Just Saying, Is All...Singing the Blues with Lloyd Carr

Poor Lloyd Carr.

The Michigan Wolverines lost 34-32 to the Appalachian State Mountaineers on Saturday.

Again, for emphasis: The Michigan Wolverines lost 34-32 to the Appalachian State Mountaineers on Saturday.

The Wolverines, Bubba—not Lloyd Carr.

Too bad you’d never know it by reading the headlines.

I’m no Lloyd Carr fan, and this is certainly no Lloyd Carr defense, but let’s be real. The Wolverines didn’t lose on Saturday because of anything Carr did or didn’t do as a coach. It was Appalachian State. They were the University of Michigan. The game should have been over the minute they put it on the schedule.

The Wolverines lost, plain and simple, because the Wolverines didn’t show up to play.

And last I checked, Lloyd Carr wasn’t the one lacing up the shoulder pads.

It’s a tough gig, being a college football coach. You watch miles of tape. You drill thousands of reps. You account for contingencies until the cows come home, and you convince yourself you’ve done everything you can to keep your hold on an ever-tenuous job...and then when Saturday rolls around you place your fate entirely in the hands of several dozen hormonally imbalanced twenty-somethings.

If they win, you’re a guru.

If they lose, you’re a goat.

If they lose 34-32 to the Appalachian State Mountaineers, you just might be a goat in the unemployment line.

Again, I’m not out to pimp Lloyd Carr here, first and foremost because I’m not sure a man who devotes his life to the recreational pursuits of overgrown adolescents deserves pimping. Still, you have to feel for the guy. We all want to be In Control—of cause, of effect, of being. We aren’t. Some of us have learned to live with it. Some of us, alas, are college football coaches.

Between the game plan and the game, to steal one from T.S. Eliot, falls the shadow.

Lloyd Carr found that out the hard way this weekend.

And anyone who’d fault him for it would be only just saying, is all...

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