The heat switches seats
In new Big Ten, JoePa's on top, while Carr's under fire
Posted: Saturday November 19, 2005 7:39PM; Updated: Saturday November 19, 2005 8:48PM
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Lloyd Carr's Wolverines began the season as a top-10 team, but stumbled to a 7-4 record.
Tom Pidgeon/Getty Images
</td></tr></tbody> </table> No one wants to run
Joe Paterno out of Happy Valley any more. But the vultures may want to fly north to Ann Arbor, Mich.
With a 31-22 victory at Michigan State on Saturday, Penn State's legendary coach completed 2005's ultimate redemption tour -- from 4-7 to 10-1, from ninth in the Big Ten to conference co-champion and first-ever BCS berth. After five years playing the unfamiliar role of laughingstock, thousands of Nittany Lions fans -- many of whom had, as of a year ago, given up hope of ever returning to prominence under the seemingly outdated Paterno -- were rejoicing Saturday night in East Lansing, Mich., after witnessing the crowning moment of their season-long return to national preeminence.
Three hours earlier and 60 miles away, 110,000 stunned Michigan fans filed out of the Big House in Ann Arbor with a decidedly different emotion. Following a stunning fourth-quarter collapse against arch-rival Ohio State -- the Big Blue's most crushing disappointment in a season filled with them -- Wolverines fans are have to be asking themselves many of the same questions about 11th-year coach
Lloyd Carr that Penn State fans were asking themselves about Paterno not so long ago.
The three Rose Bowls, the national championship, the .756 winning percentage -- none of them matter as much to Wolverines fans right now as this number: 1-4. That's Carr's suddenly
John Cooper-esque record against Ohio State's
Jim Tressel.
Tressel has administered Carr's beatings in all variety of different manners, but Saturday's had to be the most frustrating yet. Leading 21-12 on its home field with 7:52 left, Michigan was well on its way to a satisfying victory. For the second straight season, however, Buckeyes quarterback
Troy Smith carved up Michigan's defense, engineering consecutive late-game touchdown drives to score a 25-21 comeback victory.
One minute, the Buckeyes were staring down the barrel of a disappointing three-loss season; the next, Smith was dancing around the field celebrating a share of the Big Ten championship and a likely Fiesta or Orange Bowl berth. One minute, Michigan was about to salvage its once-disastrous season by winning its fifth straight game and ruining its rival's BCS hopes; the next, the Wolverines were 7-4 and about to make their umpteenth trip to the Capital One or Outback bowls.
That, in a nutshell, sums up the conundrum that is Carr. It's hard to knock a guy who takes you to New Year's bowls every year, who consistently wins far more games than he loses, whose program has never, ever experienced anything resembling the kind of downturn that Paterno's did the past couple of seasons.
Throughout that period, Carr has been a standard-bearer for the "Michigan Way," a
Bo Schembechler disciple groomed in the history and tradition of the Maize and Blue who runs his program with class and dignity. Unfortunately, for the past six years, the "Michigan Way" has also meant annually bowing out of the national-title race by the end of September and finishing 8-3 or 7-4. Seeds of discontent began sprouting up in Big Blue Nation the past couple of years, even as the Wolverines were going to Rose Bowls, but they're sure to grow much stronger following what can only be termed a humbling season (Michigan began the year ranked fourth nationally) in which Saturday's colossal letdown served as a final punch to the stomach.
And to continue on with Carp, what guts he showed coming out still in full uniform and in obvious pain to cheer his team on. You Mr. Carpenter are a man among men. 
Great post, LightningRod
