What, Me Worry? Not Freshman QB Forcier

Matt Hayes - SportingNews.com

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- He was joking on the last drive. The game in his 19-year-old hands, and 110,000 in Michigan Stadium hanging on his every move. And Tate Forcier, a freshman with all of eight quarters of Division I experience and time running out, pulled off one of the greatest wins since they first teed it up here in 1879.

"Everybody kept saying a freshman can't do it," Forcier said. "And I did it."

Did he ever. Michigan 38, Notre Dame 34.

It was as magical as it was momentous.

Nine months ago, Forcier was playing high school football in San Diego. Now he has leaped to the front of a growing line of freshmen quarterbacks who have done what used to be taboo: play as soon as they step on campus -- at major programs.

Terrelle Pryor and Matt Barkley. Jacory Harris and Robert Griffin.

Used to be that coaches believed in two unshakeable truths, and one played off the other: protect the ball, and never, ever start a true freshman at quarterback.

Now we give you Tate Forcier. He looks like Alfred E. Neuman and puts the fear of God in you like Alfred Hitchcock.

He is listed at 6-1, 188 pounds, but he's a little taller than Doug Flutie and could be the lightest player on the Michigan team. But man, can he play.

Forget that he ran for 70 yards and a touchdown and threw for 240 and two more scores. His unwavering poise in the final minute of the game, with the old building on the corner of Main Street and Stadium Boulevard never louder, was utterly remarkable.

"I'm not surprised by anything he does," said Michigan wideout Greg Mathews, who caught Forcier's scrambling, juking, jumping throw for the game-winning five-yard touchdown with 11 seconds to play. "He never lets the situation get to him."

Want to know why Michigan is 2-0 and a threat to win the Big Ten after the worst season in school history? Because coach Rich Rodriguez finally has a quarterback. Even if he is a freshman.

Rodriguez spent an excruciating first season without a legitimate quarterback for his spread option offense, and suddenly the guy who invented the system (yep, he did, at Division II Glenville State in the early 1990s) couldn't make it work against Toledo. Or anyone else, for that matter.

There is no such thing as managing the spread option offense. More conventional offenses can get by with limitations at the quarterback position in the right situations. But in the spread, the entire system revolves around the position -- and demands an athletic efficiency.

When the offense needed a howitzer last season, Rodriguez had a popgun.

That's why the recruiting loss of Pryor to Ohio State hurt this program in Year 1. With Pryor, Michigan wins seven or eight games and the future looks bright. Without him, Rodriguez begins this fall with nonsensical hot-seat chatter surrounding his program.

It's all about the quarterback, everyone. From Pop Warner to high school to college to the NFL, the game revolves around the position.

Now that Michigan has Forcier, your grandfather's Studebaker that hiccupped around the field in 2008 now looks like a sleek Ferrari rolling in complete harmony and balance. When the system is run correctly -- Michigan rushed for 190 yards and threw for 240 -- it's a thing of beauty.

Hours before the game, as Michigan was leaving the team hotel and walking toward the buses, the tense, focused moment was broken by a loud yell from Alfred E. Neuman. He forgot to brush his teeth.

"You believe that?" Rodriguez said. "We're getting ready to play a big game, and he's thinking about brushing his teeth."

Those nutty freshmen quarterbacks. They can't grasp the enormity of the situation, but they sure can play big when it counts.

"Ever since I was a little kid," Forcier says, "I never get nervous."

The rest of the Big Ten is now, kid. 

Matt Hayes covers college football for Sporting News. E-mail him at mhayes@sportingnews.com.

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