Brady Hoke doesn't like to talk about injuries.
He shouldn't have a choice this week, and his usual excuse about not wanting to give opponent information won't be good enough.
Hoke and his staff face serious questions about the way an obviously injured quarterback was handled during the second half of Michigan's 30-14 loss to Minnesota.
Shane Morris struggled throughout Saturday's game, but things started getting dangerous when he appeared to injure his ankle early in the fourth quarter. At that point -- given Michigan's porous offensive line -- Morris was a sitting duck for the Minnesota pass rush, but he was left in the game.
That's problematic, but nothing compared to what happened with 11:24 to play.
Seconds after throwing a pass that was nearly intercepted, Morris took a late hit from Minnesota's Theiren Cockran, who drove the top of his helmet into Morris's jaw and upper chest. Cockran was called for roughing the quarterback and probably should have been ejected for targeting, but that wouldn't have helped Morris.
Morris, who looked clear-eyed before the play, got up slowly. Then, while he was walking to the huddle, his knees buckled like a boxer who's just taken a left hook to the chin. Morris stayed on his feet only with the assistance of tackle Ben Braden, and multiple teammates started signaling to the bench, calling for him to get attention.
This was a huge moment for Hoke and the Michigan football program, and they utterly failed. Given the information that's come out about brain trauma in the last decade, Morris should have been out of the game and undergone concussion testing as soon as he sagged toward the turf.
Hoke claimed not to have seen Morris "wobble," but with more than 100 people on the Michigan sideline, someone must have seen it. Stunningly, though, Morris was allowed to wave off the bench and stay in the game -- a decision that should never be in the hands of any player, much less a 20-year-old college sophomore.
Not only did Morris stay in the game for another play before being replaced by Devin Gardner, he was let back onto the field when Gardner lost his helmet at the end of a scramble.
"Shane's a pretty competitive, tough kid," Hoke said after the game. "Shane wanted to be the quarterback. Believe me, if he didn't want to be, he would've come to the sideline or stayed down."
That's 100 percent wrong. Of course, Morris wanted to be the quarterback -- it's the reason he's at Michigan -- and after the beating he withstood on Saturday, there's no question that he's tough.
But it's not his job to "come to the sideline." It's Hoke's job as a coach, especially at the college level, to bring him to the sideline.
Not seeing Morris staggering isn't an excuse, either. There's not a major program in the country where -- if multiple players and trainers see the quarterback almost go down after taking a shot to the head -- the coach wouldn't be informed.
If Hoke wasn't told, that's a huge problem with his staff, which also goes back to being his responsibility. If he did know and let Morris continue to play, that's a horrifying dereliction of his duties to protect his players -- something he talks about all of the time.
It was a problem when Hoke left Morris in the game, and a bigger problem afterward when he said he didn't know if Morris had been concussed. In 2014, a football coach has major responsibilities to look after the health of his players, especially when it comes to head injuries.
At best, Hoke didn't take the responsibility seriously enough. At worst, he intentionally ignored it.
Either way, it can't be something that he sweeps under the carpet with the team's ankle sprains and shoulder problems.
