Michigan Message Boards Throughout History

If you regularly peruse the 586 or so Michigan-centric blogs and message boards on these here Interwebs, you quickly notice a vocal segment of Michigan fans who blame Lloyd Carr for virtually all the problems Rich Rod is having at U-M.  From the losing, to the player defections, to the reason why every season ticket holder doesn't tattoo "Rich" and "Rod" on each ass cheek.

Heck, I'm pretty sure there's somebody out there who blames Carr for replacing Rodriguez's iPod - which they'd swear was all cued up and ready to crank some AC/DC - with one set to spew the now-infamous Josh Groban tune at the banquet last week.

Ironically, many of these Rich Rodriguez supporters who blast anybody not declaring their undying loyalty to the current coach,  complained about Carr at every turn when he was coach and constantly called for his ouster.  Obviously "all in for Michigan" only applies to the 2008 season and beyond.

Frankly, I don't understand the animus these folks have toward a coach who loved Michigan, learned under Bo, never had a losing season, won or shared six Big 10 titles in his 13 seasons and claimed Michigan's first National Title in 50 years.  Away from the field, his players loved him, he ran a clean program, is said to be a nice guy and raised/raises a lot of money for C.S. Mott Children's Hospital in A2.

So, to find out where it started, the staff here at the MZone did a little research and we were startled by our discovery.

Apparently the "Blame Carr" crowd has been around for some time. Then, as now, they hold Carr responsible for maladies both on and off the football field.

For example, the first recorded instance we could find comes from Ye Old Wolverine Scroll, the popular 19th century precursor to the modern day blog:

From the early 20th century, we found this entry from The Daily Times Dispatch Chronicle Herald Journal Gazette and Michigan Evening Not-Quite-A-Blog-Yet Post:

Finally, before YouTube, there was YouSuper8, a warehouse where anybody could send their Super 8 footage (like the viral sensation "Smoking Mother Makes Baby Laugh Singing Patsy Cline" and "David Goes to the Dentist Who Still Doesn't Use Novocaine").  Unfortunately, since one had to go to the warehouse, dupe the tape then mail it out to friends in the hopes they had a screen on which to show it on, YouSuper8 quickly faded away.

But during its brief heyday, our blogging and message boarding forefathers used it a lot to share game clips and other things with their readers.   Such is the case with this still below from one of the films in the YouSuper8 archives: