Hokepoints: Why Lloyd Didn't Leave a Tree

We're from the Erik Campbell branch

From 1995 to 2007 Michigan had a Hall of Fame head coach who embodied the ideals of ethics and education within a championship-caliber football program, the thing we're actually referring to when we venerate "Michigan." It won a national championship, usually beat its rivals, took a lot of trips to Pasadena and Orlando, won a share of the Big Ten as often as not, and put more players on NFL rosters than any team save Miami (YTM).

But in two (soon to be three) coaching searches hence, there has been a remarkable lack of suitable head coaching candidates from that 13 season span, and it's all due to the single biggest flaw of its last successful head coach: Lloyd Carr was too loyal to mediocre assistants.

A coaching staff  will typically go through a lot of dudes, though on the whole it's more common for an assistant to get a better job than be fired from their current one without their boss going too.

I'll break it up by group.

Offense

Primary complaint was offense so I'll start there. Number is parentheses is the guy's current age.

Lloyd's first OC, Fred Jackson (64), was promoted more for loyalty than any supposed grasp of the offense. The fan consensus at the time was that Jackson was in over his head, and wasting all of that air-the-ball talent that Moeller had so carefully constructed. The latter half of '96 was brutal (except for OSU), and Jackson was demoted back to RBs coach, where he will remain until the end of eternity.

The reason we thought Lloyd Carr would only be an interim head coach at first was he made Fred Jackson his first offensive coordinator, i.e. he replaced GARY EFFING MOELLER with a lifetime running backs coach/program glue guy. [photo: Fuller]

At that point, rather than find a real OC, Lloyd promoted OL coach Mike DeBord (58). It's likely that had the defense not been enough to win a championship with just mediocre offense, DeBord would not have become as entrenched. Nevertheless Michigan spent half of its championship season doinking Chris Howard into stacked lines for two plays then passing on third down, succeeding just enough thanks to a couple of really shining young guys on the offensive line, and spot offensive duty by Woodson.

The DeBord who ran zone left all damn day in 2007 had been a wonderful offensive line coach before that. Prior to 1992 Michigan had Bo's de facto associate HC Jerry Hanlon as OL coach, and then Les Miles, except for a year Bobby Morrison (more on him later) coached it. Moeller hired DeBord after watching Northwestern's theretofore crap OL suddenly not suck in one year, and found a resume of just-as-quick turnarounds at Fort Hays State, Eastern Illinois, Ball State, and Colorado State in a matter of 10 years. From Runyan and Payne to Hutchinson and Backus, DeBord's OL were ready to insert after a year in the system, and usually ready for the NFL after three.

The problem was he approached offense coordination the same way: repetition, execution, toughness. Carr recommended DeBord to CMU as a training ground for eventually taking over Michigan, and when DeBord proved bad even by directional school standards (this was the disaster Brian Kelly remediated), Lloyd made room for him as special teams coach and recruiting guy. The loyalty to DeBord was the biggest complaint we had about Lloyd's tenure, and the caveman-style football they championed survives as a cancerous ideology within the program. As Carr's handpicked successor, DeBord is the personification of this complaint.

Michigan found a spot for him coordinating various non-revenue sports. This seemed nice and natural because dude did dedicate his life to Michigan, but something about DeBord being around now gives me the willies.

[After the jump: the rest of the staffs]

Stan Parrish (68) had probably the most head coach alleles among them. He had been an OC before, at Rutgers, and before that had 10 years of head coaching experience between Wabash (success), Marshall (success) and Kansas State (no success) for the bulk of the '80s. This meant he was also as old as Carr, so his contemporary value could not be transmitted to the future. Parrish was a great QBs coach, used his weaponry well enough in 2000 to give Michigan its best offensive season in Carr's career, and did about as well as could be expected after the mass exodus left him with just Marquise Walker and underclassmen.

Malone was a great TEs coach Peters'd to OL coach under DeBord and Parrish, then OC (and TEs). Now he's in the NFL coaching TEs well.

Terry Malone(54) was Bowling Green's OL coach and OC for a decade, long after Nehlan, long before Urban Meyer. He was about to join Vanderlinden's staff at Maryland but his father fell ill right when Mattison bolted for Notre Dame. Lloyd took him in, then promoted him to OC years later when DeBord did his CMU vision quest.

He was technically Michigan's OL coach during those monster OL years, but from a guy close to that staff DeBord was heavily involved with that group at the time—credit should be spread the way you would Michigan's DL under Hoke, i.e. there were several guys who were doing a great job.

My problem with Malone as OC was similar to that with DeBord except not as pronounced. With all of those offensive weapons Malone preferred to run-run-run until Michigan had to pass, then we'd get this amazing display of Braylon Edwards et al. unleashed and complain where was this all along? He did open it up starting in 2003 except for the first few Henne games (understandable considering they thought Gutierrez would start until the last week and had to scrap half the offense).

Erik Campbell (48) you know. He was ever effective wide receivers coach and nothing more, and though Iowa can rarely be bothered to use them, he's had a solid record since of developing wideouts there like he did here, though with less wasting of redshirts on blocking.

Weirdly this guy has yet to have a job beyond WR coach despite being successful at that (and TEs at Iowa) at two major programs. He's still pretty young. Campbell's now coaching WRs in the CFL after falling on the sword for Greg Davis's 2013 offense. His career arc probably isn't finished but neither is it likely to take any great leaps now.

Gary's son Andy Moeller (50), who replaced Malone as OL coach in 2002, was a nepotistic hire (he was out of a job after Mizzou), and joins Carr at fault for the state of the OL Rodriguez inherited. He inherited "The Daves" (Baas, Pearson, Petruziello) plus Pape and Stenavich, and Matt Lentz behind them, but kept inserting Courtney Morgan as a tackle.

By 2005 most of those guys were gone, and Michigan started getting diminishing returns from big-time recruits. Moeller got Jake Long and (converted tight end) Adam Kraus, but by 2006 we had Mark Bihl and Alex Mitchell and Reuben Riley starting by default, and were forced to play true freshman Justin Boren. When Carr left the offensive line was a disaster area even before Boren transferred and Zirbel was hurt.

Moeller landed under John Harbaugh and Ravens fans liked him well enough; last year he remained nominally the OL coach while actually sharing the job with another guy, with crappy results. The other guy was retained, and Moeller's now coaching OL in Cleveland. He's used a zone scheme everywhere in the NFL.

Scot Loeffler (40) too was a bit of nepotism; he was a onetime big recruit with just a two-year span at CMU between being a GA and QB coach at Michigan. Loeffler is now the last of a dying breed of competent OCs available to teams that don't quite trust the spread. In his two-year stay at Florida he worked wonders with Tebow's passing. Scot followed Addazio to Temple as OC, and did well enough there to be a hot major program OC name. Out of many choices he unwisely chose Auburn for Chizik's last year, then got picked up by Frank Beamer last year. He'll be a head coach somewhere someday.

That's it except Kit, a longtime Don Nehlan guy whom Moeller hired to modernize M's passing game; after a year of watching Carr just run Biakabutuka he joined Cam at Indiana, where Kit's now the asst. AD.

Note that every guy from the 1996 offensive staff except Campbell would be Michigan's offensive coordinator at some point, and not a single one of them went on to be successful OCs anywhere else. That right there is the Worst Thing About Lloyd Carr™. He promoted guys because it was their turn, and never once reached outside the program for an offensive assistant who might bring fresh ideas or innovations. As his assistants were Peters Principle'd beyond their abilities, the performance of those positions also deteriorated.

Defense

Greg Mattison was the DL coach when Carr was DC; when he left to join Bob Davie's staff at ND Carr promoted from within: Bo/Mo's long-serving LBs coach Jim Herrmann (56). Jim left to coach LBs for the Jets, then the Giants, where he is still.

Jim Herrmann: a really good linebackers coach who then couldn't get good linebackers.

Herrmann was kind of the defensive DeBord, with the big caveat that on defense old and steady and tough is more effective than offense. There have been plenty of innovations and tweaks to defense in the last few decades, but nothing approaching the level of shift that went on with offense. Like DeBord, Herrmann was a nepotistic promotion of a good positional coach to coordinator. Michigan had a hard time recruiting linebackers under Herrmann, and it showed after the post-national championship class graduated. The one great LB after 2001 was Dave Harris, who was all practice buzz dude until his (medical) redshirt junior season. Sometimes he'd have a really good one (Lawrence Reid, Roy Manning) and would sit that guy on the bench for a run plugger like Carl Diggs or Zach Kaufman. Or Sarantos. Or McClintock.

Herrmann felt to me behind the times. He didn't adjust to the spread well; the times they stopped were when they went to a 3-4 defense and Michigan's nose tackles could suck up doubles while a string of next-Woodsons shut down a three-wide. He also ran a proto-Dantonio defense in 2003, having those big corners play right up on the line, Shazor in a backside run/helper role, and Marlin playing Cov2 or Cov4 depending on what the receivers did. It worked great until Marlin was hurt and Willis Barringer was the lynchpin.

It was English in 2006 who started using Woodley and Crable as backfield slashers, and letting Harris really roam the middle; they could have done that earlier. On the other hand, other than the Howard/Whitley year (sorry buddy) Michigan's defense was always the team's better unit. Herrmann went on to become a very good NFL linebackers coach.

When Herrmann left Carr offered a landing spot for Steve Szabo (71), who'd been Jack Harbaugh's main assistant at WMU in the long long ago; Szabo by the late aughts was coming off the DC job with the Buffalo Bills, and on the tail end of his coaching career.

Vance Bedford (56) was at Oklahoma State and Carr (who coached DBs when he was a coordinator) had his eye on Vance to replace himself. Bedford caught on with Charlie Strong at Louisville and is now with him at Texas; he still gets mentions for various mid-level coaching jobs and high-level DC openings.

Teryl Austin (49), who's killing it at the Lions' DC right now, was a PSU assistant who followed Jim Caldwell out of there. Michigan grabbed him out of McNabb-era Syracuse. He left to be an NFL DBs coach in 2003, and was good at that too.

Austin's on track to have his name brought up as a potential head coaching candidate in a year or so. He has gone back to college once, serving as Urban Meyer's DC in his last year at Florida. After Urban left Austin joined John Harbaugh's staff at his old DBs spot until Caldwell tapped him as the Lions' DC. Austin's going to have a head coaching job one day, probably in the NFL.

Ron English seemed like another Bedford or Austin at first, but not getting away from Michigan when he should have resulted in English getting involved with a lot of the bad things from 2007-2010.

Ron English (46) was a rising star on the west coast who, while coaching DBs at Arizona State, got a masters in education (like Bo did at Ohio State).

English's time at EMU (after a season at Louisville) probably didn't do him any favors. For one, nobody can succeed at EMU, and failure just looks like failure despite that. Second he was way too close to Michigan during the Rodriguez years, creating a festering "Michigan East" where anti-Rodriguez sentiment could fester. The whole thing stank of sour grapes. That might have been alone to turn me off from him. English's other legacy was his horrible mismanagement of Michigan's defensive backs in Carr's last years. He didn't recruit enough of them. His safeties were usually linebackers, or, you know, Stevie Brown/Ryan Mundy. At corner Ron whiffed on some big-time recruits, and put all of our eggs in Johnny Sears/Chris Richards/Donovan Warren. Appalachian State was on him.

Bill (father of Nick) Sheridan (55) was a former Bo graduate assistant who'd been coaching all sorts of places (including Saban's MSU, Davie's ND) and seemed ticketed for a head coaching job someday; Carr hired him for his potential, then found him a spot. Sheridan's bounced around the NFL (plus a year at OSU on Meyer's staff), topping out as the NY Giants' DC one year, and that went horribly. He's now with Austin on the Lions. You won't give a damn about this but my high school's football coach (and Sex Ed teacher, which was exactly as awkward as it sounds) was Sheridan's boss at Royal Oak Shrine.

When Sheridan left Carr hired Steve Stripling (60), a Bill Mallory protégé who'd since been a John L. Smith assistant at Louisville and MSU, whence we stole him because we could do things like that. Since Michigan Stripling's lost the great mustache and hooked up with Butch Jones. Stripling is the technically the fourth in that line of Dantonio-Brian Kelly-Butch Jones that went through CMU and Cincy in succession, since he gets to be interim head coach whenever Butch leaves.

Remember that one time they had a spat and media who knew nothing about Michigan thought they could make something of it, and those of us who've covered Michigan were like "I wonder which crappy bar they'll be sharing a beer and laughing about it at tonight?"

Finally there's Brady Hoke (56), who's inseparable from Greg Mattison (65) since serving together on Jack Harbaugh's staff. Moeller was convinced by Mattison to pry Hoke out of Oregon State, where the DL had been the best (only) good thing going under Kragthorpe, which is why Hoke survived Krag there by four seasons. Then Moeller resigned the same offseason.

Under Greg Mattison (65) Michigan switched to a 4-3 (they'd been a 3-4), and Hoke was immediately a success and player favorite. Michigan's defense had been stout against the run before but after Hoke arrived they strung off three straight years of giving opponents less than 3 yards per carry. Just about every dude to come through the program (offense or defense) became close with Brady. Hoke, whose office was in the same hallway as Bo's, was taken under the wing of Woody Hayes' onetime DL coach. It was Bo himself who put the idea of being Michigan's head coach one day into Hoke's head, and he started working more closely with Carr and talking to players about what he'd do as Michigan's head coach one day. In 2002 Lloyd made Hoke associate HC and began grooming him in earnest as a possible heir (or the Carr to DeBord's Moeller). But Ball State took notice and offered Hoke their HC job that December.

Discussion: There was nepotism here too but not to near the same degree, and as a result there are actual dudes who can coach from the defensive tree.

Other (Basically Recruiting):

Mike DeBord was OL coach under Moeller, then promoted to OC by Carr in 1997 after Jackson was demoted back to RBs. The more loyalty Carr showed to DeBord, the more fan sentiment hardened against him. [photo: Ann Arbor News]

DeBord coming back is discussed above; Lloyd brought him back from his failed HC stint at CMU and made him special teams and recruiting coordinator as he groomed him as his successor.

Bobby Morrison was Navy's DC when Bo invited him to join his staff in '87 and tasked him with turning Michigan into a modern national recruiting power. This he did. He's still around Ann Arbor (lives in Plymouth) and shows up to softball games with various grandchildren. I got to meet him briefly at one of Marlin's events. TomVH interviewed him once.

So conclusions: Lloyd built his initial staff like an interim guy would. That is, he kept anyone around who wanted to stay, and promoted from within the program. He tactfully avoided adding innovators or people with substantial experience in things being run differently from his way, which became "Michigan's" way to a degree of religious fervor. He also favored giving an old guy a landing spot instead of new blood when positions opened up. Only on defense, specifically Carr's old DBs position, did he feel at all comfortable looking for up-and-comer assistants with upside as major program coordinators and coaches.

In general Carr was way too loyal to mediocre assistants, and that prevented him from doing the kind of rising star shopping to fill his ranks that coaching trees are made from.