Carr tries to find positives from past

Think Michigan's season is over? Well, maybe not. I know the first two losses seem sui generis, bu this tidbit from a Big Ten notebook in the Columbus Dispatch of all places offers some hope:

Carr, 62, has been at Michigan 28 years, 13 as head coach. "There have been a number of times ... that we've started slowly and were able to fight our way back and win a Big Ten championship," he said.

The 1998 team rallied from losses to Notre Dame and Syracuse to share the Big Ten title with Ohio State and Wisconsin and finish 10-3. The 1988 team lost to Notre Dame and the University of Miami, didn't lose again and won the conference title outright. In 1980, Carr's first year on the staff, the Wolverines were 1-2 after losses to Notre Dame and South Carolina and won out for an undisputed conference championship.

"Those are all things that I'm trying to look back on and see if there are any parallels and any messages from that part of our tradition," he said.

The changes are mostly mental it seems to me. Focus and discipline are needed to execute while passion and desire are needed for motivation. Get those things going - and fix some bad schemes and predictable play calling - and the Wolverines can dig themselves out of this hole. Then maybe Carr can go out on a somewhat happy note.