How the mighty have fallen

As a former Ann Arbor resident (and still an area resident) who is not a University of Michigan fan, this debacle of a coaching search is delicious.

 

All season, everyone around Ann Arbor assumed that Les Miles would leave LSU and return to Michigan, the school that chose Lloyd Carr over him in 1995. When he made it clear that he was staying in Louisiana, we heard a lot of sour grapes comments, to the effect that Miles is not really that good of a coach, and that Athletic Director Bill Martin was never really interested in getting him. Then the news was that, from the beginning, Martin's first choice was Rutgers coach Greg Schiano. Everyone around here assumed that if Martin offerred the job, Schiano would surely take it -- what football coach would choose Rutgers over Michigan? Apparently Schiano would.

 

At some point, Michigan fans are going to have to realize that their program is only great in their minds, and only of consequence in the mediocre-at-best Big Ten. For all that they claim more national championships, more wins, etc. than any other program, nearly all of those championships came at a time when football was a very different sport. Michigan has only won one national championship in the last 50 years (1997), and they shared it with Nebraska. From year to year, Michigan is simply not in the top tier of football teams; compare their recent "success" to the real success of Southern California, Ohio State, Florida, and LSU.

 

I couldn't be happier to see Lloyd Carr's last game coming against Urban Meier and Tim Tebow. Carr is going to go out with a humiliating blow-out loss.