What is wrong with Michigan's football program?

Answer 1

In order:

Lloyd Carr
Chad Henne
World's most obnoxious and arrogant fans who think they're God's gift to the planet

I'm sure I could come up with more, but it's late.

Answer 2

The reason is a lack of talented experienced players.

Give Michigan a year or two and they will have a talented and good team again. Everybody wants to fire the coach the first time or two that he loses a game that they think he shouldn't. Lloyd Carr is a good coach and shouldn't be fired because he has one bad season. It's going to be a bad season for Michigan. If he doesn't get the team turned around in another 1-2 years, then they should fire him. Look at Joe Paterno. Everybody a year or two ago said fire him. Then a year or so later he was right near the top of the Big Ten. When you have a coach with as much experience as Joe Paterno or Lloyd Carr, the coach gets better as he gets older and gets more experience, not usually worse.

Michigan has always been a big pound them into the ground team. Their strength is normally their defense and their rushing game. Their defense is normally really good However they've lost a number of players on defense. And if you don't have the big pound them into the ground running game, then you can count out Michigans offense.

In my opinion, Michigan needs a more versatile offense. One that can do more than run the ball. A football team needs a good balance between rushing and passing and Michigan has never really had that. I'd fire the offensive coordinator and bring in someone that runs an offense more similar to OSU's, Purdue's, or Wisconsin's where the offenses are more balanced with more passing added to the game.

Michigan has always been able to halfway get away with that style of offense in the Big Ten because of their name and ability to recruit bigger more talented players than most of the other Big Ten teams. Take that storied name away from Michigan and they could easily end up near the middle or bottom of the Big Ten pile.

In all honesty the Big Ten doesn't look that strong this year except for Purdue and Penn State and maybe OSU.

Answer 3

Defense

They lost their 4 best defensive players from last year's team to the draft: Leon Hall, Allan Branch, LaMarr Woodley, and David Harris

All 4 went in the first two rounds and it's just hard to replace that much talent.

Also I'm not so sure it was a great idea to schedule App State and Oregon in the first two weeks, two teams that run a spread offense. Michigan has recently had problems defending spread offenses since they play in the Big Ten, which has always been a run first conference.

Chad Henne has also looked terrible which is pretty disappointing since he's a senior and a 4-year starter. In the 3 years before this season he has a career completion percentage of over 60%, but in two games this year he is at 50% and has thrown just 2 touchdowns. That's a pretty huge drop off.

One guy who's not part of the problem is Mike Hart who's been great so far.

188 and 127 yards in the first two games with 3 TD's

Gotta feel pretty bad for him

Answer 4

It may be difficult to narrow it down to ONE thing, but I think the biggest problem is overconfidence.

Michigan didn't come out to play against App State because they assumed that they would roll them. After all, App State is just a I-AA team that isn't even on the same level as Michigan right? Wrong. Lesson learned? No.

Michigan looked TERRIBLE against Oregon. I don't want to take anything away from Oregon on that game because they played amazingly (esp. QB Dennis Dixon), but it looked like an NFL team against a HS squad. It looked as if Michigan hadn't practiced in the week between the games. App State and Oregon run the same type of offense, but obviously Michigan didn't learn from their Week 1 mistakes. I know they lost a lot of their line to the draft, but you would think with a coach as smart as everyone thinks Lloyd Carr is that they could have adjusted to play better defense. They didn't.

Now, with their BCS Championship hopes down the drain, we'll see if they rebound.

Answer 5

lloyd carr isnt the entire problem that i see to be honest. it's not his fault their kickers isnt accurate. i blame everything on mental prepareness. carr does have some issues as his players just dont show up prepared. henne is a good qb. he did well in both games. the receivers and runningbacks are the ones that just couldnt hold onto the football. the #1 problem with michigan is that defense. wow. i bet Temple would have a good day vs. that defense. lol.

Answer 6

you cant just say michigan, you have to throw in miami, florida state, penn state the last few years, and notre dame.

Because the nfl draft is so through now, it doesnt really matter what school you go to, so if a college wants a hot shot guy, they have to really sell him on the college.

Maybe lloyd carr is having trouble selling kids on michigan...
...or maybe college football has rounded itself out into even competition.

Remember boise st and oklahoma last year.

Answer 7

Easy, they were way over rated. We tried telling the Michigan fans but they just threw insults back. So now they realize it. Their team isn't that good.

Answer 8

defense is too slow, offense outta sync, and the coaching staff is settin their players up to fail by having no confidence in the offense... Hart is a bright spot though, the kid was wreckin on Appalachian and had over 100 yards against Oregon

Answer 9

They lost a lot of good players since last year and they were overrated this year - that's all! I can't understand how people are so shocked when a team loses a couple of games. It's not that big of deal!!!!

Answer 10

The only University that would teach such outright stupidity is Ohio State...All-State Vegan must be a Buckeye...