In the days and months leading up to his third summer camp as Michigan’s head coach, Rich Rodriguez has been telling anyone who will listen that Tate Forcier and Denard Robinson are in a neck-and-neck battle to become the Wolverines’ starting quarterback.
Based on the words of one of Rodriguez’s seniors, however, that’s no longer the case.
Speaking at the Big Ten’s media days Tuesday afternoon, cornerback Troy Woolfolk blistered Forcier with measured words for the QB’s lack of participation in voluntary workouts this summer, saying that he and his fellow seniors have started to question the work ethic of last year’s starter.
Oh, and if that weren’t bad enough, Forcier is also on the verge of becoming “diseased” to his teammates due to a “bad work ethic”.
“I personally have a lack of respect for them,” Woolfolk said of players who don’t participate in the voluntary workouts. “The outlook on them is kind of diseased. Like you don’t want to be hanging around those people because they have bad work ethic. But at the same time, it’s my role to try to persuade them to come out more. ...
“The only reason he’s not really labeled as diseased is because of the way he was able to carry the team last year before we started losing. People still trust him a little bit, but he’s starting to lose that trust.”
Woolfolk also stated that, Rodriguez’s claims of the job being up for grabs notwithstanding, Robinson has inched ahead of Forcier in the minds of his teammates due to the combination of Robinson being a regular attendee of the workouts and Forcier being a no-show on many an occasion.
“Denard has been out there through the thick and thin and been out there all the time regardless if he’s hurting,” Woolfolk said. “And Tate, he tries to come out, but he’s not as consistent as Denard is. And that’s allowed Denard to jump a little bit ahead of Tate and I think that Tate’s going to have to do a lot of work to catch back up to Denard in camp this year.”
Yep, this is exactly what Rodriguez needs heading into a season that could decide exactly how long his tenure in Ann Arbor lasts.