Colt Brennan Monday Update

Dave Reardon writes that the coaches are being extra cautious about letting Colt Brennan play again.

But Jones backed up a little in his comments yesterday. He said Brennan would not practice today, and probably not tomorrow. The 13th-ranked Warriors (9-0, 6-0 WAC) head to Nevada (5-4, 3-2) on Wednesday for the season's final road game Friday.

As for Brennan's availability for the game? No one knows yet.

"Everything's changed," said Jones, who suffered concussions as an NFL quarterback. "When I was playing you just got the smelling salts and went back in. Now it's a little more conservative. We have to see how he reacts. We've got to be smart about it."

Colt and coach Dennis McKnight and June Jones talk to Stephen Tsai about the play and the concussion.

After being down on the FieldTurf for about four minutes, Brennan was escorted to the Aloha Stadium training room.

"There was a lot of fuzziness," Brennan said. "When I really came back to my full coherent self, I was already in the locker room. It's a fuzzy memory. There's stuff I remember, stuff I don't remember."

He said the play in which he suffered the injury "was one of the things I have trouble remembering. I have trouble remembering the incident and what transpired."

After reviewing two angles of the play, at regular speed and in slow motion, McKnight said Riley "took off in a trajectory to go for (Brennan's) head."

"It looks like it was helmet to helmet," McKnight added. "It looked like the forearm was led. ... He was going for his head, and I think the film concurs that. ... I don't know if he was intentionally trying to hurt or whatever, but I think he went to (Brennan's) head."

Jones said he believes Brennan "will play" Friday, but "we'll evaluate it."

An insufficient rest period could make a person recovering from a concussion more susceptible to incurring a second one.

The WAC rules that it was a legal hit.

Although Bulldog linebacker Marcus Riley's helmet made contact with Brennan, commissioner Karl Benson said, "the Fresno player did make contact with his shoulder pads prior to the helmet hit, thus it was not an illegal hit. It was a legal hit."

"I'm feeling better today," Brennan said last night. "I kinda feel like I left my body exposed and he was coming full speed. I think in the NFL a case may be made (about the hit) but this isn't the NFL. This is college football. Honestly, I think I'm the only one that I have to blame."

While the hit to Colt's head may have been ruled "legal," his injury along with an injury to Washington's Jake Locker under similar circumstances prompts Ferd Lewis to write that refs need to be stricter in penalizing flagrant hits.

That their injuries came the same week the NFL notified its teams that a stronger hand would be taken in dealing with players who deliver flagrant helmet-to-helmet hits should be powerful food for thought for the NCAA, too. Sooner rather than later.

It should be pointed out Riley and Afalava were both judged to be playing within the existing rules. A Western Athletic Conference review yesterday reaffirmed Riley's hit and the Pac-10 may do the same today.

Which is precisely why colleges should revisit these rules and their enforcement to limit the circumstances before apparently permissible helmet-to-helmet hits claim a larger, more tragic toll.

The New York Times' Pete Thamel writes a similar article, and talks to coach June Jones about it. I believe the article came out before the WAC's ruling.

Hawaii Coach June Jones, a former N.F.L. coach, said that he was unsure if the hit on Brennan by Fresno State linebacker Marcus Riley was legal. But he is hopeful that the N.F.L.’s recent action, which includes fines for helmet-to-helmet hits, is mimicked by the N.C.A.A.

“We’re a little bit behind,” Jones said. “It needs to be addressed.”

“Ultimately, the conference commissioners are going to have to look at the tapes and decide whether these were flagrant fouls and suspend kids for a game,” Jones said. “Otherwise, I don’t think that it’s going to stop.”

Jones stressed that he saw only the replay on the video screen in the stadium and did not think at first glance that Riley’s hit was illegal. Replays showed that both Riley and Afalava led with their heads and appeared to launch upward, telltale signs of illegal helmet-to-helmet hits, according to Parry and Sorgen.

Regarding Riley’s hit on Brennan, the W.A.C. spokesman Dave Chaffin said in an e-mail message yesterday that “it appears that there was shoulder pad contact just prior to the helmet hit, making this a legal tackle.”