GBMW: Time to stop blaming Carr:
We have been viewing on numerous message boards a growing trend where people want to blame former Coach Carr for the current problems, while also not supporting Coach Rod.
This is Coach Rod's team, and he even has said this was his team when he took the job. He considers the players his.
Coach Carr has, at several functions this spring and early summer, said good things about the program and made the supporting statement that it would get turned around.
I like how people want Carr to come out now and be a showcase. Even though coach was clearly not fond of the media and kept the media out. Media had a low attendance rate at practice and Coach’s interviews with the media are legendary, that is, in a unique way.
Carr and Coach Rod are quite different. Different is not good or bad, but again, different. Of note, perhaps seminal, in the comparison is the definition and experience of the student athlete. Hailing back to MaizeMan’s testimony, Carr wanted his players to be more in the classic, almost now extinct, student-athlete mold, enjoying the time away from football. He also held a philosophy that players should be allowed to get away from it all, and voluntary literally was voluntary.
Now if you went to the past two Michigan spring coaches’ clinics like MaizeMan, CoachBt, and EROC, you would have heard both Coach Barwis and Coach Rod comment on this construct of volunteerism.
Coach Barwis: Voluntary workouts ... Yea they are voluntary and so is breathing, and I do not see you stop breathing.
Coach Rod: Voluntary workouts ... Yea they are voluntary, but so is their playing time.
That kind of tells you, or at least us, that there is no such thing as literal voluntary workouts. The purpose here is not to place a right or wrong tag on either approach. Morals, ethics, etc. aside, there is a crafty little thing known as reality. The reality is nowadays to compete at the highest level, a program must demand that players put in extra time lifting weights, studying film, and also working out, doing typical activities such as 7 on 7 drills and technique work.
It is well past time for program observers to move on and stop blaming the former coach, who is (reality) no longer the head coach at Michigan. This is Coach Rod's team and has been since he was announced as the head coach. At Michigan it is supposed to be Leaders and Best, this does entail blame shifting which can be translated into the classic logic flaws of sour grapes and strawman arguments.
Unfortunately, such occurrences are still commonplace.
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Written by CoachBt and ErocWolverine
5 comments:
Coaches, I agree with everything you wrote. I do have a question though.
Do you think there is a division/ faction within the Michigan Athletic Family (not necessarily on the football team) that didn't want RR from the start and wants him to go away by leaking bad press and encouraging writers to create negative stories? Thanks.
Sorry but I must respectfully disagree with you this time. The fact that you have players complaining about working out (Carr recruited players). Tells you that Carr shoulders some of the blame for the present mess. At the end of his tenure it has been said by many (including I believe yourselves)that summer conditioning was in fact voluntary under Carr which contributed to the team coming into the seaons out of shape and not football ready.
You take kids who have been in this circumstance and put them in a coach Rod system which demands year round training, of course you are going to get an uprising! Some (not all) of the Carr players got lazy and viewed the summer as party time.
Sorry, I really like Carr, but he shoulders much (yes I believe the majority) of the blame for this uprising by players, since he did not force them to compete year around like other top programs.
Again just my opinion.
Anonymous:
Well the thing is these players that you say have "uprised" are either not on the team or no longer here.
So do they have an agenda?
Also yes they are putting in a lot of time, but was any of the questions to those players such as did the coaches force the players to be there? Were coaches around? Why did they sign paperwork if they didn't believe what they were signing?
There were a lot of kids under Carr especially offensive linemen that was putting in the extra work. Do you think Jake Long got where he is today only on 20 hours of "mandatory" practices under Coach Carr.
Also so does that mean guys like Kevin Koger, Will Campbell, and even soon to be a Wolverine Marvin Robinson all fall into that "Carr" era as well since they all were recruited and two of them committed to Carr?
Agreed. Blaming Carr is way out of bounds. And I should add (and I think you made this point) that Carr has been an exemplary ex-coach, supporting the program and staying out of the way. Of course, you wouldn't expect anything less from that man.
Poor Carr; after enduring years of the absurd criticism that comes with that job, he probably thought he was through with it when he retired.
My point is that people get used to the status quo. You had players under Carr that for 2 or 3 years were able to "coast" through summer conditioning. (Again, not all, as you sighted Jake Long who worked his butt off). But you had some (who are the ones that left the program and are now bashing it) who coasted for 2 or 3 years. Then RR comes in and demands a higher level of excellence, and these players that are used to a laid back workout plan, view it as "excessive", when in fact its a routine they should have been doing every summer if they wanted to compete with other top talent.
Sorry, but I hold Carr responsible for letting the summer conditioning workout disappear in his later tenure. Then RR had to reestablish (work ethic)something that is viewed as normal in other Universities.
Again, just my opinion.
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