Tate Forcier's long and winding road has taken a turn northwards.
Forcier told ESPN Monday that he has signed a contract with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats of the Canadian Football League and will report to the team by the end of the month. The former Michigan quarterback had reportedly been training with former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Jeff Garcia in the hopes of signing on with a CFL team.
"I'm so excited and happy to have this chance after everything I've gone through," Forcier said.
That chance will see him likely begin as veteran CFL star Henry Burriss's backup. The Tiger-Cats' 2012 season begins June 13 with a home game against the Toronto Argonauts*.
Forcier's CFL contract will end any chance of Forcier suiting up for a college football team again. The 21-year-old first burst onto the scene as a true freshman star for the Wolverines in Rich Rodriguez's second season in Ann Arbor, but lost the starting job to Denard Robinson to begin 2010, left Michigan at season's end with academic issues, planned a transfer to Miami, backed out of those transfer plans, was briefly hospitalized, announced a transfer to San Jose State, and then saw that fall through as well.
For all of the false starts and strange headlines, though, there's still no doubting the level of talent and on-field moxie he flashed in Ann Arbor all the way back in 2009. If Forcier is focused enough to bring that talent back out of deep storage -- a colossal "if," granted -- his star-crossed football career could still be on its way to revival.
*Yes, we included this sentence partially to show that Forcier's debut could be right around the corner, but mostly just to type "Tiger-Cats" and "Argonauts."
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