Jump to content

Lloyd Carr

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Civil Engineer III (talk | contribs) at 17:46, 6 September 2006 (lead per WP:DATE). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Lloyd Carr

Lloyd H. Carr (born July 30, 1945) has served as head coach of the University of Michigan football team since 1995.

Entering the 2006 season, he has 102 wins and 34 losses, for a winning percentage of .750. In Big Ten Conference play, he has 68 wins against 20 losses for a winning percentage of .773. He has won or shared five Big Ten titles (in 1997, 1998, 2000, 2003, and 2004) and his 1997 team was declared the Associated Press national champion. He has led the Wolverines to five 10-win seasons (1997, 1998, 1999, 2002, and 2003). Carr is a protégé of coaching great Bo Schembechler, having served under Schembechler as an assistant from 1980-89. He then served as an assistant under Gary Moeller from 1990-94 before being named interim head coach after Moeller's resignation. Though then-athletic director Joe Roberson initially declared that Carr was not a candidate in the search for Moeller's permanent replacement, Roberson reversed his earlier position and gave Carr the job permanently after he posted an 8-2 record through the 1995 season's first 10 games.

College Career

A native of Riverview, Michigan, Carr played college football at Missouri and Northern Michigan; he quarterbacked the latter to an undefeated season. He was a member of the Kappa Sigma fraternity at Missouri. He graduated from NMU in 1968 with his B.S. in education, and went on to earn his master's degree in education administration at NMU in 1970.

Coaching Career

Carr's coaching career began as an assistant at Nativity High School in Detroit (1968-69) and at Belleville High School from 1970 to 1973. He became head coach at Westland John Glenn High School in 1973 and earned Regional Class A Coach of the Year honors in 1975 following an 8-1 season.

Carr's collegiate coaching career started with two seasons at Eastern Michigan (1976-77), followed by two seasons at Illinois (1978-79) before arriving at Michigan as an assistant in 1980. He has remained in Ann Arbor ever since.

Accolades

He is among the winningest active football coaches in NCAA Division I-A, has won five Big Ten titles, and brought Michigan its first national championship in 49 years. He has led the Wolverines to five Top Ten finishes in the last nine seasons. The Wolverines have played in three Rose Bowl game and one Orange Bowl game under his leadership.

During the 2003 season, Carr joined Yost, Bennie Oosterbaan and Schembechler as the only coaches in school history to roam the sidelines for more than 100 career games. He trails only Yost (165-29-10) and Schembechler (194-48-5) in career victories at Michigan.

Carr has guided the school to a bowl game in every season at the helm, including a streak of nine straight Jan. 1 appearances from 1996 to 2004. He became the first Wolverine coach to win four straight bowl games, beating Auburn 31-28 on New Year’s Day at the 2001 Florida Citrus Bowl, after leading U-M to victories in the 1998 Rose, 1999 Citrus and 2000 Orange Bowls. Michigan has been ranked in the Associated Press Top 25 for all but four of Carr's career games (all in 1998), including 62 times in the top 10 of the polls.

U-M went back-to-back as Big Ten Champions and earned the school’s 19th trip to the Rose Bowl following a 7-1 conference slate during the 2004 season. Trailing 28-7 entering the fourth quarter at Minnesota, Michigan rallied for the greatest comeback victory in school history with 31 points in the final stanza to defeat the Gophers 38-35. The victory set the stage for the championship run as the Wolverines outscored the opposition by a 221 to 75 margin from the start of the fourth quarter against the Gophers through the thrilling 35-21 victory against No. 4 Ohio State that clinched the outright conference crown.

Carr, who reached 25 wins faster than any current Big Ten coach, became just the second Big Ten coach to post an undefeated regular season record in just his third year of head coaching (Joe Paterno went 10-0 in 1968 but was not affiliated with the conference at that time). He also wrote himself into the NCAA record books, becoming just the seventh coach in NCAA history to have reached 29 wins in just three seasons of coaching.

In 1997, in defeating No. 4 Ohio State, 20-14, coach Carr became just the third U-M coach to defeat Ohio State in each of his first three games, following coaching legends Yost and Fritz Crisler.

Carr defeated No. 7 Washington State, 21-16, in the Rose Bowl on Jan. 1. Two days later Michigan was named the Associated Press National Champions. A week later, the Wolverines were awarded the MacArthur Bowl by the National Football Foundation Hall of Fame and the Grantland Rice Trophy by the Football Writers Association of America, given annually to the nation's most outstanding football team.

Other awards Carr has won include: Walter Camp Football Foundation Award, American Football Coaches Association, Football News, Maxwell Football Club, Woody Hayes, and Paul "Bear" Bryant coach of the year awards. In addition, Carr became just the fourth Michigan coach to win coach of the year honors, behind Crisler (1947), Oosterbaan (1948) and Schembechler (1969).

Lloyd Carr has been inducted into both the Catholic (High School) League and Northern Michigan University Halls of Fame.

Off the field activities

In addition to his work on the football field, Carr is involved with the University, community, and coaching fraternity. He has been active in support of women’s athletics, endowing a women’s sports scholarship that is presented annually to a female student-athlete at U-M. He initiated the Women’s Football Academy that donates all proceeds to the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center. Carr was also the chairperson for the WJR/Special Olympics Golf Outing. He and his wife, Laurie, were also co-chairs of the 2002 Washtenaw County United Way Campaign. Carr serves on the NCAA Rules Committee and is a member of the American Football Coaches Association Board of Trustees. Since 2004, the annual summer "Carr Wash" has been held with the proceeds benefitting Mott's Children Hospital.

Scrutiny

Despite his accomplishments on and off the field, Carr has come under increasing scrutiny recently. Since 2001 he has struggled to beat rivals Ohio State and Notre Dame; his teams have also lost their last five road openers and their last three bowl games. These trends, along with a disappointing 7-5 record in the 2005 season have prompted many to become increasingly vocal in their criticism of his coaching. This pressure may have factored into a 2006 coaching staff shakeup headlined by the departure of longtime defensive coordinator Jim Herrmann.

Carr Named in Referee's Suit Against Big Ten

On July 18, 2006 reports surfaced that Carr was responsible for the firing of referee James Filson from the Big Ten during the spring of 2005.[1] Filson, who lost an eye during an accident and had it replaced with a prosthetic, officiated a number of games (including the Orange Bowl) without the players' or coaches' knowledge of his handicap. According to these reports, once Carr learned of the handicap he phoned Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delaney and asked for Filson's removal from the league. Carr disputes this, claiming that while he contacted Delaney, it was merely to notify him of Filson's handicap.[2]

Coaching record

Year Overall (Big Ten/place) Bowl Game
1995 9-4 (5-3/3rd) Alamo
1996 8-4 (5-3/4th) Outback
1997 12-0 (8-0/1st) Rose
1998 10-3 (7-1/1st^) Citrus
1999 10-2 (6-2/2nd) Orange
2000 9-3 (6-2/1st^) Citrus
2001 8-4 (6-2/2nd) Citrus
2002 10-3 (6-2/3rd) Outback
2003 10-3 (7-1/1st) Rose
2004 9-3 (7-1/1st^) Rose
2005 7-5 (5-3/3rd) Alamo

^denotes shared championship


Player Accomplishments

In the Carr era, several Michigan players have won national and conference awards:

Preceded by University of Michigan football head coach
1995– 		Succeeded by
Present Coach

References

  1. ^ "One-eyed referee sues Big Ten over firing" (HTML). Digital Chicago Inc. Retrieved 2006-07-07.
  2. ^ "Big Ten Media Day: Carr Goes In-Depth" (HTML). Scout.com. Retrieved 2006-08-01.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lloyd_Carr&oldid=74169369"