Tate Forcier isn’t as good an athlete as Denard Robinson - few people are - but the thing that makes him a great fit for Michigan’s spread offense is his scrambling ability.

Time and again in Saturday’s season-opening 31-7 win over Western Michigan, Forcier slipped out of the pocket and made something happen with his feet. On Michigan’s tone-setting opening drive, he picked up a big first down by sidestepping a blitzing safety, cutting back inside two more would-be tacklers and lowering his head for a 3-yard gain.

On the touchdown pass that put the Wolverines ahead 7-0, he felt the pressure of two outside rushers, stepped up in the pocket and ran parallel to the line of the scrimmage while directing receiver Junior Hemingway down field. Moments before he got hit, Forcier delivered a perfect pass to Hemingway for a 28-yard score.

While most young quarterbacks wouldn’t have given the play time to develop, Forcier had the presence of mind to roll to his weak side and freeze a defender in one-on-one coverage along the sideline.

The move came second nature to the true freshman.

“They’re the athletes,” Forcier said. “I get them the ball and I let them make the play. That’s something that Coach Rod told me, ‘Don’t try to do too much. You got great guys around you, let them do what they can do.’ So I did.”

While the scramble drill has been a staple of Michigan practices this fall, Forcier’s fancy footwork actually dates back to his days as a youth when his father would take him and his quarterback brothers, Jason and Chris, to Mesa College or San Diego-area high schools and have them run “Elways.”

The drill, named after former Broncos quarterback John Elway, was essentially a game of one-hand touch on the football field, with one brother chasing another from hash mark to hash mark and back again.

Often, the drill got rough.

“They used to go after each other,” said Mike Forcier, Tate’s father. “It was a game of tag where they just had to slap each other on the back and they turned it into welts on the back. That really motivated them.

“You do that between the hash marks and you’re going full speed and your brother wants to whack you in the back, you really move.”

With linemen twice his size chasing him Saturday, Forcier really moved, too. He did not take a sack, had one negative-yard play and finished his first college game with 37 yards rushing and another 179 passing (13-of-20, three touchdowns).

All in all, it was better than Chad Henne’s freshman debut in 2004. Henne went 14-of-24 for 142 yards with two touchdowns and one interception in a 43-10 win over Miami of Ohio.

“He did a good job with his composure,” offensive coordinator Calvin Magee said. “I was very pleased with today.”

Positives, negatives and leftovers Let's close the book on Western Michigan and get ready for Notre Dame. First the good, beyond the play of Forcier and Robinson:

• Boubacar Cissoko was the best defensive back on the field Saturday. He's aggressive, not afraid to make mistakes and more physical than his size would indicate. He also sat out the second half with an injury. Michigan needs him at 100 percent to beat Notre Dame.

• He's easy to overlook, especially in a blowout win, but Zoltan Mesko is a weapon. He averaged 47.2 yards on five punts Saturday and landed one inside the 20. His leg will win a game for Michigan before the year's over.

• Kevin Koger's one-handed grab - wow. Koger won't get as many catches as Junior Hemingway or Martavious Odoms, but he's just as important to the offense because he can line up as an H-back or split wide. That versatility is a must with all of Michigan's personnel groups.

Now the bad:

• As well as the defense played, I'd be worried about depth if I'm a Michigan fan. There's not a ton there beyond that first 11, so one injury could be the undoing. And in the secondary, when Cissoko went out, Western thought it had a weakness in J.T. Floyd.

• Carlos Brown fumbled on his first carry of the second half. Michigan recovered and he got two more totes before leaving for Michael Shaw, but Brown's slippery hands have been a problem in the past. That overshadowed an otherwise solid day (10 carries, 54 yards).

• The scoreless second half. I hate to nitpick when the offense played so well early, but the second half raises an interesting dynamic with rotating quarterbacks. Michigan's offense relies on rhythm, and the Wolverines got in a good one early thanks to five first-quarter possessions. Western kept Michigan off the field for long stretches in the second half, and when the Wolverines took over they struggled to move the ball while splitting snaps between Forcier, Robinson and even Nick Sheridan.

The game was out of reach so it didn't matter, and presumably Rodriguez would have approached things differently had the score been tight. But even quarterbacks coach Rod Smith took note of the difference.

"We got to do a better job in the second half," Smith said. "We got out of rhythm a little bit and maybe we shuffled the quarterbacks too much, I don’t know."

Finally, the quotes:

• Rodriguez on what a relief it was for players to put the week behind them and get back to football: "They’re all tired of all the drama. They came here to go to school and get a great degree and play football. They’re not here for all that drama. And I’m here to try to lead young men to get their degree and win championships. I’m not here for all that drama. So we’re not here for drama, we’re here for the other things, so it was good to play a game and dismiss the drama."

• Linebacker Obi Ezeh on the plan to stop Western Michigan quarterback Tim Hiller: "We knew we had a fifth-year guy, an NFL prospect, I guess, so we just wanted to try to confuse him because nobody's really in a good rhythm when they're confused and when they can't really tell what you're throwing at them. ... I think we did a good job of disguising and getting pressure and taking him out of his rhythm."

• Smith on whether he was amazed by Robinson's touchdown run after a botched snap: “It don’t amaze me. It amazed me the first time when you see him in high school when your recruiting him and you say, yeah, this kid’s pretty good. It amazes you the first time when you watch him do it against live college competition, against our defense. But when you see it every day, you know there's a good chance it’ll happen."

Dave Birkett covers the University of Michigan football team for AnnArbor.com. He can be reached at davidbirkett@annarbor.com