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Michigan football: Davis Warren starting opener vs. Fresno State

Anthony Broomeby:Anthony Broome•08/31/24•

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Blue beats Maize, 20-12, in the annual Spring Football Game at Michigan Stadium, Saturday, April 2, 2022. (Lon Horwedel/The Wolverine)

The Michigan Wolverines are starting senior Davis Warren at quarterback on Saturday night against Fresno State (7:30 p.m., NBC), according to head coach Sherrone Moore on the television broadcast.

The battle in fall camp was down to Warren and junior Alex Orji with the former reportedly being the most complete passer throughout the last several weeks. He surged to take control of the job in the last week of practice.

Moore said pregame that Orji will “play a lot,” too.

Warren, a former walk-on, has appeared in 8 games at quarterback during his time at Michigan. He is 5-for-14 with 89 yards and one interception in his career. Following Cade McNamara’s injury during the 2022 season, Warren was the primary backup to J.J. McCarthy before being supplanted by Jack Tuttle last year.

Orji has made 9 appearances during his Michigan career, completing 1 pass for 5 yards in 2022 and having 21 carries for 123 yards and 3 touchdowns to his name overall.

He is still expected to get time in a subpackage or platoon role and said during the offseason that Warren has become a student of the game from a throwing perspective.

“I think it’s been good to have a guy like Davis around who knows so much about throwing and doing it at a high level and also shoulder care,” Orji told The Wolverine this summer. “He’s able to give us little tricks and tidbits about how to take care of our wings. I think just in general, when we wrap up throwing, if we feel good about the day, we feel good about the day. Every once in a while there’s going to be a certain throw you feel like you missed and you wanted to get a little extra. Overall, it’s not any count or anything. Whenever the receivers feel good and we feel good, we’ll wrap it up.”

Head coach Sherrone Moore discussed the offseason-long battle during his Monday radio show appearance.

“Sometimes it’s kind of frustrating because you want it sometimes to be over, but not really,” Moore said. “And both of the guys, the top two guys right now are Alex and Davis. You look back at camp, you’re like, ah, maybe it’s this guy. Maybe it’s this guy. Maybe it’s this guy. But they just keep both making plays, whether it’s throwing or running the football, and both of them doing both. So it’s cool to watch the competitiveness, but like the coolest thing about all of it is like they support each other. Like if one of them has a bad play, the other one’s coming up to him saying, hey, it’s all good. You’ll get him the next time. It’s not a like, oh, I’m glad he’s failing. I’m glad he’s not doing well.

“They’re pushing each other in a positive way. So both of those guys are really good. Jayden Denegal’s had a good camp and he’s keep progressing, but the guy that probably stepping up even more is Jadyn Davis, the freshman. He’s been awesome to watch his progression because nothing really bothers him. You can see why he’s won two state championships and played at a high level against a lot of competition because he just plays and he keeps playing, nothing really bothers the kid.”

Michigan is a 20.5-point favorite in Saturday’s game with the Vegas over/under for total points scored set at 45.5.

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