Yesterday, when talking about naming a starting quarterback ahead of the season opener, Michigan head coach Rich Rodriguez said the following: “I’m probably not going to make it public. Why tell anybody?”
Today, Rodriguez went public and told anybody and everybody that Tate Forcier was his starting quarterback for the season opener.
The decision by Rodriguez to start Forcier is not a surprise; that’s been expected.
What’s surprising is Rodriguez coming out a day after seemingly wanting to keep Western Michigan “in the dark” when it came to naming his starter.
This decision by Rodriguez to definitively name the people’s champion before he wanted to, on his own radio show, with the looming specter of a possible NCAA investigation hovering over his program, after wanting to wait until game day to name a name...
It just screams “desperation”.
It also throws the fan base a bone.
What remains to be seen is what all of this off-the-field brouhaha will have to do with on-the-field performance.
And, right now, Rodriguez had better hope that the latter trumps the former.