michigan daily destroys pros

Okay. Time to go, guys.

Ain't nothing to f with. God bless the Daily.

From the paper:

“What I can tell you is we would never, ever, put a guy on the field when there is a possibility with head trauma. We won't do that.”

He later added the following in the same press conference:

“We would never, ever, if we thought a guy had a concussion, keep him in the game.”

More than 12 hours later, at 12:52 a.m. Tuesday, a statement released by Athletic Director Dave Brandon confirmed sophomore quarterback Shane Morris had indeed suffered a “probable, mild concussion” resulting from a helmet-to-helmet hit in the fourth quarter of Saturday’s game against Minnesota.

Small actions. There is a petition that anyone with a uniqname can sign that has hit 4200 signatures already. And there is a Diag rally calling for Brandon's firing at 6 PM.

This is very depressing. As you probably noticed on Saturday, Lloyd Carr's grandson has an inoperable brain tumor.

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If you're inclined to pray, keep Chad in your thoughts.

All the wrong stuff. Maize and Brew:

"Without the benefit of replays." Apparently the 20 million dollars worth of scoreboard on each end of the stadium wasn't quite enough. Besides the fact that everybody in that stadium saw the replay, the bigger question is how in the world did anybody not see the hit? Even assuming every coach turned away from Shane the moment he let go of the ball and nobody saw the hit coming, shouldn't the team neurologist have his eyes glued to Shane? After all, on a passing play concussions will come either at the QB or the WR, but given his ankle injury and Michigan's offensive line concern I'd say QB was much more likely. Plus shouldn't all team health staff, medical or training, be looking at the limping QB under center? For Dave Brandon to say nobody saw the hit on the field means he either believes it or believes we will believe it. That makes him a liar, an idiot or both.

Andrew Kahn talked to the guy who does concussion stuff for the Jets and Giants:

“It was obvious to anyone who saw him in the aftermath of that hit that he was not right,” says Kenneth Perrine, a clinical neuropsychologist at New York Presbyterian/Weill-Cornell Medical College and the consulting neuropsychologist for the New York Jets and New York Islanders, where he evaluates players with concussions. “At the very least he could have sustained a concussion.”

More reactions. Spencer Hall:

if you are one of the 10 people whose primary beef is to claim it's irresponsible to say that Morris had a concussion, you have internalized the language of the law, reaching insane abstraction in defense of the indefensible. Morris took the crown of a helmet to his chin, then was visibly disoriented while having serious difficulty standing. An MMA ref would have stopped this fight cold. That's how bad this looked: an MMA event would have taken better care of Morris than a collegiate athletics staff did on Saturday.

But sure, point to the man on fire. Tell someone you don't know that man's on fire. You did spy the application of gasoline. You did see the striking of a match and the ignition of a flame on a person's body. But you don't know the fire was what did the damage, do you? Did you establish this with medical personnel? Did you obtain a record of that? Fire's done a lot for us as a species; indeed, we would be long dead without it. Don't just slander fire like that. And who can say the person applying the match knew what he was doing, for sure? Did you ask them if they have an understanding of gasoline/fire relations, chemically speaking? Prove these things, or say nothing.

Spencer's coming up for the Penn State game, by the way, so… yeah. That'll be quite a piece.

Jane Coaston:

I am an extremely loyal person. Too loyal. Especially to Michigan.

Hoke demurred to protect a player dismissed from the university for a violation of the sexual misconduct policy, and I didn't really say anything, because apparently I'm only a feminist until it gets awkward and uncomfortable. Brady Hoke explained away losing in a dipshit manner to opponents less hamstrung by idiocy, and I sighed and tried to move on, because I'm a Michigan fan.

Maize and Blue Nation with the clutch Lebowski embed:

Either Hoke is lying, or Dave Brandon chose not to include Hoke in his meetings with all related parties. One might be attempting to separate themselves from the other here, but its not going to work. This is on both of them. Hoke is Brandon's guy. That can't be undone.

The Daily:

Even 24 hours later, Hoke didn’t acknowledge the possibility of a head injury, referring only to Morris “further aggravating an injury to his leg” in a statement to reporters. He added he is “confident proper medical decisions were made.”

They very clearly were not.

Whether Hoke witnessed what occurred on the field or not, it’s his job to know everything that goes on around his football team, with the health of players at the forefront of those responsibilities.

And so it is the position from all four of us on The Michigan Daily Football Beat that Hoke be fired immediately.

The Mood hits an all time low:

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The Hoover Street Rag imagines a way in which Hoke could have given a non-repulsive press conference:

Good afternoon, everyone.  After the game on Saturday, I watched the footage of Shane taking that shot to the head.  I'm embarrassed to say that I didn't catch that live, and I didn't see him stumble afterward.  That's on me.  We as coaches need to be aware of our players' safety at all times, and I failed there.

As a staff, we should have immediately gotten Shane out of that game, regardless of whether he wanted to come out.  Shane's a tough kid and a fighter, so of course he wants to stay in, but it's our job to sit him down there.

MVictors:

But why was Hoke hung out to dry and not told this was all happening?  This isn’t just a “medical report”.  If Hoke was told this was all happening, at the Monday presser could have talked about his responsibility and perspective on Saturday, but then he should have added, ‘..but we’re reviewing everything that happened to understand what mistakes (if any) were made’ and that the ‘details will be coming soon’, etc. etc.

Nick Baumgardner:

On Monday afternoon, Brandon allowed his head football coach to step to a press conference podium in an absolute no-win situation. Hoke was unprepared, unsupported and left there to face live bullets.

Alone.

On Monday afternoon, Brandon threw Hoke -- a man he hired in 2011 -- under the bus, and hung him out to dry.

Hoover Street Rag:

…the statement comes about 24 hours too late. If that statement is issued at 12:52 AM on Monday morning, there's grumbling and some side-eye. At 12:52 AM on Tuesday morning, everything has changed. Michigan has been put under the microscope on not just ESPN, but has crossed all the way over to Good Morning America. You've promised the media a "medical statement" that never really showed up, unless this is it. And you've sent your head football coach up to his press conference to stand there and look like someone's idiot cousin you wouldn't trust to run a doughnut shop, let alone a multi-million-dollar football program where young men risk their health and safety on a daily basis.

To be fair, this may be the case. Brandon's statement says that Morris was diagnosed with a concussion on Sunday. Brady Hoke didn't get in touch with his injured quarterback to ask how he's doing? Or Shane Morris didn't know he has a concussion? Neither of these seem reasonable, and one is more plausible than the other.

HSR again:

My one-year-old's still figuring out this whole language thing, but she has a couple of sentences figured out. Her first sentence was probably "Go dog go," which she uttered in order to request the book of the same name. Lately, she has been saying "Are you OK?" a lot. These two sentences are apparently enough to make her a qualified medical professional for Michigan football:

NATALIE: Are you OK?
SHANE MORRIS: I'm fine.
NATALIE (pointing Shane onto the field): Go, dog, go!

The hundred-million dollar elephant in the room. Stephen Ross on Dave Brandon:

"He's probably the most qualified athletic director in the country. I think he's terrific," said billionaire real estate developer Stephen Ross, a UM alumnus who has given the university $310 million in recent years.

This is a problem. It's a lot less of a problem than when the article came out just hours before the Minnesota game—Ross may like Brandon just fine but have we shown you these other guys who aren't flamingly incompetent?

Also in the room, Brandon's terrible contract:

Michigan signaled its approval of Brandon's work when it gave him a new contract in July 2012 that pays him a base salary of $900,000 in 2014-15. The six-year deal is through 2018, and pays him a $5.55 million base, and he can earn up to $1.3 million in deferred compensation through 2018. He gets fringe benefits such as free tickets, use of two cars, a golf club membership, and travel reimbursement for his wife.

Brandon's contract stipulates that if he's fired without cause prior to Jan. 1, 2016, the university must pay him his remaining base salary and his remaining deferred compensation. Firing him after that date reduces the payout to 50 percent of both the remaining base salary and deferred compensation.

100% guaranteed until 2016. Unbelievable. What possible reason would you have to do that?

BTW, that article includes the credulous claim that Brandon was a "finalist" for the NFL commissioner's job, something that is not true.

Cheaper. Hoke's buyout is a chump change two million, at least:

If he’s not -- if he’s fired by athletic director Dave Brandon, or the university board of regents, or U-M president Mark Schlissel or any of the above -- it will come at a heavy cost.

According to Hoke’s contract, signed on March 28, 2011, he will be owed $2 million to buy out the remaining two years (2015, 2016) left on his contract.

That's nothing compared to Weis/Ferentz level buyouts.

Much better shirt repping. This guy understands his apparel:

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Etc.: Center Ice on the new blueliners. Bacon's on every radio station in the country today; here's his appearance on Here and Now yesterday. Headsetssssss. We're in the New York Times so I guess that coo—oh it's about the concussion. Also the Daily Mail.

Might?

Pelini forever. The day that Bo Pelini ceases being a Big Ten coach is going to be a sad one.

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He screams like a lunatic, he makes jokes about his cat, he wears… that… and looks like he believes the camera is taking a piece of his soul with it. Joke's on you, camera! Ain't got no soul, he thinks. Oh and his offense is kind of a looney tunes spread triple option thing that is both modern and very Nebraska. I only wish he was still in our football conference.

Always the best thing out of media days. Mike Spath's anonymous chatter articles are quality as always and the defense one is free. An opponent on the tao of Countess:

"I thought Blake Countess was tough to play against. He's not real physical but he's one of those guys that knows what he does well and what he doesn't. And he sort of lulled us to sleep. We kept thinking that we could go at him and I think that's what he wanted because he stepped in front of two balls, picked one, and we didn't throw at him very much after that."

Countess had INTs against Minnesota, Iowa, and OSU last year, FWIW. The offense is paywalled, but I have to quote this bit:

"They were one of those teams that were tough to prepare for and not tough at the same time because they did so many different things. We had a lot of guys watching a lot more film the week before because they could run 75 different plays in the same game, but I think what stood out was that they didn't have an identity and they never had go-to plays so if you just played sound, technique-strong football, you were OK."

And that had a lot to do with Michigan's ups and downs. OSU did not play anything approximating sound football in their secondary last year and Michigan ate them up; Iowa is nothing but sound cover two and Michigan could do nothing.

The overall theme of that latter one is that opposing teams have a hell of a lot of respect for Devin Gardner since he did not die last year.

You could knock me down with a feather right now. Shock and alarm at unexpected news:

"Going in (to camp, there will be competition between Devin Gardner and Shane Morris)," Hoke said during his appearance on "Numbers Never Lie." "We've got great competition. (But) if we opened the season today, Devin would start for the Wolverines."

I will personally fight anyone* who sends me an email about whether Morris should start.

*[Offer not valid unless you are Ellen Degeneres.]

Ready to go. Ondre Pipkins is cleared and even more importantly, is apparently fit.

"He's done a nice job, he's made a lot of progress and he's passed the conditioning test and all those things," Michigan coach Brady Hoke said this week. "We'll probably be smart with him as we move forward, you know, especially on two-a-days.

"We'll (watch his) reps and those things. But he's cleared and ready to go."

Figuratively and literally massive for the defense. Article notes that Willie Henry is slated to compete with Pipkins at nose, but I'm hoping they figure out that they can start both those guys. We'll see.

'96 Colorado. I missed this game; remember sitting in a car listening to the end of it just terrified about the Hail Mary.

Well, no. No we do not. Hoke on the opener:

He didn't do it.

LEMON UPDATE. Aw man I am going to have to find like a video crew and a roaring fireplace.

Junior linebacker Joe Bolden was named the 2014 Meyer Morton Award winner. The Morton Award is given to the player who "shows the greatest development and most promise as a result of the annual spring practice."

Jarrod Wilson and Chris Wormley also pulled in awards.

The plan. After experimenting with Graham Glasgow at tackle it seems like Michigan is going to leave him at center:

When fall camp opens Sunday, though, Hoke says Glasgow -- who is suspended for the season-opener against Appalachian State due to an offseason drunken driving arrest -- will begin where he ended last year. At center, and likely with the first team.

"I would say he could (be with the starters at center) early in camp but then you’ve got to develop others," Hoke said this week at Big Ten media days in Chicago. "This is why, when you make decisions that don’t help the team, you find out how you hurt the team.”

If Glasgow does move that says more about Ben Braden than anyone else. That is an outcome I don't want to see, as that would be a major strike against a player who was hyped up as a physical marvel by many people a year ago.

It also sounds like the current plan is to leave Cole at left tackle for this year to provide a backup there. Tuley-Tillman and Fox are both likely to need another year before putting them on the field would be anything other than a major problem.

The rehab. Ondre Pipkins is cleared to practice at the start of fall camp

It could be worse, everyone! Man, Illinois fans are grasping at straws:

Tim Beckman came into this morning's press conference after a long bowl game-less winter and a 4-8 season record with only one conference win. But something was noticeably different about his speech this time. He finally seemed comfortable and confident at the podium.

… he hardly pauses or stumbles for the right words. His "uhs" and "ums" are fewer and farther between than in the past. He came off as a true leader and respectable speaker.

Well, I know that our coach starts every sentence with "well" and is not exactly Steve Spurrier. But there's going to be a post this year on an Illinois blog that says "we may have lost by sixty points but it seems like Tim Beckmann's dressing himself these days, so things are really coming along for us."

Unfortunate for Northwestern. Projected starting corner Daniel Jones is forced to retire thanks to injuries. Corner being the Wildcats' achilles heel since it ceased being "the whole team," that bodes unwell for the Wildcats and better for Michigan. Jones was lost for the year in the opener, so this is more Northwestern not getting that guy back than anything else.

The Daily makes the Daily show. You gotta put it in your click hole, nerds.

The most correct thing. This isn't relevant to anything but it is the most correct thing that's ever been said:

I spent five days in Las Vegas by myself earlier this month. If that sounds like your idea of paradise, let me stop you right there, because you’re wrong. Even though I know nothing about you, I’m fairly certain that five days alone in Vegas is enough to make anybody rethink their life. Five days in Vegas with friends or family is still probably four days too many, but being alone in Vegas is like finding out halfway through a party that you were invited by mistake. Everyone is having the time of their lives around you, and even though you were excited when you arrived, you’re just off to the side wondering what you’re doing there.

As someone who spent a week in Vegas by myself*, this is so accurate. I eventually just spent the money for wifi (this was back when wifi still cost money at hotels) and sat in my hotel room because being alone by yourself is so much more tolerable than being alone around everyone. Vegas by yourself: horrible.

The rest of this article is an entertaining Mark Titus piece on attending an NBA scout "school" and finding out just how horrible that job is. So it's sports! On topic!  (Not on topic.)

*[Qualified for the WSOP during the heyday of online poker and couldn't hector any of my friends into railbirding me. WSOP was very large that year so there were four separate Day 1s for a quarter of the field and two Day 2s.]

Etc.: Arian Foster gives classic 'Sheed interview. 1985 Big Ten commercial might as well be from 1685. BHGP sent a horse to Big Ten Media Days. This is legit you guys. Hooray Michelle Beadle. Michigan unranked in opening coaches' poll.

Big Ten coaches really like the word "think." Derrick Walton transitioning away from being just a shooter. I found the only Penn State fan that doesn't loathe us with the fury of a thousand suns.

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Check your spam folder? Faced with the prospect of a potentially contentious Signing Day presser, Michigan tried to defuse things by inviting select media to talk to Hoke, whereupon he could issue the standard claims that he isn't allowed to provide details. One group was notably absent.

Not a huge surprise, that. But the guy who polished up some turds to net the football program its first-ever "major" violations is cool.

Meanwhile, the content. Michigan isn't actively trying to make themselves look bad here, but it's hard to tell. Hoke issued a statement denying any influence over the university's internal investigations, echoing a statement made by Mary Sue Coleman in response to a question no one is asking.

No one wants to know that. They want to know which of the following possibilities is true.

  1. No one in the OSCR or OIE bothered to tell Hoke that they had found Gibbons culpable in the 2009 incident on November 20th.
  2. Hoke was informed on November 20th that his kicker was getting expelled and played him against Iowa.

The lack of an answer there looks horrible, because #1 is more implausible than #2. As the Daily put it in an actually-quite-good unsigned editorial, "at best, this case indicates an unbelievable lack of communication between University units." Brady Hoke knows if you miss one damned class. A months-long rape investigation is on the radar.

They are hiding behind FERPA and, worse, "university policy"* when that law is probably not applicable and they certainly could answer generic questions about when the athletic department is notified that one of their players has an issue before the OSCR. The logical conclusion is that telling the truth would make Hoke and the department look bad.

Worse. I mean, they had Gibbons at the Bust ten days before he got expelled and got caught in a stupid lie trying to make his departure look better. They already look bad. The picture here is the athletic department not taking the OSCR seriously—not taking a finding of sexual assault seriously—even after they had determined to expel him. That is the assumption the data suggests, and no one will add more.

*[I wonder how the U would react if MGoBlog "policy" was to show up at pressers with the ol' jibbles out and about, repeating the last thing anyone said at maximum volume prefaced the world "no."

NO, WHY ARE YOU NAKED

NO, WHY ARE YOU REPEATING ME AT MAXIMUM VOLUME

NO, ARE YOU HAVING A STROKE

NO, ARREST THIS MAN

Saying you have a policy not to do something does not change whether or not you should do it.]

Also in looking bad. Bill Martin says he'd never heard that Gibbons was in trouble.

“An incident of that nature never came to my attention at all,” Martin said in a phone interview with The Michigan Daily.

Martin's tendency to be a space cadet makes that barely plausible for a moment, and then I remember that I knew something sketchy had happened with Brendan Gibbons in 2009. I didn't know much more than that, but apparently that still made me better informed than the athletic director.

One thing that does not seem that mysterious. The epic delay in Gibbons's case is a question raised by many; it seems obvious to me that the combination of the stricter University standard that was in fact implemented in August 2013 and the near-simultaneous wide attention brought by the Washtenaw Watchdogs article/rant made Gibbons's case tractable despite non-participation by the victim and put it at the front of everyone's mind. There is no conspiracy here, just massive stupidity.

Actual football things. At the media pow-wow, Hoke offered up some news bits, mostly bad things about injuries:

  • Magnuson, Bryant, and Burzynski are out for spring. The former two had shoulder surgery; Burzynski is not a surprise since he tore his ACL midseason.
  • Pipkins also out; also not a surprise with midseason ACL injury.
  • Gardner will be "physically limited," no doubt with the world's worst case of turf toe.

The OL news is alarming. Magnuson is highly likely to be the opening-day starter at left tackle and did not play that spot last year. Bryant, meanwhile, has officially reached the point where it would be a shock if he was healthy enough to play consistently. He's a good example of where Michigan gets hurt by not oversigning: at a bunch of schools he would have been medicaled long ago and Michigan would have another shot at turning a recruit into a player.

Irvin. Here's Zak Irvin on The Journey:

Next up: Aaron Craft makes more pancakes!

Have-nots. New Miami (Not That Miami) head coach Chuck Martin took a virtual 200k paycut to take his new job:

Miami acquired Martin only after he agreed to forgo $650,000 at Notre Dame, a figure the Irish were willing to sweeten to coax him into staying. Martin, who received a five-year deal at Miami for $450,000 annually, said he wouldn’t have left “for just any MAC job” and was confident the infrastructure at Miami is sufficient to revitalize a program coming off a winless season.

That article has some stunning stats: in 2010 there were 37 assistants nationwide who made more than the average MAC head coach. In 2013 that number had shot up to 86. Bill Cubit got fired by WMU and ended up getting a raise to be Illinois's offensive coordinator. These days, a big time coordinator is looking at a major pay downgrade if he takes a low-level job.

Why? The Packers CEO claims that a successful unionization drive in college football would put "more pressure on the NFL to establish a developmental league." Uh… why, exactly? From the NFL's perspective the distribution of funds entering college football is irrelevant.

One very far off and potentially interesting impact it could have: if Northwestern wins and basketball does the same thing, that does create the possibility that the NCAA could affirmatively end one-and-done by collectively bargaining with their athletes.

Your shot: at least decent. Inside NU catches up with Elliot Gould, a former NLRB chairman, on Colter and company's shot at winning:

“The principle reason for that is their work  — they have conditions of employment, they have compensation, they’re directed and supervised by the coaching staff — their work is not related to the educational enterprise,” he said.

Medical interns who are students have been allowed to unionize because they work very long hours outside of typical instruction. For athletes, that goes a step further, in that they are required to participate in their sports to remain on scholarship, even though those outside duties are far less educational than the duties of medical interns.

“Athletes are separate from the educational institution,” Gould said. “They’re supervised by coaches, not faculty involved in the educational enterprise.”

Gould was a Clinton appointee who would be inclined to see it in the kids' favor, sure, but he is also talking sense.

Etc.: The NCAA isn't even trying anymore, which is probably for the best given what happens when they try. Pass rush doesn't impact interceptions in the NFL.