One of the most memorable statements from Brady Hoke's first press conference as head coach was his comment that he'd walk from San Diego to Ann Arbor to take the Michigan job. At this point, I don't think anyone would blame him if he wanted to turn around and walk back.
The details of the last four days have been made crystal clear by about every news source imaginable at this point, so there's no use in rehashing them. Michigan has been exposed in the last four days as an incompetent institution from the top on down. The athletic director and his department failed -- miserably. The head coach failed. The medical team failed initially, but recovered.
The circus that was a press conference started a chain of events that are already haunting the university and its image. Mothers, grandmothers and others who don't care about Michigan football know all about what's going on in Ann Arbor right now as CBS, ABC, NBC and even TIME Magazine have turned this situation into a true national news story. The idea that any publicity is good publicity has been challenged in this regard. Even when changes are made, parents of players and recruits will make the associations. The ball will keep rolling.
This is about more than Ohio State. It's about more than Michigan State. This is all about the culmination of a level of incompetence that has crept in at the most inopportune times. It's about product-related gimmicks to sell tickets. It's about an awful home schedule and a student section that continues to dwindle. It's about delay of game penalties after a timeout. It's about having ten men on the field for a punt return that subsequently changes the momentum in a pivotal game. Saturday's fiasco in the fourth quarter was the worst situation, and it was handled the worst, by far. These four days will end up being the face of all that.
Hoke clearly didn't have the right answers on Monday, and clearly wasn't prepared. It was a press conference straight out of the Roger Goodell textbook. The difference is that Goodell has nobody to answer to but himself. Hoke, instead, was thrown out to the lions with half a story, crappy, inaccurate information and nothing to fall back on by the man who hired him. In a way, it was ironically similar to the recent John Harbaugh press conference after the mishandling of the Ray Rice fiasco by Ravens ownership. In both situations, higher leadership cowardly stayed behind the scenes to allow a pair of good men to take the bullets for everyone involved.
Has virtue really fallen that far out of grasp? What is a "probable mild concussion"? When reliable Michigan writers know what's going on before things go public, it makes the results look that more silly. Waiting until 1 AM on a Tuesday to release a statement wasn't going to soften the blow. Instead, it further emboldened Michigan fans and writers, who have always been the types who want answers, regardless of what the results may be. With any level of clarity and honesty, everyone's questions would have been answered a while ago. Now, it's out of control, and time for another change as the people continue to want their Michigan back.
