There’s no overstating the value of research. This morning as I readied for the work day with a coffee and scoured the usual college football sources, I took to Twitter and committed the all-too-common folly of asserting a point without the pre-requisite research. That point: Phil Fulmer wasn’t a Hall of Famer. The discussion from which this whiff stemmed was Lloyd Carr’s worthiness of induction.
Carr is a 2011 inductee and first ballot selection. Of the coaching nominations for this round of voting, Carr boasted the far-and-away best winning percentage (.753) and was the only national champion aside from Jimmy Johnson. Unlike Johnson, Carr’s career never had the looming NCAA cloud.
A national championship is to the College Football Hall of Fame what 500 home runs is to Cooperstown. The milestone is rarely achieved, and for a majority is a golden ticket, but there are exceptions. Mark McGwire is proving to be an exception to the 500 home run rule, and Sammy Sosa’s likely to follow suit. Gary Sheffield’s another who notched more than 500 round-trippers, but his entry is no guarantee. In the case of McGwire and Sosa, the ominous asterisk taints their candidacies. National championship winning coaches like Larry Coker don’t have anything on their resume worthy of induction beyond that one landmark — much like McGwire, whose career batting average was a pedestrian .263 and was virtually non-existant in postseason appearances.
Like Sosa and McGwire, Carr, and as I wrongly asserted Fulmer had bad-taste-in-the-mouth conclusions to otherwise stellar careers though under much different circumstances.
Carr’s final season at Michigan began with sky high preseason expectations that a Week 1 loss to FCS Appalachian State sent plummeting to Earth. A Capital One Bowl defeat of Florida salvaged what was an otherwise disappointing, seven-win campaign. And even that was a more fitting send-off than Fulmer’s, who was unceremoniously dismissed after his second five-win season in four attempts. The asterisk of a lackluster finale clouded my perception of what research shows to be a truly top-flight, Hall of Famer caliber coach.
Disappointing conclusions aren’t all that Carr and Fulmer share. In numerous facets their careers follow similar paths. Their win percentages were 75 and 74. Fulmer won six SEC East divisional titles, and Carr won five Big Ten crowns. And their careers both deserve to be preserved in South Bend, even if dummies like myself jump to conclusions based on how their careers ended and let research dictate. In Carr’s case, common sense won out.