ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Nick Saban, Lincoln Riley and Deion Sanders all wanted Alex Orji. But Orji wanted something else.
Orji, a quarterback whose athletic traits have captivated coaches at every step of his career, will make his first start Saturday when No. 18 Michigan faces No. 11 USC. The coach on the other sideline, Riley, personally offered Orji a scholarship when he was at Oklahoma, Orji’s father said. Saban also wanted Orji at Alabama, but there was a catch.
Willy Orji, Alex’s father, remembers a conversation with Saban that happened during a recruiting visit to Tuscaloosa. Saban told Alex he could have a scholarship offer from Alabama but only if he was open to switching positions. Alex looked at Saban, looked at his father, and explained that he’d worked too hard at becoming a quarterback to give up on the dream.
“There were a lot of people that talked to him,” said Red Behrens, Orji’s coach at Sachse High School in Texas. “I’m talking about big schools, all the head coaches. The thing that Alex wanted to hear from them was, ‘We’re going to give you a strong chance to be a quarterback.’”
Before college football fans were introduced to Coach Prime, Sanders tried to get Orji on his team, too. Sanders had a youth football program called Truth Sports in the Dallas metroplex, and Orji grew up playing on teams with Sanders’ sons, Shilo and Shedeur. Before he became the head coach at Jackson State, Sanders was on the staff at Trinity Christian Academy near Dallas, the school his sons attended.
Deion wanted Orji to play for Trinity Christian, Willy said, but there was one problem. Shedeur was the quarterback, and nobody was beating him out. To get on the field at Trinity, Orji would have had to play a different position. Instead, he decided to play at Sachse, where his quarterback highlights became the stuff of legend.
There was a time when Deion Sanders recruited Alex Orji to play for his high school team in the Dallas area. (Photo courtesy of Willy Orji)
Mention one play in particular to Behrens, and he’ll describe it as if it happened yesterday. Orji got flushed out of the pocket and scrambled toward the end zone. All he had to do was lower his shoulder and plow through a defensive back, but he decided to take a different route, leaping up and over the defender with inches to spare.
“Athletically, he’s one in a million,” Behrens said.
With so many coaches salivating over Orji’s potential, it was only a matter of time before one of them figured out how to get him on the field. And yet, Orji’s debut as Michigan’s starter comes with more than a little trepidation. Three weeks ago, Michigan evaluated its quarterback competition and decided to go with Davis Warren. It was only after Warren threw six interceptions in three games that the Wolverines changed course and named Orji the starter.
The question with Orji is the same as it’s always been: Is he polished enough as a passer to play quarterback at the highest level?
“He’s got great arm strength,” coach Sherrone Moore said. “The accuracy has improved tremendously. It’s going to take great prep mentally, physically and spiritually this week to get him where we need to be, and I think he’ll do that.”
Orji was one of those high school athletes who could do a little bit of everything. He was a sprinter, a high jumper, a basketball player, a safety, a wide receiver, a linebacker and a punter. Early on, he didn’t see himself as a quarterback.
Orji has two older brothers, Alston and Anfernee, who played linebacker at Vanderbilt. Anfernee signed with the New Orleans Saints as an undrafted free agent in 2023, spent last year on the practice squad and has appeared in both of the Saints games this season.
Orji is built like a linebacker at 6 feet 3 and 235 pounds, and it was natural to assume he’d follow his brothers’ footsteps on defense. When he was in middle school, he started training with Kevin Mathis, who played with Deion in Dallas and has coached with him throughout his career. Mathis, now the cornerbacks coach at Colorado, was the one who pitched Orji on playing quarterback.
“He kept trying to get him to do it,” Willy said. “Alex was comfortable with what he’d always done, being able to outrun kids, being able to push kids around.”
Orji started playing quarterback in middle school, but it wasn’t until his junior season at Sachse that his future at the position came into focus. He transferred to Sachse during the COVID-19 pandemic, and Behrens didn’t have many opportunities to evaluate him before the season started. Behrens put him at quarterback and quickly discovered he had a weapon.
“People that tried to grab him or arm tackle him, he broke through those and spun out of them and just kept rolling,” Behrens said. “Most high school kids didn’t like stepping in front of him.”
As a senior at Sachse, Orji rushed for more than 1,000 yards and threw for more than 2,000 while completing 51 percent of his passes. He was being recruited by a bunch of big-time schools, but most of them wanted him as an athlete, not a quarterback. One exception was Virginia Tech, which ran an offense similar to the one Orji played in at Sachse.
Orji committed to the Hokies as a three-star recruit in the Class of 2022. A few weeks before signing day, Virginia Tech fired Justin Fuente and he decided to reevaluate his options. He visited Michigan and met with coach Jim Harbaugh, who said it would be up to Orji to decide if and when he wanted to try another position. If Orji wanted to play quarterback, Michigan was committed to giving him the opportunity.
“As long as I’m here, we’re going to develop you and get you to where you need to be,” Willy remembers Harbaugh saying.
Michigan had a package of plays for Orji last season and used him in big moments, including the Rose Bowl and the Ohio State game. When Harbaugh left for the NFL and J.J. McCarthy declared for the draft, Michigan’s starting quarterback job was there for the taking. Orji didn’t win the job in the spring, but most signs pointed to him as the player who would take the first snap of Michigan’s season.
“Even if we’re on top of college football, I want to keep taking us higher,” Orji said in the spring. “Whoever goes out on Saturdays, whatever 11 take the field, I want to make sure I’m doing whatever I can to be selfless in my pursuit of excellence.”
By most accounts, Orji had a strong start to preseason camp. Midway through, he hit a rough patch and committed too many turnovers. Warren played better down the stretch and won the starting job.
Naturally, Willy wanted to know what happened. Did Orji let his foot off the gas? Was he overconfident? Did he not work hard enough? Orji chided his dad, reminding him that there were more important things than being the starter. Orji vowed to be a good teammate, support Warren however he could and keep working for his opportunity.
“When you’re a dad and your child is trying to teach you something, you listen,” Willy said.
Michigan’s first drive of the season ended with Orji throwing a 3-yard touchdown pass to Donovan Edwards. The Wolverines used him for a snap or two at a time as a change of pace, but Warren was the primary quarterback. Despite throwing two interceptions against Texas, Warren remained the starter against Arkansas State and took every snap of the first half. Late in the third quarter, after Warren’s third interception of the game, Michigan made the switch to Orji.
Moore was noncommittal after the game, but he arrived at his Monday news conference with an announcement: Orji was taking over as Michigan’s starting quarterback. The public announcement came as a surprise to some, including two Michigan players who met with reporters after Moore spoke. Moore made it clear that the job belonged to Orji and that he had the team’s full backing.
“We have a plan in place for Alex, and we’re ready to put it on display,” Moore said.
Disappointment would have been a natural reaction when Orji didn’t win the job in camp, despite being viewed as the front-runner for most of the offseason. If Orji was stung by the decision, his father didn’t see it. Moore said he saw no change in Orji’s confidence or demeanor after informing the quarterbacks that Warren would open the season as the starter.
“His attitude never wavered,” Moore said. “Obviously he was disappointed. He’s a competitor. He’s a kid who wants to be the starting guy. If I was a quarterback competing for the job, I’d want to do it, too. But the way he led, the way he acted, the way he presented himself, was no different than it is now.”
No one is sure how Orji’s first start is going to go. He has thrown seven passes in his career, and it’s still not clear how his athleticism will translate in the role of a full-time quarterback. The only way to answer that question is to put the ball in his hands and see what he can do.
For Michigan, the time to find out is now.
“There were a lot of schools, but they always seemed to go back to, ‘We’ll find somewhere for you to play,’” Behrens said. “He wanted to hear, ‘We’re going to give you a true shot at quarterback.’ Michigan gave him that opportunity.”
(Top photo: Rick Osentoski / Imagn Images)
