The way I see it, there is a lot of ruin in Rome....so what do I mean? It takes a long time for a great organization to go downhill (or can take a long time) due living off the built up capital of years. Ultimately, tradition is made and kept up by men...if the men are lacking, tradition will ultimately follow....We had great coaches at the helm of UM. And one, Bo, who brought us back to glory and taught us how to win. Yes, he may not have won the big one (due to bad luck and sometime poor decisions) but we were always competitive and usually won. You knew when you played Michigan that you were in a dogfight. Then came Mo....to this day I think he was vastly underrated...yes he had some mediocre years but he was positioning us for the next era...and he stockpiled talent. Who knows what would have happened if he stayed (he left due to drunken behavior at bar that is laughable by today's standards). Then our demise began...yes, I think Carr was a slightly above average coach. He inherited the talent that Mo gave him and proceeded to continue to underachieve until he caught lightening in the bottle in '97 with Hermann's zone blitz. But that was short lived....and we started our downward trajectory....and then had disastrous hires in RR and BK. Men make tradition and frankly they were poor choices for Michigan...and we are still digging out from that. Maybe not purely on a talent side but on the mental side....we have forgotten how to win.
I've been a big fan of JH...he has been successful everywhere and he has rebuilt us from where we were.....but....we are not where we should be. I was as down on this program as I could be after the ND game....but we did improve...until today. I think the D Brown criticisms are warranted. If the other team has equivalent talent, we get exposed. Not just challenged but exposed and embarrassed. Again, I do like our coaches but there has to be a serious soul searching. No team, much less OSU, should have ever scored that many points on us....this is beyond humiliating....When we could have the same result if I was coaching the team...worse yet...it looks like I was coaching....then we have a serious, serious problem. It doesn't help when you know what kind of program OSU is but even if they are questionable ethically doesn't mean we shouldn't be able to compete. Not sure where we go from here but if can't compete this year with this "great" defense...when can we ever?
I've been a big fan of JH...he has been successful everywhere and he has rebuilt us from where we were.....but....we are not where we should be. I was as down on this program as I could be after the ND game....but we did improve...until today. I think the D Brown criticisms are warranted. If the other team has equivalent talent, we get exposed. Not just challenged but exposed and embarrassed. Again, I do like our coaches but there has to be a serious soul searching. No team, much less OSU, should have ever scored that many points on us....this is beyond humiliating....When we could have the same result if I was coaching the team...worse yet...it looks like I was coaching....then we have a serious, serious problem. It doesn't help when you know what kind of program OSU is but even if they are questionable ethically doesn't mean we shouldn't be able to compete. Not sure where we go from here but if can't compete this year with this "great" defense...when can we ever?
