Stoops dismisses Michigan rumor

The coach’s final game will be at the Wolverines’ bowl game.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) — Oklahoma coach and Youngstown native Bob Stoops dismissed quickly any suggestion he’s going to replace Lloyd Carr as Michigan’s coach.

Carr alternately choked up and chuckled for nearly 40 minutes Monday, as he announced his 13th season as Michigan football coach will be his last.

“I wanted to be able to walk out of here knowing that to the very last minute, I did my job to the best of my ability,” Carr said with watery eyes. “And I know I’ll be able to do that.”

Stoops dismissed the thought after the Sooners’ practice Monday night.

“That’s so foolish,” Stoops said. “I’ve got nothing to do with that.”

Carr brought Michigan a national title and five Big Ten championships. It also included an unsightly loss to Appalachian State to open this season and a fourth consecutive defeat and sixth in seven years to Jim Tressel and Ohio State to close it.

Many of those memories were very close to the surface at Monday’s news conference during which the public that rarely got to see his true personality also learned what had happened behind closed doors the previous day when Carr broke the news to his players and staff.

“I cried more tears than I knew I had,” said Carr, who spent 28 seasons on the Michigan coaching staff. “And I’ve never laughed so hard in my life because there were so many memories.”

Carr will coach the Wolverines in their bowl game, likely to be either the Alamo Bowl in San Antonio or the Outback Bowl in Tampa, Fla. Following the bowl game, he will become an associate athletic director.

The retirement announcement surprised no one.

Last winter, Carr had his contract reworked to pave the way for this to be his last season and later made sure the school gave his assistants unprecedented two-year deals.

The only unknown was when the 62-year-old Carr would choose to step away from the sideline: Monday, as he did, or after the bowl game.

“My timing is based on one thing, what is best for Michigan football,” he said. “There are no other motives.

“To do it after a bowl game would have been absolutely ridiculous.”

The departure opens a job at the nation’s winningest football program and the timing of it might make things uncomfortable for top-ranked LSU and coach Les Miles.

Miles seems to be at the top of the list in Ann Arbor. He played for Bo Schembechler at Michigan, where he met his wife and later became an assistant under Schembechler.