending Division 1-AA champions and riding the longest undefeated streak in the nation, the loss was inexcusable.

I wasn't that surprised that Michigan lost, and no one who actually watched portions of the game should have been surprised either.  I'm not even particularly surprised that a lower-division school managed to beat the winningest program in college football history. 

Here's why.  Anyone who asked me about this season's prospects for Michigan got the same response: "They lost almost their whole defense to graduation and the draft, so their defense is going to suck.  Sure they'll be good on offense, but [coach] Lloyd Carr is too conservative to win with offense.  Expect a bunch of high-scoring games."

Final score, week 1: Appalachian State 32, Michigan 31.  I feel like the worst kind of prophet. 

People tend to overvalue offense over defense in all sports, even though there's an old adage that defense wins championships.  Even sportswriters fall prey to this; many of them proclaimed Michigan national title contenders, even though they've never played well under Carr with a suspect defense.  They forget to look at the big picture, or the history and trends of the coach involved.  I guess I didn't make that mistake. 

The silver lining in all this is that Lloyd Carr should finally be fired (or step down) after this season is over.  I actually don't want them to fire him now; that would make the loss even more embarrassing.  Plus, technically the team still has a lot to play for.  He has earned the right to try to make this better.  I don't expect he will, and I fully expect his ouster at season's end.

But the truth is, he should have been shit-canned years ago.  Ever since his one national title 10 years ago, Carr has been mediocre.  Since 1997 he has been horrible against Ohio State, horrible in bowl games and has been exposed as a relic with prehistorically conservative play-calling and game-planning.  We might have at long last witnessed the event that finally shoves him out the door. 

And not a moment too soon. 

links: digg this    del.icio.us    technorati    reddit