College Football

Alex Orji — Michigan's 'unrelenting workaholic' QB — gets his chance to shine vs. USC

Published Sep. 18, 2024 5:33 p.m. ET

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Michael Cohen

College Football and College Basketball Writer

Toward the end of Alex Orji's summer break, as the Michigan quarterback inched closer to the most important competition of his career, he traveled to Atlanta for a last-minute workout with private instructor Quincy Avery, a man whose client list includes noteworthy NFL signal-callers Jalen Hurts, Deshaun Watson, Justin Fields and C.J. Stroud. The two had trained together intermittently ever since the Wolverines' spring season ended, approximately 10 or 12 sessions overall, and Orji wanted to squeeze in another learning opportunity before preseason practice officially began in Ann Arbor.

But he wasn't alone. Fourteen more players from Michigan's roster accompanied Orji, despite the fact that first-year head coach Sherrone Moore had yet to name a starting quarterback. At that point, Orji was still competing with seventh-year senior Jack Tuttle, veteran Davis Warren and fellow junior Jayden Denegal for the chance to replace J.J. McCarthy, who led the Wolverines to a national championship as a junior and then entered the NFL Draft. Orji's teammates didn't seem to care. They followed him to Georgia anyway.

Alex Orji entered the 2024 season in a quarterback competition for the chance to replace J.J. McCarthy. (Photo by Gregory Fisher/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

"I've never seen that happen," Avery told FOX Sports. "I've trained a lot of guys who it wasn't like a competition, it wasn't debatable who was going to start, right? It was, ‘They are the incumbent starter, they're the guy.' But I've never seen anything like what I saw with Alex. So to me, that said a lot."

In the three years since Orji arrived at Michigan as an early enrollee, his leadership skills have never been questioned. The former three-star prospect is among the most respectful and professional players on the Wolverines' roster, a kind of unrelenting workaholic so obsessed with film study and training that members of the coaching staff must ask him to relax from time to time. "Dude, you've gotta rest," Moore told him earlier this week in a tone that was only mildly sarcastic. 

But that's never been how Orji, a dual-threat runner and passer, has carried himself during what is now a years-long — and still ongoing — quest to prove he's a viable college quarterback rather than an incredible athlete playing quarterback. He committed to Michigan in part because former head coach Jim Harbaugh assured Orji that the Wolverines would develop him at his preferred position. And after initially losing the starting job to Warren, whose six interceptions through Michigan's first three games prompted Moore to enact an early change, Orji will make his first career start against No. 11 USC this weekend in what could be a season-defining moment for both himself and the team. 

"I thought he was in a really good place until Davis outperformed him in camp at the end," Moore said when he announced the change in a news conference Monday afternoon. "Would love to see him just take the reins and do what he [did] through those first couple weeks [of preseason], and I think he will. He's had a great couple weeks of practice — so has Davis — but obviously you have to perform in the game. Excited to see what Alex is going to do."

Michigan QB Alex Orji had five carries for 32 yards in Michigan's 30-10 win over Fresno State in Week 1. (Photo by Aaron J. Thornton/Getty Images)

In some respects, Saturday's game is the grand unveiling of a player fans have wondered about since he flipped his commitment from Virginia Tech to Michigan during the early signing period on Dec. 15, 2021, at which point Nebraska was the only other Big Ten program to offer Orji a scholarship. That he'd thrown for 2,064 yards and rushed for 1,187 yards with 52 combined touchdowns during his senior season at Sachse High School in Sachse, Texas, a northern suburb of Dallas, invited loose comparisons to ex-Wolverine great Denard Robinson, whose collegiate rushing total of 4,495 yards from 2009-12 still constitutes an NCAA record for quarterbacks. But where Robinson was a blue-chip recruit and the No. 9 athlete in the country for his recruiting class — a player whose signature was considered a major win for then-Michigan head coach Rich Rodriguez — Orji was the No. 493 overall prospect and No. 30 signal-caller in the 247Sports Composite for the 2022 cycle. His verbal commitment to the Hokies lasted eight months before the Wolverines swooped in following a coaching change at Virginia Tech. 

Though Michigan eventually recruited him to play quarterback, there were numerous suitors who had projected Orji elsewhere thanks to an enviable blend of size (now 6-foot-3, 236 pounds) and athleticism (41-inch vertical leap) that Sachse head coach Mark Behrens said made the former receiver "a man amongst boys." Orji transitioned from wideout to signal-caller ahead of his junior season and operated an offense that featured approximately 15 designed quarterback runs per game. The same work ethic and character that endeared Orji to the high school's faculty made him immensely popular among teammates, even as he worked through the early stages of an accuracy problem that remains the biggest question about his long-term potential. Orji completed just 52.3% of his passes during his junior season and 51.4% as a senior. 

"He has a rocket arm," Behrens told FOX Sports. "He's learned how to control that thing. I mean, it was nothing but fastballs, Nolan Ryan fastballs, for that first year. We really didn't have anybody who could catch it. Then he started figuring out when he can and when he couldn't do that."

At Michigan, the figuring-out process has largely occurred behind closed doors amid a crowded quarterback room in which Cade McNamara and McCarthy battled for the starting job in 2022 and then the latter was an unquestioned starter last year. The 25 snaps Orji played during his first two seasons came almost entirely during mop-up duty or as a change-of-pace runner in select moments, like the 20-yard gain against Ohio State in November. He entered the quarterback competition with Warren and Co. having attempted one collegiate pass: a 5-yard completion in a 59-0 win over UConn two seasons ago.

Instead, Orji's most noteworthy accomplishment at Michigan was unseating defensive tackle Kris Jenkins for the team's No. 1 cumulative Key Performance Indicator score, a formula devised by former director of strength and conditioning Ben Herbert that factors four dozen metrics into an unbiased assessment of athletic capability based on frame analysis, flexibility and mobility, strength and power, agility and speed. It was borderline unthinkable for a quarterback to be in contention for the top spot when Herbert first designed the formula, but rarely are signal-callers capable of leaping 10-feet-6-inches in the broad jump or posting times of 3.97 seconds in the shuttle and 6.65 seconds in the 3-cone drill as Orji has. Harbaugh even mentioned Orji as a potential kick returner ahead of the 2023 season. 

"He has this natural ability to — and I don't say this often — but I said it about J.J. [McCarthy] and I'll say it to you now about Alex," Herbert told FOX Sports. "If [Orji] is like, ‘Hey Herb, let's go,' it's not like [I'm going to ask], ‘Where are we going? What are we doing?' I'm walking behind him, I'm following him, I'm choosing to follow him. There's not a lot of people at this point [who] I look at that way. He's just one of those guys, you know? He's at the forefront. He's willing and able to do all things. And you just see that emerge day after day after day. 

"Just the work that he put in mentally and physically to put himself in the place now where he's in the position he's in [to become a potential starter]. He has the respect from what he's done and how he works. And then now just going and tying it all together, being the player that he's capable of being."

Michigan QB Alex Orji is set to get his first collegiate start when the Wolverines host USC on Sept. 21. (Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)

To become that player and finally shed the label of a great athlete playing quarterback, Orji recognized how much he needed to grow as a passer and the precision he'd need to display on the short and intermediate throws that keep possessions afloat. His work with Avery, the private quarterbacks coach, focused on sharpening the aspects of a throwing motion that can become problematic for players with thicker, more muscular builds. And in that regard, Avery's work with Orji harkened back to his early sessions with Hurts, who played collegiately at Alabama and Oklahoma. Hurts is now starting for the Philadelphia Eagles and listed at 6-1 and 223 pounds, a player known for his incredibly strong lower body and running ability. 

Over the course of the summer, Avery put his new pupil through drills designed to help Orji close his non-throwing shoulder and protect the integrity of his front-side platform. They practiced ways for Orji to become more consistent with his stride and ensure the front foot landed in the correct spot every time. They worked on "layering" the football by drilling routes that required Orji to loft his throws over a linebacker and in front of a safety. By the time they finished, Avery thought Orji would win the job at Michigan and had the potential to be "one of the best quarterbacks in college football."

Now Orji will finally get his chance to start after betting on himself for years.

"I think it's sometimes tough for guys who are that strong and that well-built to become fluid and flexible throwers," Avery told FOX Sports. "But I think that learning the right mechanics and those things are going to allow him to thrive. But it's going to take time, right? He's going to be, I think, a good thrower at first, but he's going to continue to be a great quarterback and just continue to evolve."

Michael Cohen covers college football and basketball for FOX Sports with an emphasis on the Big Ten. Follow him on Twitter @Michael_Cohen13.

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