[NU Sports] NFF Hall of Fame Class

[SjT (Stephen J. Truog)]

> I won't say any more about Lloyd Carr than Truog is already
> thinking.

Hey, I don't have that much against Lloyd - he did win a title in Ann Arbor and ran a pretty classy program. I actually felt kind of bad for him at the end being bounced out and think Michigan learned their lesson about being greedy with the hot-shot flavor-of-the-month coaches. Lloyd's final game where is rag-tag group got into the faces of the Gatorthugs and took it right to St. Urban's team in their home state had me standing up and cheering. Especially when Lloyd's rivals in Columbus ran and hid from the SEC's talk and rep ... he faced them head on with no fear and won.

I do think that overall, Lloyd's team underachieved a bit with all his talent - he usually did well in big games, but lost some games he shouldn't have each year and with all that talent, Michigan grew restless.

My other jab at Lloyd had to do with his grumpy/whiny demeanor -- pregame press all week, during the game at the refs and in postgame conferences. The cruel twist is that when Lloyd SHOULD have whined to make his case, he didn't, and it cost him. In 2007, Michigan was #2 and lost a close game at #1 OSU to end the season. They were still #3 the next two weeks of rankings and then #2 lost, so they should get another shot ... right?

Lloyd tried to stay classy and leave it in the hands of the moronic B(C)S formula and the idiot press that was just starting to buy into the SEC hype. Urban Meyer whined and whined for two weeks about getting a shot with his team, who had been handled at Auburn earlier in the season. In their two games after Michigan ended the year ranked ahead of them, Florida barely scraped by an unranked 6-win FSU team and had a sloppy win over an Arkansas team that had opened the year losing to USC 14-50 and backed into the SEC title game despite losing to LSU.

But those two less-than-impressive wins were somehow enough to vault whining Urban's Gators from #4 to #2 over a Michigan team that had not lost a game in those two weeks and had a resume of beating then-#2 Notre Dame by 26 points in South Bend and 11-1 Wisconsin and falling to #1 OSU by only 3 points in Columbus.

So I kind of felt bad for Lloyd after that as well. The one time he should have been out their politicking and making Michigan's case and he didn't! 

But I digress ... good for Lloyd getting into the hall. I dunno if I'll be lining up to hear his speech, though.:)

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STEPHEN J. TRUOG
sjtruog at yahoo.com
GO CATS!!! GEAUX SAINTS!!!
Super Bowl XLIV Champions!
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