Michigan is issuing apologies, and that's nice, but the topic here is a young man's brain. A young man's life.
And Michigan sure is sorry it messed up that brain, and perhaps that life, though the good news for Michigan coach Brady Hoke and everyone else responsible for what happened to sophomore quarterback Shane Morris -- and that's a pretty large list -- is that the true effects of the concussion Morris unnecessarily suffered Saturday against Minnesota won't be known for decades.
So breathe a sigh of relief, Brady Hoke, you failure of a Michigan Man. Ignorance will be your friend in the future, just as your ignorance was Shane Morris' enemy on Saturday.
If this weren't so serious, it would almost be funny that something like this -- a failure of this magnitude -- could happen the way it did. The quarterback at Michigan, pretty much the guy everyone in the stadium is watching, is wobbling around on a bad ankle, and he's allowed to stay in the game damn near defenseless, and is immediately hit. He stays in. A few plays later he takes a shot to the head.
There are 102,926 people in the stadium, and it seems like the only ones who didn't realize what was happening to Shane Morris were the Michigan coaches and medical personnel.
After Morris was drilled by Minnesota defensive end Theiren Cockran, helmet to helmet, he tries to walk off the field and starts to collapse like a broken fence. Only the presence of offensive tackle Ben Braden stops Morris from sagging to the ground. The crowd saw it. People watching on TV saw it. The commentators on ESPN saw it, and to his credit, ESPN's Ed Cunningham had been saying for several plays that Morris should be pulled. The first time was after a Minnesota player had rolled up Morris' leg, leaving him grimacing and limping. Second time? After Morris was hit while throwing an incomplete pass, helpless in the pocket, and Cunningham reiterates that Michigan should be removing this wounded player from the game.
Then the hit by Cockran. As he walks off the field Morris' knees buckle and he falls into Braden, his head coming to rest on Braden's arm.
Hoke says he never saw the hit to the head. Same goes for everyone else on his staff -- on the sideline and in the press box, including some with access to replays -- and everyone on the medical staff as well. So when all of these trained professionals saw Shane Morris reeling his way off the field, and when they saw teammates gesturing to the sideline for help, they all thought it was because of the ankle.
The same ankle that was hurt several plays earlier. The same ankle Morris was trying to play on. So the explanation of the Michigan coaches and staff is that they knew about the ankle, and knew their quarterback was compromised, but they didn't feel it was important enough to remove him from the game. So he stayed in and was hit twice. Once in the head.
Which nobody at Michigan seemed to have seen.
That's their story, and they're sticking to it, which is better than the truth offered after the game by Brady Hoke:
"Shane wanted to be the quarterback," Hoke said, "and so, believe me, if he didn't want to be he would've come to the sideline or stayed down."
Because Brady Hoke doesn't decide who plays quarterback. The quarterback decides who plays quarterback.
That was such a meathead, 1960s response, it's probably for the best that Morris was allowed to stay on the sideline with a helmet on his head. Otherwise, cameras might have caught Brady Hoke rubbing dirt on it.
Shortly thereafter, when replacement quarterback Devin Gardner had to leave the field for one play -- or one timeout -- because his helmet had popped off, Morris (helmet still on his head) was allowed back on the field. Bad ankle and all, which the staff says it knew about. Bad brain, which the staff says it didn't.
Brady Hoke was asked Monday how Morris could be allowed back onto the field after all that had happened, and Brady Hoke -- failure of a Michigan Man that he is -- pointed the finger at someone else.
"The medical staff said, 'Yeah, he can go,'" Hoke said.
Because Brady Hoke doesn't decide who plays quarterback. The medical staff decides who plays quarterback.
The rest of the story came early Tuesday morning when Michigan athletic director Dave Brandon announced, yes, Shane Morris had suffered a concussion on that hit by Cockran. Morris had been allowed back onto the field after a head shot damaged his brain so clearly that people on Twitter watching the game on TV were screaming about it, and about Michigan's negligence. Did Dave Brandon not see the same replays everyone else saw? Where was Pat Haden, leaving the AD's box for the field, when you needed it?
The reality is, Shane Morris didn't need a hero coming to his rescue. He needed someone who cared about him as a person, cared enough to pay attention to the damage he was suffering on the field. Shane Morris needed a Michigan Man on the sideline, but all he had was Brady Hoke and the stooges on Hoke's staff.
And today, boy, they sure are sorry.
