Forcier article on FreeP...

Really great to see Tate maturing and I am equally impressed with the first hand insight into the type of man RR is. If my sons were ever in a position to play Division 1 football there would be no other choice then to make sure they played for RR.

I won't open the link and I refuse to read the rag! Thats all

great interview.  Tate was honest and forthcoming.  I appreciate his views on  being a "Michigan Man";  to paraphrase, you aren't born one, for those who stay, the University makes you one.  Well done Tate.

Am I losing my mind or is this a positive article from Freep? 

Every recruit should read this. Tate really seems to get it.

"Even though [RichRod] wasn't a Michigan Man, neither were any of us when we came here. How does everybody accept us as Michigan Men, why can't they accept him as a Michigan Man? Texas, California, Florida, they weren't Michigan Men before. So I think this 'oh, he's not a Michigan guy.' (Rolls his eyes.) None of us were until we got here."

I love article titles with incorrect noun-verb agreement.  

Michigan QB Tate Forcier talk about quick rise, fall in Ann Arbor

I learned that any singular noun needs a singular verb in kindergarten.  Come on, freep, you're ruining your reputation as a good newspaper over things like this.

Don't like the Freep, but it was a good read. Glad Tate is hanging around. It's always good to have a competant backup QB.

Nice article...also getting the feeling Mark Snyder is looking to be on the bandwagon going forward...will be interesting to see how they treat him.

Was more of a glorified Q&A rather than an article, but it was pulled off really nicely because Tate opened up really well. As someone who was down on Forcier after the UConn game, I can definitely appreciate this.

I guess my beef with the Freep is that something with this many grammatical errors should never hit the page/internet. From the inconsistent spacing with ellipsis, inconsistent capitalization of 'Coach/coach', to the repetition of quotes (is transfer talk done? section) and the load of grammatical mistakes where a word is simply left out, I think they could have spent more time editing the quotes. Now I'm being nit-picky, yes, and I don't do that on this blog, but when it's in a newspaper this stuff can't fly, it's just annoying. And they didn't need to rush to get this story out — no one else was getting this Q&A so publishing it anytime before the bowl game would have been fine and it would have been a cleaner copy. Not a whiner, but this are things that make the Freep's image suffer a bit IMO.

The whole article sounds to me like a very well designed piece of PR.  Of course I have no direct proof of the power of David Brandon and his specific hand on this article.  But reading it, even how each question and answer are separated, it reads like a Press Release brief of talking points for a speaker.  I'm not saying that the answers aren't genuine, just that someone reviewed and controlled the questions.

Just over and over Tate is repeating, "I was a freshman, I made mistakes freshman who have won instant fame make and Coach Rodriguez helped me bounce back from those mistakes"

In fact, as a marketing professional, if I were talking to a recruit, and trying to "sell him the Michigan product", this article is a perfect leave behind sales sheet.  Especially the last question and answer from Tate, very focused on why a high school student should finally choose Michigan.  I read it as, "Michigan Alumni are successful, run successful businesses and need to hire employees who will be a success.  They of course prefer to hire other Michigan Alums since they know they are getting a quality product"  But please decide for yourself.

On his brother Jason: “Believe it or not, he’s working for a Michigan alum. In San Francisco, he’s doing commercial real estate… I wish he would have stayed. It’s my brother. That’s what he did when he was here, he taught me everything he knew. All the way until the middle of the season last year. He was looking for jobs the whole time, He couldn’t find a job out here. Right when he moved out there, he found a job.”

But you probably need the context of the entire article to agree/disagree with my conclusion properly, here is the "print it" version, still has ads embedded though.

Tate Freep Article Print Version

kinda bad for Forcier.

Kid's talented.  It's a damn shame he doesn't get to use it as much.  Throw him in with Denard at the same time, mix it up, and kill the other team ..

...Angelique covers much of the same ground.  I found this interesting, nevertheless:

But not long after the UConn game, a posting on Twitter said Forcier would transfer.

"That was like the fourth time I'd heard that," Forcier said. "I would have left if I was leaving. You just never know what can happen. It's God's plan. You don't know who's watching, and it's really what you make of it. So I stuck it out. It was actually after the UConn game that I just decided I'm going to stick here at least for this year.

"I think it took time for me. If I were to leave, I didn't realize what I would be leaving. One of the things I noticed, everyone who left would have had a shot to play if they would have stayed.

"God has a plan for me, and I'm going to stick to it. I ended up having a lot of fun this year. I got to play more than I would think as a backup. That's all you can really ask for. When you get your shot, you've got to do what you can. It's all about the preparation.

"I give a lot of credit to (quarterbacks) coach (Rod) Smith, he prepares me like he prepares Denard. So when it's time for me to go in, I know exactly what the defenses are doing just like Denard does."

"Anytime somebody says something to me about leaving, I say, 'I'm still here, aren't I?" Forcier said, pulling his jacket hard to make sure the Michigan logo is properly displayed. "You still see me with all this Michigan stuff on me. This is me. I'm already acclimated to everything here. The education is something you can't pass up.

"You never know what could happen. I just think it's really about what you make of it. When I get in (games), I try to do what I can do and make the most of it. I'm pretty much going to ride my own road. It's up to me."