The Shane Morris Incident Comment Count

Brian

For posterity I've clipped the video of the helmet to helmet hit and Michigan's actions after, plus the decision to insert him into the game after Gardner's helmet popped off.

The booing you hear in the background is fans demanding that Morris be removed, as it was even more obvious Morris was not right if you were looking at him for those 20 seconds uninterrupted. The only guy in the stadium who didn't know was Hoke.

Bluntly, anyone arguing that we shouldn't jump down Hoke's throat because of the slight possibility Morris was not concussed is an idiot.

Comments

wish you were here

September 28th, 2014 at 8:28 PM ^

Yes we should have stuck with RR. Couldn't beat teams with defenses or field a serviceable one. Carr was terrible. A national championship, big ten titles, multiple players in the NFL. Who in their right mind would want that. Even in 07 the team didn't look completely lost like it has since. Blame Canada!

MgoRayO3313

September 28th, 2014 at 8:36 PM ^

Your comment has little basis and is just plain ignorant. Frustration is understandable, but to suggest What we did post-Carr worked well for us is simply twisting the truth to find a convenient excuse for the current mess. Neither has done particularly well. Let's move on and stop with the he said, she said.



Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad

BraveWolverine730

September 28th, 2014 at 8:53 PM ^

And if Hayes fumbles the ball and Morris tries to dive for the ball and gets blown up again then what? You can't put a player on the field without the possibility of them getting hit. There is no defensible reason for Shane Morris to have been put back in that game. 

ThoseWhoStayUofM

September 28th, 2014 at 9:03 PM ^

The fact of the matter is that Shane Morris should have been receiving medical attention to find out if he had a cuncussion, and then he should have been receiving treatment to ensure no long term damage.  Instead, Brady Hoke had him throwing a pass, in the pocket, immediately after the incident, and then subbed him in to give a hand-off a couple plays later.



Head injuries are not injuries you play through.  Head injuries have nothing to do with toughness.  Unless you have a steel-plated skull, your head is no tougher than a 10-year-old girl's.  Brady Hoke is an idiot.

ThoseWhoStayUofM

September 28th, 2014 at 8:58 PM ^

Going into the season, I thought 9 or 10 wins was what we were looking at with this team.  I see the team on paper and the offense looks decent, the defense looks really good.  Now... shake my head.  What have they done to these players?  Devin Gardner used to be decent.  Blake Countess had six interceptions last year.  Devin Funchess was actually impactful a year ago.  Deveon Smith and Derrick Green have not improved one iota.  What I see is a team of good players in complete freefall, and now the coach is adding to the distractions, fan skepticism, and media talkingpoints with his totally avoidable negligence. 



This is not good.  This is very, very bad.



Teams take on the personality of their coach.  Brady Hoke's personality right now is unabashed helplessness and fear.  That's all I see from him, and that's all I'm seeing on the field.  There is no fire coming from Brady Hoke.  There is no more passion left.  The play on the field mirrors that sentiment to a T.

Mazzy

September 28th, 2014 at 9:19 PM ^

Well, if this is real, apparently no one is taking any responsibility for this what so ever and the University is fine with that. :(

I don't know if this is an email sent to students or what but this was posted on Twitter. It can't be a Uni-wide text or I would have received it so I'm not sure where it comes from but take it as you will. ~shrug~

https://twitter.com/bowlernumberone/status/516391050412584960/photo/1

EDIT: the more I read on Twitter, the more this seems o be an official statement from the school.

bjk

September 28th, 2014 at 9:17 PM ^

is a vague formulation somewhat on the safe side.

For comparison, I'm pretty sure we "jumped down Hoke's throat" last year after 27-for-27 at PSU; this is clearly a different category of complaint.

I'm sure there will be more as this developes.

The Dude

September 28th, 2014 at 9:23 PM ^

from Hoke not taking the proper action when we all know all he does is stand front and center watching the game and then lying about it and putting the blame on the player, to the training staff failing to do their job, to Bellomy not knowing where their equipment is. It really explains everything...players take on the personality of their coach...the coach is incompetent and doesn't believe in accountability and the players have picked it up. 

Only guy I am not upset with is Nuss because he treid to get Morris to stay down based on numerous accounts. He has no power to call a time out and it is pretty obvious Hoke wasn't going to call a timeout after the initial hit when he let Morris go back out there instead of taking a time out. I assume part of the reason there was a post game argument, if rumors are true, is over how the Morris issue was handled. 

CLord

September 28th, 2014 at 10:31 PM ^

I'll go with the nay camp on this one.  Not defending Hoke at all since he and Nuss are a mess, but:

1. The boos weren't fans demanding Morris be removed.  They were upon seeing the replay, and wanting Cochran removed from the game.  That one is pretty obvious.

2. Watch Khalid Hill in the first clip.  He turns to the sideline whereupon he then immediately turns to Morris telling him to get to the ground, which is an obvious indication Nuss/coaches were waving in Morris' direction to get on the ground if he was hurt.  Hill saw this, so did Morris.

3. What happens next is Morris waves them off, as if indicating he was OK.

Players take shots in football all the time, and we've all seen endless times where they've waved off replacements, as if to say "I'm fine."  Morris did this.  The announcers picked none of this up.  Further, Morris's next pass was actually a strike to Funchess.  Morris has several problems Saturday but the timing with his receivers, who were trying to adapt to his incredible lasers, was definitely one of the biggest ones.  Funchess could have/should have caught that pass.

For people to pull out the armchair, 20/20 hindsight on Hoke over leaving him in an extra play is a stretch.  When you ask a player if he is OK and he says yes, and waves you off, it becomes a grey area, whereupon torching Hoke is just opportunistic piling on for his endless other coaching transgressions Saturday.

Mazzy

September 29th, 2014 at 5:45 AM ^

The boos started AFTER Morris fell into the receiver. In your section maybe the boos started before that but in my section they didn't start until after the kid semi-collapsed, kept being ushered toward the sideline, and then turned around to walk back into the huddle. When he turned around the boos started. I do not believe people were only booing for the hit or they would have started booing the second the hit happened. Instead they started booing after Shane was obviously not going to be taken out.

EDIT: It is also fact that Shane was limping badly. So even if they did check him out and he didn't have any indication of a concussion, the fact remains that EVEN THE REF questioned what was going on in the moment they sent Morris back in, LIMPING his way to the huddle, and asked Hoke, "are you sure coach?" So injury was evident to everyone. Whether it was head or ankle, it was there in plain sight for us all to watch in horror as this young kid went again onto the field and, of course, the boos started up again in that moment too - obviously not for any hit, but for the fact that Shane wasn't being pulled off the field for his obvious injury.

bhallpmthe2nd

September 28th, 2014 at 10:38 PM ^

You want Hoke gone. Great. So do I. Have said that here (when not neg'd) for years. 

But your using this Morris concussion lie to JUSTIFY YOUR OUTRAGE is bogus and harmful to the Michigan program and traditiona and future. 

The specialists *always on the sidelines* check the players and they alone decide if someone can go back out or not. 

Brian totally blew this. He embarrassed himself, his blog and harmed Michigan with this bullshit post. 

roosterbaan

September 29th, 2014 at 12:34 AM ^

sorry, you have embarrassed yourself with your post. 

a head coach cannot keep deferring responsibility. at some point, he needs to have a clue what is going on the field. he is paid handsomely to know what is going on the field. his responses have been comical. 

this is not an excuse to fire hoke. most of us had already made up our minds that he needed to go at the end of the season. it is that he is damaging michigan (and players' health) by staying on any longer. 

we need him to go now so that we can all move on and so that we can have some dignity left as a program that holds those entrusted with the well-being of who hoke himself calls his "sons" accountable for their gross negligence. 

MQTBlue

September 28th, 2014 at 10:38 PM ^

I didn’t realize there was a roughing the passer penalty initially then saw Shane walking away with a limp. I assumed that his ankle, which he had hurt earlier, was tweaked again. He definitely shouldn’t have been put back out on the field once Devin’s helmet came off but I could easily believe that Hoke didn’t realize there was a head injury after Shane’s hit to the head.

UMForLife

September 28th, 2014 at 11:59 PM ^

I am not sure if anyone said this. But, it is sad that we would send Shane in for a play when DG lost his helmet. The reason NCAA have that rule is because it is considered an injury and the intent is to protect the player.

So, on a play where NCAA rules that you need to get out to protect yourself, we send another player who apparently had an injury, into the game.

How f'ing ironic is that!!!

Football is just a game. I want to win and my whole weekend is ruined for the last 7 years sans some weeks. But, I don't want to win because we are playing when the players are hurt.

Anyone saying that the coach didn't do it intentionally needs to stop. It doesn't matter. It is not like he is calling plays. What else he has got going on other than talk to the player. He is the most important player on the field. You can't talk to him for a minute? Watch NFL. Even they talk to their QB, if he was body slammed. They are not 19 year olds for crying out loud.

Hoke needs to go. Now. Period.

UMForLife

September 29th, 2014 at 12:09 AM ^

Thank you Brian for the videos and your stance on the issue.

This whole thing is sickening and Hoke's talk on physicalness and the admiration for M does not sound great anymore.

This is 2014 and a coach needs to be aware of concussion. All those Medical staff on the sideline needs to be fired. We have one of the greatest hospitals in the country and we can't have competent medical staff on the field for a sport that produces most money and where players get hurt violently?

Shame on us!

If Brandon will take care of those kind of things, instead of sitting in the film room and doing stupid promotions like the coke, we would be in a better place.

Incompetence starts from the top. DB doesn't get to hide behind others.

Fire DB and Hoke! All others who arguing against this outrage, just picture Shane as yourself. You would not be arguing with people here. You will be outraged.

Fire Hoke and while you are at it, take million dollar away from him and give it to DG for making him go through what he went through last year (especially OSU game) and ruin his career.

Amutnal

September 29th, 2014 at 12:38 AM ^

Injured his left leg but appears to collapse when planting on his right leg. Really hard to definitively say, but without knowing if it was 100% the leg and not a possible concussion after a devastating hit to the helmet, he shouldn't have remained on the field regardless. He was blinking his eyes and looking very disoriented with his head and eyes looking down on the replay. Hoke is clueless and lost.

steve sharik

September 29th, 2014 at 12:58 AM ^

...I definitely can see how Hoke didn't see it during live action, and possibly not see him wobbly, because as other coaches on here have said, he could've been focusing his in-play attention elsewhere, and then was busy with one of the bazillion things that are going on in between plays, especially as a coach.

However, lots of people on that team and staff saw that Shane was in trouble...look at Justice Hayes waving in the trainers for Pete's sake.  And while this is going on there's a roughing the passer penalty being announced for everyone in a 5-mile radius of the stadium to hear.

And if even you (as the HC) are still unaware, it is your responsibility to have a system in place such that the possibly concussed player is properly cared for.

Schlissel may be an ivory tower intellectual academia type, but when you sign up to be President of the University of Michigan, you know damn well you're going to have to deal with athletics on a regular basis.  And if you're that naive, the hundreds of letters you get about athletics (even when things are business as usual) would certainly clue you in.  He has no choice but to look into the handling of this situation.

If I'm him, I determine if Shane did have a concussion, and if true (almost certainly), I have a serious discussion with Hoke and an even more serious tongue lashing with Brandon, because it's clear he and/or his staff helped craft that press release that intentionally avoided the concussion.

Oh, and it wouldn't surprise me in the least if this is what Hoke and Nuss were arguing about in front of Brandon in the locker room postgame (assuming this confrontation did occur, which is speculation).

KSmooth

September 29th, 2014 at 12:27 PM ^

As bad as the events during the game were, I can chalk those up to people having to make quick judgments onder intense pressure.  The evasiveness and secrecy since the end of the game is even worse -- completely inexcusable.

Right now I'd let Hoke keep his job if he could find the guts to tell his boss off and let the rest of us know what really happened and what Shane Morris' condition actually is.