Shane Morris had no business being in the game to be illegally destroyed like that.
And he certainly had no business being in the game AFTER being illegally destroyed like that.
It was in this sequence that Brady Hoke finally forfeited any remaining legitimacy he has at coaching this football team and leading this football program. Even as the product on the field has degenerated into a laughingstock and a joke, the one thing that has been unassailable about Hoke is his character. "Yeah, he's failing on the field, but he's a great guy." That statement has been repeated in 100 different forms across Michigan blogs and message boards as a last-ditch defense of the increasingly out-of-his-depth Hoke.
Let that meme be snuffed out forever after today's farce. Shane Morris could barely stand up in the third quarter after wrenching his ankle. That happened on the first play of a drive that began with 12:44 left in the 3rd. Devin Gardner took off his headset and started throwing on the sideline. But when Michigan's offense took the field again, it was Morris limping out there to quarterback them, not Gardner. On multiple plays in a row in the fourth quarter, Morris was obviously hobbled by a busted ankle, and at one point motioned toward the sideline, as if asking to be replaced but too timid to simply drag himself toward the sideline and make the decision himself. After the vicious hit GIF'd above, he was so obviously scrambled above the shoulders.
And his head coach claimed after the game that he did not notice anything wrong.
Morris stayed in for another play. After being concussed.
Then, to make an already obscene situation even worse, after three plays, Devin Gardner's helmet came off, so he had to come off the field. Russell Bellomy was - or at least he should've been - the #2 quarterback at this moment; and yet he had to scramble around on the sideline, trying to find his helmet. Brady Hoke should've taken a timeout. He's shown no reservations about wasting timeouts like an idiot before - just in this game, he used one while Minnesota was hurrying to the line so they could spike the ball and stop the clock! But instead, he chose to hold onto the timeout and sent the concussed, shattered Morris back onto the field.
Remember when Rich Rodriguez held Denard Robinson out of the entire second half of a must win Illinois game?
— mgoblog (@mgoblog) September 27, 2014
Brady Hoke chose the Brian Kelly path of player safety, and then chose to plead ignorance after the fact.
Since the final grisly seconds expired in South Bend three weeks ago, I've started a post on here, a sort of chronological account of events, dating back many, many, many years. It has a tentative working title of "Death of a Program." Every day, I dig up the specific date of another event or two to add to the timeline. I had thought that it would be completed sometime in the aftermath of another loss to Ohio State, which at this rate seems likely to be the final act of a losing season and the final act of a doomed coach. But the obscenity involving Morris today prompted me to break my silence.
There is no longer any recourse for Brady Hoke. His team is indifferent to the ass whippings they take, soft on the field, and clearly have no fear or respect for their coaches. This is the "country club atmosphere" times a thousand. There is not a shred of accountability here, because the man tasked to lead this outfit is nothing more than a clap-clap-clapping figurehead. What happened today was the most despicable thing I've ever seen from any Michigan coach. Either Brady Hoke chose to make this some sort of perverse teaching moment by sticking with a flagrantly damaged Morris, and then chose to lie his ass off after the game, or he really was completely oblivious to the fact that his quarterback had to be held up by a 300-pound lineman after getting speared in the chin and having his head bounce off the turf.
Either scenario is an abomination, and serves as the cherry on top of the shit sundae this man and his staff of clowns have assembled for us.
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.
I consider it the duty of all Michigan fans to stay away from Michigan Stadium until the bottom line of this athletic department is so adversely affected that the Regents have no choice but to take action against the megalomaniacal lunatic in charge of the department, and replace him with someone who will justifiably oust this entire coaching staff. Michigan's fanbase is currently under occupation by a hostile regime; a detestable athletic director who openly attacks his paying customers and then charges them even more money, while his stooge of a head coach continues to plunge the on-field product to newer and darker depths. You think we've reached rock bottom? You think this is over? Will Mark Dantonio take mercy on the team he hates more than anything? Will Urban Meyer call off the dogs when the masses in Columbus scream for blood?
It can always, ALWAYS get worse. And until this broken machine is destroyed, it cannot be rebuilt. I plead with you, my fellow Michigan fans, to stop giving your money to this bloated, self-righteous, hostile entity. Feeding the beast will not nurture it back to health. We must starve it into extinction before it can be reborn.
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