Jordan Kovacs: Living the Dream As a Wolverine

There are a ton of small town high school stars walking around any college campus. You will see most of these guys playing intramural sports and talking about the glory days over a beer at your apartment or local watering hole.

They hit three home runs to beat their rival, or intercepted a pass for the winning touchdown, dated the homecoming queen, etc.

Jordan Kovacs is one of those guys, but with an interesting twist.

Jordan played football for Clay High School outside of Toledo, Ohio. He won all the awards that you would expect he had won: received special mention All-Ohio as a senior, first-team all-district at receiver senior year, first-team all-district at defensive back as a junior.

He earned first-team All-Toledo City League as a defensive back during junior and senior years, and also added first-team all-city accolades at wide receiver senior year and a honorable mention all-city as a sophomore.

The list goes on and on for other sports like track and basketball.

Jordan was destined to be another good athlete at the University of Michigan—a place that he loved as a child since his dad played on the football team ten years before he was born. (Louis had played in the early 80's as walk on DB). Another Intramural star in the making, right? Nope.

We all know Rich Rodriguez' story by now. He was a walk-on player at West Virgina which he turned into a pretty successful career in football. Well, Rich has continued the walk on tradition at Michigan and holds a couple of student walk-on tryouts a year.

Jordan impressed the coaches during his first tryout, but made a big mistake in telling the training staff his knee sort of bothered him after a surgery he had during his senior year in high school. Well, the last thing the Michigan coaching staff needed was a walk-on with a medical problem, so Jordan didn't make it to the team.

Nevertheless, he wasn't done.

He got the surgery on his own; fixed his knee up right and went back for another shot at making the team. Which he did.

Fast forward to the start of the season. I remember looking at the depth chart before the Western Michigan game and seeing Jordan Kovacs as the back up Free Safety behind Mike Williams. "Who the hell is that?" I thought.

Then Mike Williams goes down with cramps against Notre Dame and Jordan is pushed into the game covering WR's and playing the run against some of the highest recruited athletes in the nation over the last 3-4 years.

"We told him to come back again and try out with the general student body," Rodriguez said.

"Not only does he try out and make the team, now he's in there playing at safety in the middle of crunch time on national TV against Notre Dame. To me, that's pretty special." Jordan played well, but Mike was back the next week.

Mike then twisted his ankle in the EMU game and Jordan put in a nice performance against Eastern and Indiana, but then here comes Mike again, ready to play against Michigan State. Which he did for only a short period of time.

Was he hurt again? Was his ankle not letting him go full speed? Nope.

Jordan was the better player and showed it on the field where he recorded 17 tackles, two and a half tackles for a loss, and one forced fumble. Not a bad days work. (special note: Jordan's strength is against the run and not necessarily in pass coverage. I don't believe he has elite speed against a WR to cover them deep)

Jordan is a great story and has gotten a wonderful opportunity to play Division One football at Michigan. This really shows how if you really want something and are willing to work hard, you can make dreams happen.

Good Luck Jordan we all are rooting for you!


Make sure you check back this afternoon for the Big Ten Picks of the Week!