Without mentioning anything about concussion protocol, Michigan coach Brady Hoke continued to play defense about leaving quarterback Shane Morris in on Saturday despite what appeared to not only a leg injury, but a blow to the head as well.
In a Q&A with Michigan’s official website, Hoke said:Well, number one, we would never put a quarterback who was hurt (in there). That would never happen. As far as where we’re at with it, we usually don’t talk about injuries and stay away from them. But this has kind of become an issue to some degree, and Shane Morris has got a leg injury, and that’s why we pulled him from the game. We’ll see where he’s at.
On the down where Devin’s helmet came off, there was a discussion about the timeout with the referee that I wanted to take to buy him back into the game. When I talked to the referee -- because he kind of came to the sideline -- and he said, ‘No.’ So, a couple seconds later the line judge comes up and says, ‘Now, you can buy a timeout.’ But by that time, Shane was already back in the football game.
Of course, this being a Q&A with the official Michigan website, there was no follow-up question about Morris possibly being concussed.
Calls for Hoke to be fired over his handling of the situation on Saturday -- during a game Michigan embarrassingly lost -- have grown over the last few days. USA Today’s George Schroeder has a good take on the situation, while our own Kevin McGuire wrote Hoke needs to take responsibility for the Morris fiasco.
More than likely, Hoke will eventually get fired by Michigan. It’s just a matter of when.