His playing days over, Jason Forcier will stay in Ann Arbor to mentor brother Tate Forcier

In a phone interview Tuesday, the elder Forcier expressed no regret that things didn’t work out with his potential transfer to Michigan. At issue, he said, was an NCAA rule that requires transfer graduate students seeking immediate eligibility to enroll in a program unavailable at their former school.

Michigan and Stanford offer similar graduate degrees, and Forcier, with time an obstacle, couldn’t find a suitable one-year program he could finish while on scholarship.

“I was hoping, I was being optimistic about it,” Forcier said. “But things happen for a reason.”

While he waits to begin a career in sales or marketing, Forcier, who played two seasons at Michigan before transferring to Stanford, said he’ll live with his brother “for a portion of the season” to help him get acclimated to life as a high-profile college student.

Tate Forcier, a true freshman who enrolled in January, is the frontrunner to start at quarterback for Michigan this fall. Fellow freshman Denard Robinson and junior Nick Sheridan also are in the mix.

“Just kind of keep an eye on him, make sure, because if you’re the starting quarterback, you’re the face of Michigan football,” Jason Forcier said. “A lot of things come with that, good things and bad things. There’s going to be some bad influences I don’t want him being around. Or try to at least teach him about them.

“He is a college student, so you got to be a college kid. But I just want to let him think about what the possible consequences are before going out or something.”

A regular at Michigan practices through the first two weeks of fall camp, Jason said Tate is “ready” for the starting role. “I think he looks good,” Jason said. “They’re going to put the pressure on him, and I think it’s good because you hear the analogy all the time, the Michigan offense or any offense is like driving an exotic car.

“They got to make sure he can drive that high-performance machine and got to make sure he can make that third-and-15 throw against Ohio State, Notre Dame, in two weeks in the fourth quarter. They got to be able to have all their trust in him. But I think it’s good. I think they do have their trust in him and it’s building every day.”