Jason Avant is my favorite Michigan player of the Lloyd Carr era, and if college football's highest award was based purely on "character," Avant would have won the Heisman.

I would argue that the life story of Jason Avant is the best Michigan football story of this young century.

I'll never forget his awesome catch at Northwestern.

 

Not bad for the 109^th pick by the Eagles in the fourth round.  We knew what he was all about at Michigan.  Dude makes catches.  Go Blue!!!

Andy Reid writes for Rivals now

Damn, it's a toss up between him and Super Mario for my favorite receiver of recent years. Avant has always been a great possession type of receiver

I did.  Talking to Avant, was like talking to any other non-athlete undergraduate.  The guy had absolutely no star-athlete airs about him.  He's quiet; he is polite, he listens to people, he looks everyone in the eye when he talks to them.

There are not enough nice words in the English language for Jason Avant.  I cannot think of many Michigan athletes in my lifetime who have done more, with less given to them, than Jason Avant.  I think of Michigan Men as gentlemen and winners who play by the rules and who are smart about how they conduct their lives.  Avant is all of that, but so much more, coming from as impoverished a background as probably any single Michigan undergraduate when he was in Ann Arbor.  If Jason Avant ends his football career having made $30 million on and off the field, it will just give me 30 million smiles.  And I just bet that Jason will rightly attribute a lot of it to Michigan.

was only for a preseason game (vs. Jets), but one of the main reasons I went was to see him play.  Pouring rain, 2nd row seats in the end zone, but he made a beautiful diving catch right in front of us.  He and the ball and the ground were as wet as we were, but that made it even more spectacular. 

He made all the catches that Braylon should have made, if the ball was near him he was going to catch it. I remember hearing a story about how his hands were massive and that the football looked like a mini ball in his paws. As section 1 said above, he is such a humble, intelligent, soft spoken and respectful man. It's good to see him get some recognition for his success on the field. Man's a gamer!