Subtle differences distinguish two high-profile head football coaches at two Big Ten universities that coexist like quarrelsome siblings sitting in the back seat.
But what unites the University of Michigan's Lloyd Carr and Michigan State's John L. Smith is their experience coaching the teeth-grinding rivals, who meet Saturday in East Lansing, Mich.
Each man has handled 2003 in a different manner, in part because of personality, but mostly because of their teams' different expectations.
In his first season in East Lansing, Smith, an Idaho-born, cowboy boot-wearing coach who seems to enjoy not being taken overly seriously, has made MSU one of the country's top football stories. A disheveled Spartans team that finished 4-8 a season ago is 7-1 and ranked ninth in the nation.
Carr's situation is stickier because the stakes are annually higher at Michigan. Since its makeover began under Bo Schembechler in 1969, U-M has been a perennial football beast. Few fans are satisfied with eight or nine victories and a top-20 ranking -- not when it means the Wolverines might have lost four games along the way.
Saturday will say much about how two coaches will be measured in 2003, especially Carr, whose Michigan team, now 7-2, looked to some like national-championship material at the start of the season.
"They understand what the expectations are here -- the pressure of trying to be the best," Carr said of his U-M players. "But it's a different kind of pressure here. It's the exciting part of playing in a program like this."
Carr grew up in Riverview, Mich., a prized high school athlete who understood that Michigan-Michigan State was about as close as this state comes to civil war.
In 1980 he joined Schembechler's Michigan staff as an assistant. He rose to defensive coordinator, then found himself -- unexpectedly -- becoming Michigan's head coach in May 1995 after Gary Moeller was fired.
Carr's first taste of Michigan-Michigan State as a head coach was the '95 game, won by MSU, 28-25. He now sits 5-3 overall against the Spartans and gets his first look at a Smith-coached State team Saturday.
Asked if the 2003 season, with its crushing early losses at Oregon and Iowa, had been particularly hard on him, Carr demurred.
"I don't like to talk about personal issues," he said. "I've said from the start, it's always a challenge out there." Smith, who came to East Lansing from Louisville, also realizes college football is a fine-line endeavor. Anything can sink a team, which was evident a year ago at MSU.
Jeff Smoker, State's sleek quarterback, beat a substance-abuse problem and is among college football's top quarterbacks. A rushing defense that shattered like glass is now stiff and sturdy.
Smith ripped names from jerseys, made individualism taboo, and so preached the team creed that no Spartans coach or player is pictured on the cover of this year's media guide (ditto at Michigan).
Whether the change in ethic and intensity is good enough to beat U-M is this week's question. But after 10 months in East Lansing, Smith assures everyone that he gets it. He understands Michigan-Michigan State.
"You get the feel for it, you know what it's all about," he said. "You get into this state and you learn that it's even bigger than you realized."
Carr has roughly the same philosophy.
"The player-coach relationship is ongoing," Carr said. "If you're fair, you'll have a positive relationship in the end. But your job isn't to tell 'em how good they are. Your job is to help them be a better player, help them graduate, help them see life's situations."
Originally published Friday, October 31, 2003
