Curses and confoundment

Lost games, lost players leave Blue at a loss

Around Schembechler Hall these days, an unfamiliar four-letter word is prevalent: loss.

To the general masses, the intonation is obvious. After falling to Notre Dame and Syracuse in consecutive weeks, Michigan carries an 0-2 record for the first time since the 1988 season.

So the initial concept of loss is in the actual game situations. Both weeks the scoreboards read more for the other team - problem No. 1.

But the reality is buried much deeper than that. The greater concern lies in the loss of personnel.

WARREN ZINN/Daily Clarence Williams and the Michigan football team have been running on fumes this season. The Wolverines have dropped their first two games for the first time in 10 years and are not ranked in the polls for the first time in nearly five years.

At his weekly press conference yesterday, Lloyd Carr made another subtraction from the rapidly depleting depth chart.

Justin Fargas - the tailback Carr praised at great length a week ago - is hampered by a bruised shoulder and his status for Saturday's game against Eastern Michigan remains uncertain.

In addition, fellow backfield mates Aaron Shea and Clarence Williams are also questionable for the game.

Not that they would have anyone to run behind.

Center Steve Hutchinson, still aggravated by an injury suffered in the third quarter of the Notre Dame game, was replaced by Steve Frazier for much of the Syracuse loss.

Carr's reluctance to discuss his fallen players is somewhat understandable, for it's probably difficult for him to keep track of them. The bulk of his linebacking corps - Ian Gold, Sam Sword and Clint Copenhaver - is also hobbled or sidelined.

So excuses exist for this plummeting national champion, but the Wolverines are not ready to pass them off as reality.

"Instead of looking at what's wrong with the team, as individuals (Sunday) we looked at what's wrong with each of us," captain Jon Jansen said. "We need to look at each of ourselves."

With the past supposedly forgotten - Jansen said the Wolverines will focus on "the next two weeks" - attention from the past is hardly ignored.

Casualties of a different sort - neither a game loss nor an injury - may be quarterback Tom Brady's pride and confidence.

Carr was adamant that Drew Henson will continue to enter the game to relieve Brady, more due to Henson's need for experience than Brady's ineffectiveness.

"I made up my mind as we got to the later stages of training camp that I didn't want to get caught" with an inexperienced quarterback, Carr said, adding that he planned since camp to insert Henson in the second quarter against Syracuse.

The two quarterbacks' statistics varied little in yardage and attempts, but Henson compiled the bulk of his totals - in addition to his fourth-quarter scores - against the Orangemen's second-string defense.

"Henson has some capabilities that could really help our team," Carr said, before adding that playing Henson is "in the best interest of our team."

As for the players, they aren't concerned with who is leading the team.

"It doesn't affect us as an offensive line," Jansen said. "We work on the same cadence and the same plays. It's just another guy in there calling the plays."

Losing to the mantle of champions may be the largest hurdle for these Wolverines to overcome. Whereas last season's senior class went out with a bang, winning all 12 games, this start is troubling to Jansen.

"When you're a senior at Michigan, you want to leave like the guys did last year - on top," he said. "All the players from the past are looking" at us.

09-15-98