DETROIT — For the first time in two years, Michigan football will have a new starting quarterback. And while the national punditry is sure that will make the Wolverines take a step back, it will be a true competition where a rising tide raises all ships.
The presumed starter is Alex Orji, who enters his third year in college football. With a skillset similar to Alabama quarterback Jalen Milroe, the dual-threat can use his legs and has a big arm. But we haven’t really seen that arm in action as of yet outside of the spring game. But others — Jack Tuttle, Davis Warren, Jayden Denegal, and Jadyn Davis — will have their say this fall once the battle begins in earnest.
Still, Orji doesn’t look at it like many others across college football do. If he’s not the starter, he isn’t quitting on his team. He isn’t looking to transfer elsewhere right away. He’s determined to win the starting job, yes, but he’s more committed to the ‘process over the prize,’ as multiple players have said over the past few years.
“I want to know, whatever it takes to win our ball games. If I’m not the starter going into Week 1, I want to know whatever I can do to help the team and if helping the team is me being the starter that I want to work to be that,” Orji said. “It could be a starter Week 1 and someone else can start Week 2, whatever gives us the opportunity to win. I want to be the guy that helps us have the opportunity to give us the best opportunity. So obviously, I would love for that to be the new starter. What I’m gonna work to do is be the starter, because in my head, I have confidence that gotta give us a great opportunity. That’s everything I want to do is try to keep taking us to the next level.”
So why is he looking at this battle so unselfishly? It’s become the nouveau thing in college football that good players who don’t earn starting jobs tend to head elsewhere almost immediately.
Orji espouses the ethics of the university and the football program. Much like how Tom Brady often says that him having to work his way up the Michigan depth chart was a shining moment for his career, Orji reflects on the team slogans, the ethos of the program, and why he supports his team no matter what his role ends up being.
“I think that’s just what it means to wear the maize and blue — the different sayings we have — ‘the team, the team, the team,’ ‘those who stay will be champions,'” Orji said. “At some point it feels like those are just words on a wall or on a plaque, but once you sit through it, you live through it, you play through it, you realize that they hold truth. And it goes from words on the wall to words engraved on a ring. And that’s when you really feel it and you’re like, ‘Oh, wow! It really means something.’
“And so I think that’s just how you see different things like — dudes like Amorion see how it is somewhere else and come back. He knows it’s a little different here. He knows there’s gonna be different things that we’re going to do, we’re going to try to find success every day, that’ll lead to success, you know, every week, every month, throughout the season.
“But that’s just kind of how Michigan is — it’s the culture, as well. We’re all a family. It’s the same as if I go home, and me and my brothers are working out, it’s like, I want to see them do the best that they could do. But it’s not like I’m gonna try to get more than them on bench, I’m gonna mess with them. Just like I want to see us do the best. I committed to the University of Michigan, I didn’t commit to being the starter. I committed here to support University of Michigan, try to give us the best chance to win and whatever I can do we try to add value to the team. It’s not a personal or selfish ideology when you come here at all.”
With a culture like that, it makes sense why Michigan football has had so much success the past few years. Everyone is pulling in the same direction instead of individuals seeking to do the best for their own gain. This is truly a team and the fact that the presumed starting quarterback has that same mentality shows that the program continues to be in a good place in terms of culture.