Tate Forcier Transferring To San Jose State
Tate Forcier's long and winding road appears to have finally wound its way to San Jose.
The Mercury News is reporting that Forcier has committed to play for the San Jose State Spartans, ending a months-long cross-country transfer tour that saw Forcier announce at one stage that he would be playing for Miami before later announcing he would instead look elsewhere.
Obviously, SJSU would appear to be quite the step down from playing for the Hurricanes (much less Michigan, the school where Forcier spent two years making his name), but Forcier will be much closer to his San Diego home and brother Jason Forcier reportedly works in the area. He offered the Mercury News a comment via text message:
"It felt right," Forcier said ... "I loved the coaches and felt comfortable with them. I really believe I can help that team."
While Forcier won't simply have the job handed to him (incoming freshman QB Joe Gray was SJSU's highest-ranked recruit and could be reasonably entrenched as the starter once Forcier is eligible in 2012), it's hard to believe he won't help a program as downtrodden as the Spartans. He immediately becomes their most proven commodity, their highest-ranked recruit (probably ever), and far and away the closest thing Mike MacIntyre's program has to a star. Given the state of the WAC in 2012, it's likely Forcier is also already the entire conference's highest-profile player.
SJSU won just one game last year, and even that one was a 16-11 scrape past FCS Southern Utah*. But they were surprisingly competitive down the stretch (losing four of their final five games by a total of 16 points), return all 11 of their starters on defense this year, and boast another BCS-caliber transfer in former Minnesota tailback Deleon Eskridge.
With Forcier now all but falling into their laps (thanks to the Miami decision and Hawaii ruling him unable to meet their fall semester's academic requirements), MacIntyre would appear to have the Spartans moving in the right direction. There's still miles and miles and miles to go in that direction, but it's something--and having a talent like Forcier around certainly won't hurt.
