THIS IS NOT MICHIGAN Comment Count

Brian

9/27/2014 – Michigan 14, Minnesota 30 – 2-3, 0-1 Big Ten

Brady Hoke is too incompetent to be Michigan's coach. He's too incompetent to be responsible for 85 kids who might get badly hurt at any moment. Hell, he's too incompetent to run a Hooters. Do not eat the chicken at Brady Hoke Hooters. That's not chicken.

And that's the nice way to interpret the information presented to us. It's one thing when Michigan is sending out ten guys in their dinosaur punt formation, one thing when they have the country's worst offense relative to available hyped recruits two years running. It's one thing when Michigan is pretending to try by getting Devin Funchess's ankle mangled in the waning moments of a 31-0 game. These are all fireable offenses, but year-end fireable offenses.

It's another thing when the Yakety Sax chaos that has come to symbolize the Hoke regime puts one of Hoke's "115 sons" in danger, as it did Saturday.

Shane Morris had just taken a headshot from a defensive end. He momentarily lost the ability to use his limbs. There was no real reason for him to be in the game anyway, what with his 49 passing yards and air of being totally overwhelmed. And Hoke threw him out there, because he "didn't see" his quarterback stagger onto one of his offensive linemen.

Even if that implausible excuse is true, somebody did. The announcers did. Doug Nussmeier—who was desperately trying to get his quarterback to fall on the ground—did. There were 80,000 people still in the stadium looking at the quarterback, and

EVERY

GODDAMNED

ONE

OF

THEM

knew Shane Morris had just had a very bad thing happen to his brain. When he was left in, they booed vociferously. This is where we're at: the guys booing in the stands are doing so because they fear for the players' health.

This is a long, long way from the "they ain't got no heart" guys from the Rodriguez era. Booing is now the only agency you have when something reprehensible is going on in front of your face. It's gone from childish to necessary.

Brady Hoke had no idea, and even more damningly nobody on his sideline had the sense to overrule the guy who purports to be the head coach. Some guys started yelling at Russell Bellomy to get his helmet on when Gardner lost his a couple plays after entering; Bellomy tried about 50 because he never dreamed he'd go in a game again. Morris re-entered the game. Did he have a concussion?

"Shane's a pretty competitive, tough kid. Shane wanted to be the quarterback. Believe me, if he didn't want to be, he would've come to the sideline, or stayed down."

That is unacceptable. Brady Hoke should have been fired walking off the field.

-------------------------------------

Dave Brandon is too stupid to be Michigan's athletic director. After a day-long lambasting culminating in ABC's World News Tonight slamming the program, they released a breathtakingly tone-deaf statement that is a flat-out lie.

We generally never discuss the specifics of a student-athlete's medical care, but Shane Morris was removed from yesterday's game against Minnesota after further aggravating an injury to his leg that he sustained earlier in the contest

This is how Shane Morris aggravated his leg injury.

Who are you going to believe, Dave Brandon and his lawyers or your lying eyes?

It does not matter whether Morris was concussed or not. What matters is that Shane Morris showed obvious signs of a concussion immediately after taking a wicked head shot and was permitted to stay in the game, then re-entered some 90 seconds after departing, well before any serious concussion check could be completed. The NFL's process takes 8-12 minutes. The NHL requires players suspected to have sustained a concussion to be removed from the ice and taken to a quiet place for evaluation.

Michigan was flagrantly negligent about Shane Morris's safety. Period.

And then they lied about it. To your face. Because they think you're too fucking dumb to do anything about it.

Michigan's athletic department has been insulting the intelligence of their fans for years with offended statements about how they weren't really going to do the thing they said they were going to do and the thing you're mad about definitely is your fault, not theirs. That was bad enough for petty things like noodles; this is the athletic department lying to the nation about a matter of real import.

This opinion is universal outside a small corps of true believers who have inexplicable faith in the people who are just in charge of the Michigan athletic department.  Hoke has been condemned by the ESPN announcers, Deadspin, Business Insider, Yahoo, Andy Staples, Nick Baumgardner, Wojo, Bruce Feldman and Stewart Mandel, USA Today's Nicole Auerbach, CBS, CBS again, USA Today's George Schroeder and virtually every other person to offer an opinion about college football this year. Hell, a news program aimed at olds did a segment on it, just after they talked about ISIS.

The die has been cast. Until Brady Hoke and Dave Brandon are removed from this program, This Is Michigan: incompetent liars.

I can't stand by and watch this anymore.

----------------------------

This program is broken. The coach is too dumb to be in charge of other people. The athletic director is so loathed that when the remainder of the student section started to chant something after the concussion fiasco, they went with "FIRE BRANDON." Tickets go for two cokes, and that's too expensive.

Stephen Ross is defending Brandon, and I feel helpless. The thing I love most in the world has been held hostage by unacceptable people. So I'm going to do two things.

I'M NOT GOING TO THE MARYLAND GAME. (Unless Hoke and Brandon are gone.) This is going to break a home attendance streak dating back to the 1997 opener, when I was a freshman, but it's the only thing I can do to show my disgust at the state of the program. I'm not selling my ticket—not that I could sell it for anything. I am eating it. I urge you to do the same. Yeah, it sucks for the players. I am more concerned about sending a message about the program as a whole than making anyone feel bad.

#boycottmaryland

Do it for all of us. I hate it with the fury of a thousand suns, but this is the only thing we have left.

I'M RUNNING FOR REGENT IN 2016. I don't know how or with who yet, but the  board of regents is a broken institution that privately conspires to vote unanimously in favor of everything, in violation of the law. They accepted the presence of Dave Brandon; they run the worst FOIA office in the country; they are supposed to be the check on an increasingly overpaid and unaccountable administrative class at Michigan. They are failures.

Leaders and best. I still believe that. Goddammit, I do. I started the Every Three Weekly with Amol Parulekar and Mike Chu and Paul Malewitz and Michigan allowed that to happen despite it being an obviously not-great idea for them. I learned how to code; I didn't go to my discrete math class for the entire semester and that was cool; I got my brain rearranged by Stephen Kaplan in an immensely productive way. Michigan is awesome. It is awesome in spite of the people in charge of the university's front door.

I love this place, which gave me my education, livelihood, and wife. I am going to do the thing I can to try to help it.

morris-cart

Because this is not Michigan.

[After THE JUMP: more reasons to fire Brady Hoke.]

GAME STUFF

There's not much point to going over what happened in the usual way Michigan sucks so hard that it doesn't matter anymore. Michigan was comprehensively outgained and blown out by a team that lost 30-7 to TCU. A bowl game is unlikely, to say the least.

But here's some more stuff about why Hoke should be fired.

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[Bryan Fuller]

Giving your players the best chance to win: fail. When Sam Webb said he thought Morris would start during our Thursday roundtable on WTKA, Craig, Ed, and I all involuntarily groaned at the same time. Morris had given no indication he was anywhere near ready, and that played out as Michigan's starting quarterback managed 49 yards passing while being just as turnover-prone as Devin Gardner.

By halftime Michigan had just over 100 yards of offense and it was obvious Gardner should be re-inserted; Hoke refused. Morris started hobbling around on one leg; Hoke refused to take him out even then. Morris fumbled without being touched by an opponent; Hoke still did not take him out. Without the Morris injury, Gardner would not have shown up at all.

That is a slap in the face to a guy who was a warrior last year in the face of horrendous pass protection. Michigan was prepared to lose this game to teach Devin Gardner a lesson, because "uh, Shane Morris was our quarterback." Brady Hoke was willing to throw the entire team under the bus to make a point.

Clueless tempo item of the week. Near the end of the first half, Michigan called timeout just before Minnesota spiked the ball. This was because they were trying to substitute while the opponent was in an extreme two-minute mode and got stuck with twelve guys on the field.

The reason they called timeout doesn't really matter; the mere fact that Michigan had no ability to project what would happen after a Gopher first down in that situation is yet more gross incompetence. It feels like nobody on this staff has ever watched the end of a half of football, weekly.

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[Bryan Fuller]

"I quit" of the week. Hoke once again quit when victory was still distantly possible. After Gardner drove the team to a touchdown, he kicked an extra point instead of going for two to find out whether he was 2.5 or 3 possessions down, then kicked deep. "I quit," he said. Then facing fourth and ten down 16 with 4 minutes left, he punted. "I quit," he said again.

This has been a pattern in every one of Michigan's blowout losses: offenses that huddle and run the clock down to nothing while trailing by multiple scores in the second half, coupled with starters still on the field. Brady Hoke quits when down, but he wants to keep up the appearance of trying. This is why Devin Funchess is going to spend the year nursing an ankle sprain.

I get why he quits—I also want the games to be over as fast as possible. It's still embarrassing to the program.

Shoe-throwin' quote of the week not related to Shane Morris. Oy.

I think field position was a part of the game. We've got to do a better job. A couple of punt returns went for way too much yardage.

You don't say. Michigan was lucky to only be down three points at halftime; their first two punts should have been brought back 20+ yards but for the incompetence of the Gopher returner, who let one of the punts drop and fumbled the other.

On the severity of the Morris incident. This is the only place on the internet other than the Pravda-like Wolverine where you will find people defending Michigan's actions in the aftermath of the helmet-to-helmet hit on Morris, some even going so far as to assert that the problem might have been with his leg even before the athletic department asserted so.

I cannot fathom why a certain subset of posters insists on reminding us that Brady Hoke didn't intentionally put Shane Morris in harm's way, as if that matters. A major argument they bring is that "X isn't stupid/incompetent," which… why would you be certain about that at this point? They seem to want a standard of evidence that is beyond a reasonable doubt and extend the benefit of the doubt to people who have long since lost that privilege. I tell you what, guys: it's just 99 bucks a year for a Rivals subscription.

There is always a faction that wants to downplay everything that people get mad at; the Aggressively Reasonable people spend their entire posting lives clucking at other people that they shouldn't be mad about the thing they're mad about. That combined with a desire to see Brady Hoke as a good guy causes people to say this isn't as big of a deal as everyone here is making it out to be.

Bullshit. The Michigan brand now: send your child to play for a guy who can't tell you've just been hit in the head really hard. Whether it was malice or stunning incompetence doesn't matter: either is grounds for immediate termination.

Toxic. ESPN is clowning Hoke now.

So there's that. 

Toxic Part II. I heard only "Fire Brandon" from the students, and multiple reports that have filtered back to me from the student section say that they were all "Fire Brandon" chants, not "Fire Brady," except for scattered dudes who didn't get the idea. Someone even sent me some video:

There's your future season ticket base. Keeping this guy is impossible even if he wasn't running a confederacy of dunces.

WELL TROLLED, SIR. Is Special K joining the resistance? He played "Numb" by Linkin Park before the game, which is way not on message, and then as I'm exiting I hear "this is it, the apocalypse" from that Imagine Dragons song. Either Special K is a clueless dillweed or he's just as pissed as everyone else.

HERE

Inside The Box Score:

I'm left scratching my head wondering what Brady Hoke was trying to do in this game. In Schembechler's account of his first game against Minnesota, he admits this:

Let me tell you the God's honest truth: Even if we got beat up there in Minnesota, I would still have felt better about taking the squad I took than I would have if we'd won that game with a bunch of guys who hadn't practiced all week, guys who let their teammates down, guys who didn't take my word seriously.

So it's obvious Schembechler had a larger goal in mind; it was a "lose the battle but win the war" mentality. Oh to be a fly on the wall in Schembechler Hall so that I might understand what Brady Hoke was trying to prove with this stunt. He sat a 5th year quarterback with significant playing experience, a player so distinguished, with so much ability, talent, and skills that he was given the honor of wearing the Tom Harmon Legends jersey, for a 2nd year quarterback with one start under his belt in college. I thought maybe, just maybe, Gardner was injured. That's the only way this makes sense to me, if the objective was to win the football game. However, when Russell Bellomy couldn't find his helmet to sub in for a play, the truth was revealed. Gardner was not injured, for if he was, Bellomy would have practiced all week and would have the slightest clue where his helmet was. No, Gardner was sat to teach some sort of lesson.

Best And Worst:

I know last week I described the death of my optimism about this season, so this might sound a bit hypocritical to then attack others for voicing their own displeasure, but I am profoundly, mind-numbingly tired of people questioning the desire of college players and the people who have dedicated their lives to making them better.  Now, I'm not defending the results so far on the scoreboard, nor am I saying that I believe guys like Hoke, Funk, Ferrigno, etc. are the best choices for the jobs the currently inhabit.  I still believe that Hoke should be gone, as the number of boneheaded decisions (the punting formation fiasco and the lack of anything resembling tempo or urgency on offense being prime examples) has only increased since he's been at the helm.  But I absolutely believe that he cares about Michigan football and is trying his best to make it a winner, just like everyone else involved with the program; to question the effort and desire put forth by the players and coaches is asinine.

From The Student Section:

…toward the end of the game two things happened on the sidelines near the student section:

  1. A dramatic increase in police and event staff presence.
  2. A rope being held along the sideline and end zone, presumably to prevent a field rush (??).

Did either of these things directly impact my, or really any other students’ lives? Not really. Nevertheless, the symbolism remains. One needs look little further than this to get a good grasp on why the students are so upset with the athletic department. Is the department so distrustful of the students that they want to keep them in line by show of force? Are they so delusional to think that the students would rush the field after a loss? After even a win over Minnesota? over Utah? over literally any home game this season? They’ve taken our water bottles so that they can sell water for $5; they’ve prohibited numerous innocuous items from entering the stadium; three separate event staff members tried to tell me I wouldn’t be allowed to bring a cowbell into the stadium; you can’t bring bags; you can’t bring food. And yet after all of this, they expect us to keep paying such exorbitant prices for tickets? To keep showing up? Don’t get me wrong, I love Michigan Football, I love the Michigan Stadium experience; it’s just that, under Dave Brandon I have yet to really experience either at the Big House.

ELSEWHERE

Bombs away in the Michigan blogosphere. MZone:

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 Maize Pages:

In Michigan’s 67-65, 3-OT thriller over Illinois in 2010, Rodriguez pulled Robinson after a hard hit during the 3rd quarter. “He was dizzy and had a headache,” explained Rodriguez, extra cautious his star player might have a concussion. The context is even more important. Rodriguez entered that game 5-3 after 3 consecutive losses to #17 Michigan State, #15 Iowa and at Penn State. Under fire by the media before the season and intense scrutiny by Brandon during the season, Rodriguez pulled the most electric player in college football for his safety in a must-win game. He recruited Robinson, developed him, and above all protected him over his job. If only he was a Michigan Man too.

Genuinely Sarcastic:

I now call on all Michigan fans to stomach the unthinkable: boycott this obscenity until it collapses in on itself. If you have tickets, don't use them. Don't sell them to someone who will. Don't give them away to someone who will. Do not buy tickets, no matter how cheap they become, or how many Cokes you get with them. If someone offers you tickets for free, politely decline. I understand how reprehensible that will sound to some. Many will say that it is still a fan's obligation to support these players. I implore you to reconsider. I beg of you to support these players by putting pressure on those who are destroying them. These players are having their careers derailed by people who are in painfully over their heads, and one of them was put at grave physical risk by the man he trusted with his future today. Shane Morris didn't even walk off the field after the game today; he had to be carted off because he couldn't put weight on his ankle; that's not even considering the concussion he took and then continued to play with.

Maize N Brew:

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For starters, Morris never should have been in this huddle. But look at the play clock in the graphic above. THERE ARE A FULL 25 SECONDS ON THE PLAY CLOCK. That is plenty of time for Hoke to either: (1) call Morris back to the sideline and sub in Bellomy, who now has a helmet; (2) call a timeout, which still remains an option every second until the ball is snapped; or (3) PUT IN ANY PLAYER -- WILTON SPEIGHT, BRIAN CLEARY, ALEX SWIECA, LINEBACKER JAKE RYAN, DEFENSIVE TACKLE WILLIE HENRY, ETC. -- THAT IS NOT CONCUSSED.

Even the umpire looks over to Michigan's sideline and asks Hoke if he wants to take a timeout, to which Hoke declines, before starting the play clock.

Maize And Blue Nation:

Then Michigan's coaches failed Shane Morris. It's the coach's job to know whats going on at all times with the players on the field. Hoke admitted to not seeing Shane Morris visibly wobbling back to the huddle after that hit. How you miss that it beyond me. He could barely stand up. How could Doug Nussmeier, the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach not pull his guy immediately after seeing that. Shane probably shouldn't have been in the game at that point anyway. He was limping very badly.

I don't even know what to say abut this series of events other than its easily the most concerning thing that happened on a day when there was a lot to be concerned about. But this goes beyond football and x's and o's. This is a blatant disregard for player safety, plain and simple.

Aw man play 60 kid this is a major burn

but you're just the major burn of all major burns so ok.

And this was just a random post on the Scout message board from A1Portable but it's too good to let die with two responses:

We Are Michigan! ...


... and Brady Hoke is a MICHIGAN MAN!

That is all you need to know ... except perhaps ...

...  that Michigan's Athletic Director is a former CEO of a big company that sells pizzas.  Yes, that's right, Michigan's Athletic Director is a former CEO of a big company that sells pizzas! 

So naturally, he is qualified to be Michigan's Athletic Director.  In fact, he is more qualified than any other kind of athletic director, especially the kind who have experience running college athletic departments and hiring coaches.  That is not the kind of experience that prepares a man to be a master of public relations flim-flam, which is what a Michigan Athletic Director must be a master at!

Do you know how hard it is to persuade 100,000 folks to spend more than $1,000 to buy season tickets to college football games when they could have picked up some tickets at 7-11 just by buying a couple liters of Coca-Cola?  I'm telling you, that is not easy, nosiree!  Don't think that any old ordinary athletic director is capable of doing stuff like that.  No, it takes an athletic director who is a genuine former CEO of a big company that sells pizzas to pull off something like that.  Do not try that at home!  

What's that?  You don't understand?  That is because you are just ignorant peons who are incapable of understanding the depths of  the twisted genius of the Michigan Athletic Director.

Do not question the Michigan Athletic Director!  To question the Michigan Athletic Director is to admit, ipso facto, that you are not qualified, or worthy, to question the Michigan Athletic Director!  You know enough about the Michigan Athletic Director not to question the Michigan Athletic Director, but you question the Michigan Athletic Director.  Therefore, you do not know enough about the Michigan Athletic Director not to question the Michigan Athletic Director.

If you are an ignorant peon and continue to question the Michigan Athletic Director, you will be ignored, and then a way will be found for the experience of going to a football game to become so unpleasant that you will "voluntarily" give up your season tickets, which you could have gotten at 7-11 for buying a couple liters of Coca-Cola.

... and one more thing, WE ARE MICHIGAN!  Seriously, we are.

orsonwellesclap.gif

The Penn State game is going to be epic.

Comments

IncrediblySTIFF

September 29th, 2014 at 11:42 AM ^

I'll eat that argument. I'm aware that my personal feelings prevent me from seeing this through anything other than a kaleidoscope. the fragmented colors look pretty to me, but in reality it's just a cheap cardboard tube with some plastic.

GoBLUinTX

September 29th, 2014 at 11:10 AM ^

I pointed out how bad was the Michigan D last year but since everyone was on the Al Borges is evil incarnate bandwagon, any mention of the Michigan defense sucking, was negged to Boliva.  I suppose now that we know Brady Hoke is not only incompetent but an evil sociopath, talk of defense suckiness is now also fair game.

Don

September 29th, 2014 at 11:23 AM ^

That's odd, because I could swear that I expressed disappointment with our defense last year more than once, and I've never been to La Paz. And again this season, I'm more disappointed in our D than in our O. I think our D is rather overrated, and in particular our DL has not grabbed control of the line of scrimmage for any meaningful length of time in any of our losses. I'd place the blame on coaching, but I've also suspected for three years now that our S&C program bears responsibility.

I would agree that the notion that Al Borges was singularly responsible for our offensive woes now appears silly.

 

WCHBlog

September 29th, 2014 at 10:18 AM ^

"But instead, I will get to read about how every little thing Brady Hoke does is wrong and he deserves to be fired for it, and the reality is: if Michigan were 5-0 right now no one would care."

 

If Brady Hoke were a good coach, you wouldn't be saying he's a bad coach may be one of the hottest takes I've ever read. Just how close is Michigan to being 5-0 this year?

IncrediblySTIFF

September 29th, 2014 at 9:52 AM ^

No, I do not think Morris should have started.  My point is that where there used to be a write up about what michigan could/could not have done better in this game, there is instead someone making a public stand against a coach.

So now I am in a situation where my favorite blog to read and one of the more talented (at least in my opinion) writers is writing some self-righteous, "I could do this better" piece that oozes self-importance instead of, you know, actual stuff about football.  And that is more depressing to me than another loss, our 67th loss in 17 seasons.

jfpseattle

September 29th, 2014 at 10:35 AM ^

the reason this is a great destination on the web is that the owner and founder is so passionate about Michigan that he devotes 10x the time of a normal journalist to actually writing substance that's analytical, painstaking, honest.

For free.  You don't even have to buy two Cokes.

Maybe it is more valuable for the program long term to put a brief pause on football analysis, and for Brian to lend his weight to the momentum of outrage against Brandon and Hoke stupidity.

Sorry you might have to wait a couple of days for the best Michigan analysis on the web.

IncrediblySTIFF

September 29th, 2014 at 11:06 AM ^

I'm not delusional. trust me, I get it. I wanted to make a point that I wish there was less about "fire this guy" and more about "this is why we didn't win.". I don't feel entitled to anything. there is no possible way for me to approach this unbiased. I am not demanding anything be done, and I will still obsessively check for new content. mostly I just like to lurk, which I can do just fine with or without an account. so here: I found this post very frustrating and I am probably living with blinders on. who knows what tune I am singing if I never played for hoke.

ST3

September 29th, 2014 at 11:21 AM ^

That last sentence makes it sound like you played for Hoke. If so, you have insight that the rest of us don't. So write a diary (while your dwindling points still allow you to do so) and lay it out for us. If your personal anecdotes and experiences with Hoke prove that we are wrong, I'll be the first one to upvote you.

Sometimes, the game is not the most important story. Brian touched on the decision to start Morris, the punting and the defense not understanding how to defend a two-minute offense. What else was there to say about the game? Cobb gashed us for ~180 yards on 32 carries, meanwhile, our guy who ran for 6 YPC got the ball once in the second half. How much insight do you need? We're a bad team right now, and the head coach in his desperation to change course left a woefully underprepared kid in the game, long after he should have been pulled, to the point where his health was put at risk.

IncrediblySTIFF

September 29th, 2014 at 11:37 AM ^

st3 - dwindling points, lol. I did write a diary once. I planned on writing more. I chose not to, because I saw how quickly on the first one thing's could be taken out of context. anyway, yeah, it's hard to quantify what I think Brady hoke has done for me, and I'm not really interested in doing so. my mistake was trying to stand up for someone on the internet, and thinking it would turn out well, and I have learned my lesson. fortunately for me, only one time in my life will my old football coach be fired from the program where I always dreamed of playing

Shatty13

September 29th, 2014 at 11:45 AM ^

@incrediblyblue - This is a blog, and Brian can share his views.  And for him, it's gotten to the point where his views are to fire Hoke.  And 95% of the people that come to this site follow Brian and his views.  I don't agree with bashing his columns. I also do not agree with bashing comments. So...

@everyoneelse - incrediblyblue doesn't share the same views as 95% of the people on the blog.  That doesn't mean you should bash his views.  One of the posters wants to "ban" him for having different views.  That is absurd and makes me ashamed to be a Michigan fan (on top of the administration and product on the field).  

I come to this site to read good posts, read comments that share my thoughts and bring up facts that back my views and then hear facts that may be contrary.  You may not agree with other people's views.  And some people are stubborn and won't change their views.  You just have to listen to it, post counter arguments, and let the facts speak.  People will choose one side or the other based on their beliefs.  

Doesn't mean we should "shut them down."  Please stop the bashing.  You are the ones ruining this site.  Not Brian. 

michmaiku

September 29th, 2014 at 11:34 AM ^

That's the analysis. 

Seriously, go away if you don't like the opinions here.  It's no-one's job to keep this your "favorite" blog. 

And if you have self-acknowledged unbreakable loyalty to Brandon and Hoke for unstated reasons (that ooze a little mysterious self-righteousness IMO), it would be a pointless job to persuade you in any case. 

 

EDIT: see now that you're a former player, so understandably you'd take all of this much more to heart than any of us spectators who never had our own limbs on the line.

So apologies for my own uninformed and sarcastic accusation of self-righteousness on that front (which I've left in above so as not to whitewash it). 

But I stand by the non-ad hominem part of what I wrote.

GetSumBlue

September 29th, 2014 at 10:31 AM ^

It's amazing how many people were calling for Morris to play and now since Brian says Gardner should have started, everyone agrees. What had Gardner shown this season that suggests he should NOT have been benched for a game to give Morris a shot? Of course, Shane was ultimately not ready, but to continue playing someone who clearly is rattled and not getting it done is insanity.

west2

September 29th, 2014 at 11:19 AM ^

The logic flaw here is that everyone (myself included) is so desparate for a quick fix that they thought that going with another QB would make it better.   Bandaid on a tumor, not going to work.  The dysfunction with this program runs so deep that simple reshuffling of players now isnt going to make a difference.   We were all hoping it wasn't this bad but ultimately I think everyone's gut feeling is that Michigan's football program is completely broken and only a complete revamping with a new coaching staff will improve things.

mjv

September 29th, 2014 at 11:46 AM ^

Barring an injury to Gardner, there was no logical perspective to starting Morris.  He had the bowl game and mop up time year to show something.  The mop up time has been particularly telling.  At points in games when other teams are probably calling it in, he has been bad.  This is not a rant against Shane, who if he is healthy next year is almost certainly the starter. This is a demonstration of the incompence of Hoke.

So going into Saturday, Hoke is in a must win every game situation.  Morris has looked bad to poor in every outing.  Gardner while not playing well this year, has demonstrated games of brilliance.  If Gardner is hurt, it is the coaches obligation to not play him (well most coaches think that way), or if he is dinged up to much to be effective, I understand playing Shane. 

So Shane starts, which would indicate in a rational environment that Devin is hurt.  Add to the fact that Shane remains in the game while nursing a badly hurt leg, and it would indicated that Devin is hurt.  Until Devin starts warming up.  Shane gets the cheap shot and is removed.  Devin comes in.  QB#3 demonstrates that he is not prepared to play since he cant find his helmet. 

This is either indicative of the broader pattern of Hoke having no ability to evaluate talent (ex. Borges, Speight (spl?) playing against Nebraska in 2012, the offensive line starter in 2013), the Hoke is childish and does petty things just to suit his childish ways (ex. calling Ohio State "Ohio", NFL style punting in the face of mounting evidence, running from under center in 2011-2013 when it was evident that it was a lost cause, etc.) or that he is a moron.

I'm going with petty since he left Shane in the game when it was apparent he wasn't the answer.  

But don't rule out the moron possibility.

Red is Blue

September 29th, 2014 at 12:15 PM ^

Also assuming Gardner was healthy, I believe he should have started.  There is, however, another argument for starting Morris.  Maybe they were looking for a spark that the team could rally behind.  By the end of the first half, it was obvious that didn't work and Morris wasn't getting the job done, so the switch back to Gardner should have been made then (if not earlier).  But that would take putting the team ahead of your pride.