How can Michigan stop TCU's Max Duggan, the QB who never quits?
Duggan is – and was – well-respected and exceptionally talented. He’s thrown for career-bests with 3,321 yards and 30 TDs against only four interceptions, and added 404 yards and six scores rushing. He’s won two national awards. He’s an All-American.
Still, Duggan’s story is laced with more blue-collar qualities than those of the other highly-recruited quarterbacks across the country. That’s because of a series of setbacks, mostly outside his control, which failed to counteract his pedigree.
There’s tough and then there’s Duggan, the quarterback who didn’t miss a game despite a nine-hour surgery to insert catheters in his neck and groin to alleviate a heart condition in the preseason of 2020 – and a subsequent procedure two days later to remove a blood clot.
Duggan, the same quarterback who played on a broken foot and a torn tendon for the final two months of the 2021 season by masking the pain with injections on Saturdays while maintaining the illusion of good health by refusing to wear a protective boot when he was in public on TCU’s campus.
Duggan, who was demoted to backup by the new coaching staff led by Sonny Dykes after three years (and 29 games) as Gary Patterson's starter, only to reclaim the job when Chandler Morris was injured in Week 1 against Colorado.
The same quarterback who led TCU to seven heart-racing comeback wins, the most in college football this season, and nearly single-handedly lifted the Horned Frogs to victory in the Big 12 Championship with an incredible game-tying drive that included big throws, a 40-yard gallop, a bloody gash on his elbow and a breathless collapse in the end zone on an 8-yard score and, one play later, a 2-point pass to tie Kansas State.
TCU lost in overtime, its first of the season. Coaches refused to give the ball to Duggan on the goal line in overtime, leading to a fourth-down stop in the Big 12 Championship.
Duggan cried alongside his teammates in the locker room. A championship was lost and, potentially, so was a spot in the playoff. An hour later he emerged from the closed doors and faced the media, his eyes still red, and tears streamed down his face again.
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