I know LGM has been waiting for my take on yesterday’s big story

So here it is:

What can we make of the apparent fact that Davis Warren has beaten out Alex Orji for the starting QB position in tomorrow’s Michigan football opener?

Here’s how I see it:

The whole “we can turn this great athlete into a quarterback” approach has a bad batting average. The most important things for any QB are accuracy and making quick reads. This isn’t Pat White at WVU 20 years ago — college football in 2024 is about being able to pass. The QB’s running ability can be a nice bonus, but the whole discourse around Orji seemed full of hopium — he’s a great runner! He’s got a really strong arm! What an amazing athlete!

OK can he really play QB? Yeah I know Jim Harbaugh loved him but Jimmy is a cheerleader Pete Carroll pump my guys up coach.

So I’m hoping for really good things from Davis Warren, who is a great story in his own right.

Warren beat leukemia as a high school senior! I know it’s more complicated than this, but I would hope if I beat leukemia as a teenager, the idea of a football game being a life and death affair would seem pretty absurd. So I hope this helps him keep his cool in high pressure situations.

Which reminds me of what Lee Trevino said when he was asked how he managed to handle the pressure when he beat Jack Nicklaus down the stretch at the US Open. Trevino had grown up as a poor Mexican American kid in Texas, and he said, pressure is playing for $20 a hole with $10 in your pocket.

Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio

James Wright

In the Shreve High football stadium,

I think of Polacks nursing long beers in Tiltonsville,

And gray faces of Negroes in the blast furnace at Benwood,

And the ruptured night watchman of Wheeling Steel,

Dreaming of heroes.

All the proud fathers are ashamed to go home,

Their women cluck like starved pullets,

Dying for love.

Therefore,

Their sons grow suicidally beautiful

At the beginning of October,

And gallop terribly against each other’s bodies.