Brennan: School president should end Michigan fiasco

The best line in the best college fight song in the country says, simply, "Hail! Hail! To Michigan, the leaders and best!"

Growing up, I sang that song hundreds of times at Michigan football games, or while just thinking about Michigan football games. I didn't end up going to college there and have long since moved on with my life, but the song has stayed with me forever, as have those words: "The leaders and best!"

These days, Michigan is neither.

The incompetence on the football field under head coach Brady Hoke, well-documented and getting worse, is one thing. The stunningly poor stewardship of what once was the gold-standard of college athletic departments by athletic director Dave Brandon is another.

But what happened late in last Saturday's loss to Minnesota – the unacceptable decision to allow dazed and unsteady quarterback Shane Morris to stay in the game after a brutal hit to the head, and the embarrassing fiasco that has followed – is what should get Hoke and Brandon fired.

The sooner the better. Earlier this week would have been nice. Now is fine. Very soon is a must.

At a time in our history when our knowledge and interest in the issue of concussions in sports has never been more intense or thorough, Michigan's so-called leaders allowed a young man who clearly was in trouble to continue to play, finally took him out, then actually put him back in for a play before mercifully taking him out for good.

There is a term for that sequence of events occurring on a playing field at one of the best universities in the country: fireable offense.

After the game, Hoke tried to explain his decision-making, or appalling lack thereof:

"Shane's a pretty competitive, tough kid," he said, "and Shane wanted to be the quarterback and so believe me, if he didn't want to be he would've come to the sideline or stayed down."

Welcome to Michigan Stadium, where the adults have left the sideline.

On Sunday night, Hoke said in a statement that Michigan's trainers and team physicians were the ones responsible for determining if a player is physically able to play. "Our coaches have no influence or authority to make determinations if or when an injured player returns to competition."

I'm trying to picture Bo Schembechler uttering that alarming sentence.

Then, at a Monday news conference, Hoke said Morris did not suffer a concussion. He also said that he and Brandon hadn't discussed it.

But, after midnight early Tuesday morning, Brandon released a statement in which he said that Morris had indeed suffered a "probable, mild concussion," whatever that is.

Brandon also said that he had met with "those who were directly involved" since Sunday, which clearly would include Hoke, who of course said he hadn't talked to Brandon about it.

So the two are either not telling the truth or simply incompetent. Or perhaps both.

Can the embarrassment get any greater for a proud university such as Michigan?

It probably can, and will, because it's an open question whether the one person with the power to stop this madness is up to the task. New Michigan president Mark Schlissel, the former provost at Brown, admitted to reporters in his first week on the job in July that he had little context with which to make decisions about a big-time athletic program.

Oh boy.

It took three days for Schlissel to break his silence about the Morris incident, saying on Tuesday evening, "We did not get this right," then apologizing to Morris, his family, his teammates "and the entire Michigan family."

Unfortunately, he failed to mention anything about the growing calls for the firing of Brandon and Hoke, so on and on it goes at Michigan.

"Leaders and best?" How about, "Followers, and getting worse by the day?"