Forcier found Michigan ties too strong

COLUMBUS, Ohio

When ego told Tate Forcier to start making for the exits, sentiment told him to stay.

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Displaced as Michigan’s starting quarterback by the dazzling and younger Denard Robinson, Forcier took the blow, went a little wobbly for a while, but stayed upright and remained resolute.

“It’s hard to go from starting to backing up,” the former Scripps Ranch High School star said. “A lot of people told me to leave. I wanted to leave. But it was just too hard. I didn’t want to leave the (coaching) staff or these players. I felt I was going to be a part of something great.”

Saturday was one of those days when Tate Forcier’s faith seemed strangely misplaced. Venerable Michigan, college football’s all-time leader in both total victories and winning percentage, absorbed its seventh straight loss to rival Ohio State, this one by the emphatic score of 37-7.

The self-proclaimed “victors valiant,” those “conquering heroes” of the familiar fight song and the winged helmets, have fallen so far from “something great” that they now resemble just another Big Ten punching bag for the 11-1 Buckeyes.

If this was the caliber of competition Ohio State President E. Gordon Gee was boasting about when he derided the “Little Sisters of the Poor” scheduling of TCU and Boise State last week, perhaps that bow-tied blowhard should requisition some updated research.

“I’ve never seen Michigan so bad,” former Ohio State coach Earle Bruce told the Columbus Dispatch. “I just see a bad defense. … They can’t stop the pass; they can’t stop the run. They’re helpless, and they’ve been that way for a few years. At some point, you would think they’re going to be a good football team, but they’re not right now.”

What the Wolverines have become is Denard Robinson and a bunch of guys who get pushed around as if they had casters attached to their cleats. In a rivalry once defined by three yards and a cloud of dust, the Buckeyes generated 478 yards of total offense Saturday — 89 of them on a single carry by Dan Herron — and also returned a kickoff 85 yards for a touchdown in turning The Game into The Anticlimax.

“I’m ticked,” Michigan coach Rich Rodriguez said. “What do you want me to do, jump out there and hold hands with all those Buckeye fans and sing ‘Kumbaya?’ ”

Happily, it has not yet come to that. Though the extent of Rodriguez’s job security is uncertain, his 7-5 team is still bowl eligible at a time when proud Texas has tanked. When Denard Robinson is available, the Wolverines can be exceptionally explosive. When Robinson is unavailable, Tate Forcier is an accomplished alternative. He started every game as a true freshman in 2009, throwing for 2,050 yards and 13 touchdowns, only to lose his place to a fellow sophomore with an extra gear.

Robinson, the first NCAA quarterback to produce 1,500 yards both running and passing in the same season, left Saturday’s game late in the second quarter with a pair of dislocated fingers on his left (nonthrowing) hand. After Forcier was intercepted on his first pass of the third quarter, Robinson returned to the game for two uneventful possessions before ceding the signal-calling to the former starter.

“Two quarterbacks have to play in this offense,” Forcier said Friday in a prescient telephone interview. “It might not happen every game, but you’re going to get your chance. I’m not banking on Denard getting injured. Nothing like that. But in this offense, you never know what can happen.”

Three weeks ago, Forcier relieved Robinson in the fourth quarter against Illinois, and went on to throw two touchdown passes in a 67-65 triple-overtime victory. Earlier, he set a Michigan record for highest completion percentage in a game with at least 10 pass attempts with a 12-for-12 effort against Bowling Green.

Saturday, Forcier came off the bench late in the second quarter and completed his first two passes for first downs. That drive subsequently died on a Vincent Smith fumble, and Forcier’s next throw was picked off, acrobatically, by the Buckeyes’ Travis Howard, at the start of the third quarter.

Forcier finished with eight completions in 15 pass attempts for 82 yards, plus a 52-yard punt. For the season, Forcier has completed 54-of-84 passes (64.2 percent) for 597 yards and four touchdowns. (For additional context, consider that Tom Brady had thrown only 20 total passes at the end of his sophomore year at Michigan.)

“A lot of people would think me and Denard would have something against each other because he starts,” Forcier said. “But Denard is a good guy. We hang out. And he works hard. What’s hard for me is he’s having so much success and there’s nothing you can do about it except stay ready.”

This can be a helpless and frustrating feeling, one that can lead a player as aggressively recruited as was Tate Forcier to seek out other opportunities. Forcier’s brother, Jason, previously transferred from Michigan to Stanford. Another brother, Chris, transferred from UCLA to Furman.

But Tate Forcier’s experience has told him that those players who leave Michigan in search of more playing time often do so just before the guy in front of them gets hurt. The situation is certainly fluid — Rodriguez could get fired — but Tate Forcier’s stance would be better described as “watch and learn” than “wait and see.” Viewing games from the sideline, he says, has helped him to read coverages more clearly.

And, perhaps, to get a better read on himself.

“I’ve learned to be way more humble,” Tate Forcier said. “I look back at freshman year, and I was a little cocky. I was getting too caught up in seeing myself on TV every week. I think that would happen to anybody who would go from being a regular kid in high school to a national stage like that. It was crazy.”

This season has brought Forcier a new reality and a new perspective. If he is not yet part of something great, he continues to grow.