It is past time for real leadership at this University to release DB back to the world of corporations and profits where he seems to flourish, and to release BH and his minnions to the MAC, high school, or the Cartoon Network.  No disrespect intended, but these people have to start respecting themselves before they can earn it with anyone else.  

If Bo had a fault, and we all have them, it was loyalty to a fault. I agree it is way past time to leave Mo, Carr, their grad assts or line coaches (eg, Brady Hoke), their end-of-the-benchers (eg, Dave Brandon), to posterity, some good, some very bad.  

It is hard to imagine a worse state of affairs than what exists on Tuesday, September 30, 2014 with respect to the University of Michigan football team and athletic department.  In the name of all who have gone before them, and all who will follow them, thank DB and BH for their service and let them go, TODAY, if possible, but as soon as reasonably appropriate for the University, its football team, and the individuals involved.  

Start with a new AD, and a new coach.  Forget this "Michigan Man" BS.  It was coined by Bo to get past the shenanigans of his then appliance-salesman coach Bill Freider, who bolted to ASU on the even of the NCAA tourney and expected to stay on through it at UM. Nothing more, nothing less.  Michigan Men attempt to live up to certain principles in my humble opinion, not just pay lip service to them.  If DB and BH are the Michigan Men they claim to be, they would resign for the good of the University's football team and athletic department.  We shall see what they are made of, but it does not look good.  

The University is bigger than its football team or athletics.  It stands for much more than that.  However, its football team and athletices have for the most part been reflective of the standards of excellence of the University as a whole.  It is time to recognize how far we have gotten from that state of affairs with these people at the controls.  Lets rebuild the house on a firm foundation, and that can only start by clearing the site.

I wrote this Monday AM, withdraw support now!

Don't go to games until Hoke and Brandon are gone, don't buy merchandise, don't watch the games, don't wear M apparel.  That's the only way the morally bankrupt people in charge will get the hint.

Me? I'm going to the MSU-Nebraska game Saturday. After this comment, Michigan (all of it, because the entire University is being drug through the mud in this debacle) is dead to me until BH and DB are gone. 

So that release by Mr. Brandon early this morning was supposed to take the place of the promised statement from the medical staff?  In other words, we are no longer supposed to expect the medical staff to release any further information?

So what happened?  (1) Medical staff prepared a statement, and Mr. Brandon refused to allow it to be released and wrote his own instead?  (2) Mr. Brandon wrote a statement for the medical staff to sign, and they refused, so Mr. Brandon released it under his own name instead?  (3) Medical staff refused to issue a statement of any kind, saying it's not in their job description?  It has to be one of the three, correct?

Also, "Mendacious Clownshow" is absolutely the name of my next fantasy football team.

And so passeth a worthy opponent.

Why drag this out? Can these assholes already.

is why big money college athletics has a problem.

You don't put people in charge of an athletics department with no athletic leadership history and you've now become so big you need to be run like a fortune 500 company.

I would chalk up much of this board's reaction on Saturday night and Sunday to over-reaction, at least in terms of the calls for heads.  However, the athletic department's reactions since Saturday night have absolutely justified the extremism of the initial reactions, at least as regards the director.

Did we expect anything other than this PR debacle after the handling of the Gibbons situation?  

This is a clear indication that Brandon and Hoke are both in over their heads and don't know how to properly lead, in the good and the bad.

And here I was making fun of my brother-in-law for being a fan of USC...

time to GTFO.  It is just beyond comprehension that the University of Michigan is allowing this to happen.  Un.  Fucking.  Believable.

I was in Mexico City.  While walking, I heard a strange bleeting sound. I asked my friend Jaime what it was.  He took us to a crack in the wall.  Behind it, you could see workers rounding up sheep and slitting their throats to be send off to the markets.  It was a bloodbath.  And chaos.  This is kinda like our program right now.  Chaos and blood everywhere.

at this point is a statement from the president and/or board of regents saying they think DB handled this matter well and that they back him. 

As long as no such statement exists...I will hold out hope that they are backchanneling ways to get a smooth transition between firing DB and hiring his replacement.

I will hold out hope that the report yesterday that Bates and Manuel were contacted has any remote shred of truth to it, despite Bacon's assertions that it didn't happen. I will hold out hope that regardless, that signifies *something* is happening behind the scenes.

Brady Hoke is a dead man walking...that was inevitable. What is confusing though is how DB basically fed Brady to the wolves and yet he's still the coach as of today. Which leads me to believe maybe he didn't feed him to the wolves...intentionally...but that he was actively trying to get the statement to not include any mention of a concussion. Of course, that's 100% pure speculation, but I applaud the medical staff for seemingly standing up for what is right. Obfuscation to teh press for sports is a cute thing to quibble about when everything goes smoothly...but it looks completely and utterly absurd when shit hits the fan. The fact that Db cannot separate his corporate mindset from the proper collegiate athletics mindset and Michigan mindset here is, well, very damning. And like Hoke, it's a clusterfuck culmination of previous clusterfucks where DB has had teh exact same response of dumb move, retraction/denial/calling fans ignorant, and active sweeping it under the rug. There's a countless list. This Morris incident not only is the cherry on top, but the inevitible shitty ceiling to how far that strategy can go.

Technical truth vs. actual truth

And we have literally the only fan base in the country that bothers to make the distinction.  We are the only fan base in the country that actually applies deductive reasoning to what our coach and athletic director says.   Every other fan base in the country circles the wagons around their coaches and administratorsand and toes the party line without question.  OSU fans did it.  Auburn fans did it.  Oregon fans did it.  ND fans have done it with Brian Kelly.  And where the fuck was all of this outrage when Will Gholston went back into a game merely minutes after he was clearly knocked out cold on the field and his coach later lied and said it was a "stinger"?  How does anyone not get insulted by that?  How in God's name does that get swept under the rug? 

Welcome to Michigan, the only university in the world that can get placed on probation for not counting our stretching hours properly.  We are now the only university who has gotten signficant scrutiny for putting a concussed player back into a game.  At least this time it will help us get rid of some clowns who need to go anyway, but Jesus fucking Christ this sport is so broken. 

Brandon may have decided to grab the wheel, but Hoke had already thrown himself under the bus.  I don't believe for one second that Hoke didn't recognize Morris was dizzied and staggering after that hit.  Hoke had already exhibited he was too stubborn to remove Morris when he should have earlier in the game (after it was clear Morris was ineffective and injured) because he didn't want to appear like he was admitting a mistake with his QB decision.  The decision to leave him in after the concussion shows just how insane Hoke's stubborness was.  Hoke has a dangerous, toxic personality disorder.

In June 1973, Jeb Magruder (head of Nixon's 1972 campaign) was testifying to a Senate committee about the Watergate break-in, and this exchange happened:

SENATOR:  When was it decided that there would be a cover-up?

MAGRUDER:  We never considered that there wouldn't be a cover-up.

So, 40 years later, here is the same gap in worldview being played out once again.  People not being able to comprehend that the athletic department would behave this way, and the athletic department not being able to comprehend that there is any other way to behave.

Was going to revisit elements of past PR mess through this lense.  Nevermind.