Gholston Playing yesterday

He passed the test for not having a concussion that's why they cleared him to play. The wind knocked out is an excuse for him having a glass jaw. It was obvious he was out cold.

The sideline doctor was on the sideline. You are just judging from the tv shots that you saw. I'm not saying some sideline doctors don't put concussed player back in the game, I'm saying the doctor had a lot more evidence at hand about the condition.

You saw 30 seconds of TV footage. Please don't pretend like you know better than a doctor on the field.

He was obviously knocked out cold. Just for the sake of being cautious with his health they should've sat him for at least a series, or until the half ended. They didn't really need him then, and better-safe-than-sorry with these young college kids feels appropriate to me in the wake of recent Big 12 coaches getting fired for endangering players health or "toughening up" players. Whatever positive impact he has for his defense is easily offset by the negative impact of penalty yards and first downs he gifts to opposing offenses, too, so it seemed pretty pointless to lie to the press about his condition and run him back out there on the next series.

Was gonna be about how poorly he played (even before this incident). It seemed like he was constantly being pushed around and was only around the ball when the runner got past him.

The only play he had, the one Musberger was raving about, he was totally unblocked...so...I guess that's when he is at his best. Go Tom!

It's Michigan State athletics. They are win if we can at all costs. They have a scumbag coach who acts embarrassing as hell in every thing he does. They didn't put his safety first and it's not surprising at all. They'll cover it up, lie and spin their own story. Who's suprised?

My gf is a brain doctor (and M alum) she has said many times this season, "if the player loses consciousness for even an instant he has a concussion." So if Gholston was, "out cold" then yes, he is done for the day by rule. That was the rule when I was playing too from '01-'06 and our trainers followed it to the letter. The docs and trainers at MSU yesterday must have been convinced that Gholston remained conscious the entire time and passed all other head trauma tests. Clearly, they were closer to it than we were.

FWIW, a neck snap can definitely knock the wind out of you. That's what happened the first time I got the wind knocked out of me (Basically fell off the monkey bars onto my head, 2nd grade problems man).

That being said, when I saw the hit and the position Gholston was laying there, motionless, face down, spread eagle on top of Miller, I thought for sure there was some serious damage, a concussion at the least. When he got up and walked off without assistance I was amazed. You have to think if it really was something serious we'll find out soon, either him being held out of practice or poor performance in their next game or two.

A player's responses to subjective testing and "how he looks" is a terrible way of judging fitness to return. As an earlier posters have noted: if he was unconscious - by definition he was concussed, the most objective way is a CT or MRI scan. He probably would have lit up the side of his concussion (essentially a bruised brain) and sometimes the other side (the contre-coup side is the technical term) where the brain rebounds and smashes into the other side. Testing using a battery psychometric questions is so-far the best proven question-and-answer syle of surveying someone, but those aren't administered on the sideline. Medical personnel attached to a team unconsciously are swayed and influenced. Most have the best interests of the players in mind but many are not specifically trained (coming from an orthopedic background or for some not even from a sports medicine/ortho/neuro background, just a fan/love of the game) and because they are "part of the team" become caught up in the same fervor - it will affect people's judgment.

Putthing a player back in when he may have a concussion may actually be the worst thing to do. A second hit when not fully recovered from the first one may be far more devestating than two hits with a period of recovery. I hope that Gholston is actually OK and maybe he was just down taking a breather, but the consequences of that hit and going back in may not be evident until he has long left MSU.

Isn't the NCAA creating standards for player protection in these situations? The answer is yes, but without independant medical evaluation, the process is easy to abuse. There aren't any penalties apparent for violations either.

This says that they should be cleared by a health-care professional, but unlike the NFL you don't have a union which demands that professional be independent from the team. Also unlike high school, you don't have parents in close contact with the coaches or team officials monitoring safety.  Teams and coachs at the level of Big Ten have a lot of autonomy not seen at any other level of the sport.

http://www.ncaa.org/wps/wcm/connect/public/NCAA/Health+and+Safety/Concussion+homepage/Concussion+Landing+Page

there is no way he should have been put back into that game.  he was out cold on top of miller.