Ready to be hit: Michigan quarterbacks will be live in practice beginning Friday

“But I say live, if Brandon Graham’s coming unblocked for some reason - gosh, I hope that doesn’t happen - but if for some reason he does, I’ll probably blow a quick whistle and say hold up,” Rodriguez said. “It may not be enough to stop him, but hopefully we won’t have too many of those vicious hits going on.”

Rodriguez said he wants to mimic true game situations as much as possible early in camp in order to prepare his quarterbacks, especially untested freshmen Tate Forcier and Denard Robinson, for the season.

Forcier took part in spring practice, but was off-limits to defenders once Nick Sheridan fractured his leg. Robinson arrived on campus in June.

Sheridan, who started four games last year, is fully recovered from his injury and running well, Rodriguez said.

“Our guys I think will be smart,” Rodriguez said. “When they have an unmolested hit, maybe they’ll pull up a little bit. But we’ve got to let them get hit a little bit and then after about a week and half, two weeks, once the guys have separated or identified if they’re ready to play, then we got to limit their getting banged around somewhat.

“But we’ve got to try to put pressure on all those freshmen, in particular those quarterbacks, to see if they can react to that. As much pressure as we can put on them in practice, and then if they react well to that then we think they’ll be ready for the game.”