The kid was all right. Don’t blame Tommy Carr for Michigan football’s oh-so-close loss to Indiana. For a 19 year-old freshman in his first college start, going against the defending College Football Playoff champions in front of a sellout hometown crowd – heck, even writing that sentence makes your pulse race! – he showed about what you’d expect, a little bit of nervous everything.
On a famous field where his father Jason played and his paternal grandfather Lloyd coached and his maternal grandfather Tom Curtis became an All-American, Carr was the proverbial Forrest Gump box of chocolates against Indiana. He scrambled. He improvised. Made plays on the run. Found receivers on short dumps and breakoff routes. He also missed reads. Threw into traffic. Took bad sacks. Turned the ball over twice.
At times, the kid with the maize-and-blue bloodline seemed like Bambi dancing through the morning woods. Other times, he seemed as lost as Goldilocks. He was exciting. He was unsure. He was quicker than you thought, but also more hesitant. He hit a few big plays back-to-back, got the team close to the end zone but never in, finished the game with bland stats (20-for-32, 167 yards, no touchdowns, one interception and a fumble) yet papered a better game than his opposing quarterback, Josh Hoover (8-for-18, 81 yards, no TD, one pick.)
SHAWN WINDSOR: Jason Beck's bizarre play-calling cost Michigan the upset of Indiana
And remember, this was against one of the best defenses in the country, a No. 6 Indiana team with championship pedigree that should have beaten Ohio State last week to come in undefeated.
Michigan, behind Carr on Saturday, Oct. 24, basically played that team to a draw, with a field goal in the final seconds to push a 6-6 tie into overtime. Sure, Carr could have done more. made fewer mistakes. But had U-M’s kicker hit either of two field goal misses, had JJ Buchanan not stumbled with a path to the goal line late in the game or been able to get a foot inbounds in the end zone, the Wolverines might still have stunned the pundits and beaten a top-10 team – with a quarterback barely out of the box.
“If that’s the No. 6 team in the country, then we're pretty good,” U-M coach Kyle Whittingham told the media after the 13-6 defeat, “… even though we're sitting here at 4-3.”
That says it all.
Strangling defense, stagnant offense
It was an afternoon of waiting for fireworks but seeing smoke, of anticipating cannon fire but hearing pop guns. Time and time again, as Michigan’s stout defense kept returning the ball to the offense, you could feel the frustration pulsing from the Wolverine faithful, as if they were yelling from inside a locked amphitheater: "Just give us some air! Give us one chunk run! Give us one long pass completion! Give us a drive that moves the sticks!”
Instead, the sticks seemed cemented to the turf. Michigan didn’t score until the end of the third quarter, and every yard was like pulling a tractor. Whether this is the fault of an underperforming and banged-up offensive line, running backs who aren’t breaking anything, or Carr’s inexperience causing him to miss brief opportunities, well, that’s up for debate.
But this is college football. Coaches are more responsible for outcomes than players. And you could certainly fault the play designs of U-M offensive coordinator Jason Beck, who was either protecting Carr with a game plan straight out of a jar of baby food from Gerber's or was hesitant to try anything innovative with such a swift quarterback change.
Either way, he needs to see things better. The Wolverine running backs seemed to consistently bang into waiting defenders. The receivers almost never broke free. Michigan never seemed to present anything challenging to IU. And one Carr miscue that was clearly not his fault was the play call on third-and-1 at the Indiana 1, midway through the third quarter.
Under those circumstances, trailing 6-0, you do nothing but look to go downhill. Instead, Beck chose a weird play-action fake from Carr that required him to spin, and by the time that happened whatever else was planned was dead in the water.
Indiana sacked Carr for a 13-yard loss.
This was followed by a missed Trey Butkowski field goal, and Michigan’s best chance at bursting out of its choking offensive skin was gone.
“That was not a good football call,” Whittingham admitted. “It circles back to me, but it was a very disappointing outcome [and] a call that Jason wishes he had back because it really was damaging.”
On the other hand, if we’re noting coordinators, credit must be paid to Jay Hill, who had the Wolverines' defense as fuming to attack anything red and white as a horde of bulls in a Plaza de Toros.
U-M’s defense was as strangling as the offense was stagnating. Defensive backs Jyaire Hill and Zeke Berry kept robbing Indiana receivers of big plays, and the defensive front pressured Hoover constantly. Although the run defense bent a bit, when it had to, U-M got off the field, consistently handing over the ball and saying, “OK, offense, your turn. Do something with it.”
Left to search for silver linings
It’s a shame Carr and the team behind him couldn’t have done more. It would have been a storybook moment for a kid who grew up the son of a Michigan quarterback, tussling with his two brothers and dreaming of one day when he would take a college snap.
But upsetting the defending champs in your first start, in the middle of the season, is more than a tall order, it’s an anvil. Carr seemed up to it at moments and overwhelmed by it at others. His passes were more often like shot puts than cruise missiles; he pulled it down and ran with it, but he should also get credit for not forcing the ball into tiny windows the way so many young quarterbacks do.
Remember, this isn’t how program quarterbacks usually make their debuts. This was supposed to be a year of sitting and watching for Carr. Bryce Underwood’s troubles forced the early curtain at halftime last week, and Carr led Michigan to a win over Penn State. Still, running in off the bench and starting the whole battle are two different things.
Afterwards, Carr appeared disappointed. He has been groomed to be a quarterback almost since he could walk, and to do it the Carr family way means you do not duck responsibility, no matter what excuse you have. So he blamed himself.
“The defense was excellent, got turnovers, got stops, held Indiana’s offense to really nothing all day,” Carr told the media. “They got a field goal off my turnover. It all leads back to that. Can’t turn the ball over. Both turnovers completely on me.”
Perhaps. But this loss isn’t. In case you haven't figured it out by now, this is officially a transition season for Michigan. Three losses knocks you out of anything big, and what’s left is finding silver linings. This group is still feeling its way under Whittingham. Its defense is, as the coach called it Saturday, “elite”. Its offense needs a new rudder. And now the young quarterback has the taste of surprise victory and growling defeat on his résumé. The rest of football is what comes in between.
“Just gotta get in the film room work and practice and try and get better,” Carr said.
That’s the idea. The kid was all right. He’ll be more than that real soon.
Contact Mitch Albom: malbom@freepress.com. Check out the latest updates on his charities, books and events at MitchAlbom.com. Follow @mitchalbom on x.com.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Mitch Albom: Tommy Carr lived up to Michigan football moment, not hype