More Than Just One Start
Michigan games is simply the first step for Clay Millen
Mike Brohard
He’s young. He gets it. Clay Millen can accept he’s rather inexperienced. Fine.
But let’s not undersell the young man.
In Nevada’s final-season statistics from 2021, Millen, then a true freshman, played in two games. That’s accurate. They also read he was 1-of-2 passing against New Mexico State for 2 yards. Hold on a dang minute, he says. He was 2-of-3, and the other completion is a 16-yarder.
“I’ve got the clip,” Millen said. “I can show you.”
Sure enough, you turn on the tape of the game. Millen enters and on a third-and-17 play, he drills an out pattern for 16 yards.
The kid, just a redshirt freshman leading the youngest quarterback room in the country, understands at an early age he has to stand up for himself. This is who is leading the Colorado State offense into Michigan on Saturday.
“I’m super competitive. I’ve always been competitive,” Millen said. “I’ve always been pretty much on a winning team growing up. I’ve won a lot of youth football championships; we’ve gone far in the state playoffs in high school. We’ve always been winning, so that’s a big thing for me. I don’t like losing; I hate losing. As the quarterback, I want to do everything I can to push the team and give us the best chance to win. That’s my job.”
He has physical tools. He has size at 6-foot-2, 210 pounds, and CSU quarterbacks coach Matt Mumme said he has an elusiveness which, even if it doesn’t lead him to becoming a 1,000-yard rusher, will serve him well in the pocket. However you want to phrase it – he can spin it, or he has arm talent – he can deliver a football.
He has a confidence that is not false bravado, but stems from preparation, be it extra film study or free time spent going over his notes from offensive meetings. He’s spending so much time watching film Mumme wonders if Millen actually takes the time to be a college student. He watches so much film, he even met with offensive line coach Billy Best to gain an understanding of what the offensive line is looking for in providing him protection.
The only knock on him may be he’s never started a game, and Mumme and head coach Jay Norvell aren’t sure that even qualifies as one.
“I mean he’s been in the system for year now, so I think that’s a good thing,” Mumme said. “The nice thing is you can mold him right now. He’s young, he’s willing to learn everything, he’s soaking it all in like a sponge. We just have to get past the jitters of where we’re going, who we’re playing and just kind of weather the beginning of the game.”
Really, he’s already done that. While Millen was quick to mention that 16-yard pass, he didn’t actually explain what led to the down and distance. He dropped the first snap and had to fall on it. Then he took a sack on the next play.
The jitters? Already had them.
Melquan Stovall has already played with a pretty good quarterback. At Nevada, he took in passes from Carson Strong, the two-time Mountain West Offensive Player of the Year. The slot receiver knows what he wants in a quarterback, and when he looks at Millen, he likes what he sees.
Even more. He’s seen his teammate become more vocal. He’s a guy who takes charge of the huddle. He’s a leader.
“I’m looking for a guy who studies a defense and knows what looks we want to get out of and checks and certain things in situation,” Stovall said. “He’s definitely that guy who can lead us to a victory.”
I’m excited to go out there and get an opportunity to go play. I’ve put in a lot of work into football, so getting to play on this stage will be fun.Clay Millen
The Rams are counting on it, and for a long, time too. The best part about freshmen is they become sophomores. And juniors. As Mumme noted, Millen has the rare opportunity to take the reigns of an offensive system – one which throws the ball early and often, short and deep – with regularity and do so possibly for three or four seasons.
They trust him so much, when the staff had the opportunity to hit the well-populated transfer portal for an experienced quarterback, they said, no, we’re good. Millen has been the guy ever since he arrived on campus, partly because Mumme said the heir to the Strong thrown is more advanced in his knowledge of the system than his mentor was at the same point. Nobody talked about a quarterback battle. When a visitor came to spring camp and casually asked who the quarterback would be, nearby true freshmen quarterbacks Jackson Stratton and Brayden Fowler-Nicolosi said quickly and in unison, “No. 11.”
Yes, the lack of a move was a vote of confidence, but no reason to rest for Millen.
“From my point of view, it looks like they wanted to develop me. They didn’t find some older guy to come in and come compete with me,” he said. “That told me they felt good about me. They want me to keep getting better as the season goes along, the more games I get under my belt. It’s similar with Carson. His redshirt freshman year was his first year starting, and as the year went on, he improved a lot. I think that’s what they want me to do, too.
“I think from day one I came in and I still had to compete with them. I had to be the best guy and prove myself. For me, it’s executing plays. It’s not about anything else. It’s about me as a quarterback. When I get in there, I want to execute plays and do my job and move the ball as well as I can with the offense. As a quarterback, you’re getting the ball every single play. You make checks, you go through your progressions, and you have a lot more control than a lot of positions do on how the outcome of the game goes. As the quarterback, I want to do everything I can to execute on my part.”
The fact his first start is at Michigan is a big deal. It’s on the road in one of the most storied, loudest and populated college stadiums one can find. The Wolverines are ranked and coming off an appearance in the College Football Playoff.
But Millen’s story isn’t about this one start, it’s about a career. He knows it, and Norvell definitely does.
“I think it is what it is. I really do like Clay,” Norvell said. “I’ve always liked him. I like his makeup and his personality. We’re just trying to put him in all kinds of different situations he’s going to be in in games so he gets those experiences and knows what he can lean on and who he can lean on. You find out something a little bit different every day from every situation we’re in. We’re kind of teaching him how to play, but also for the long haul. Not just for Michigan, but for the whole season, and I think that’s important.
“It's going to be important that we really play well around him and support him. We have some veteran lineman who can take a little bit off his plate, and they’re going to really have to play well, because we’re going to be challenged in this first game.”
Even the not-so-veteran linemen understand the task at hand. Millen’s blindside will be protected by a redshirt sophomore, who, like Millen, will be making his first career start. Brian Crespo-Jaquez knows how valuable confidence is for a player individually, but also to have it with his teammates.
That trust is imperative across the offensive front, and Crespo-Jaquez has leaned on his elders to teach him the nuances, show him what to look for and pick him up when he needs to be uplifted. The one thing they don’t want to have to do too often is pick Millen up off the Michigan Stadium turf. Because if he’s upright, they trust he’ll deliver.
“The first thing is confidence. If a quarterback isn’t confident, then the O-line won’t have confidence,” Crespo-Jaquez said. “But if he’s confident in what he’s doing and he’s very vocal and knows his plays, that’s what we look for. It’s a ride, and we’re all going to ride for him. We’ve got his back. We’re going to protect him as much as possible.
“He’s very vocal, he’s a leader and he’s confident. He’s got everything a quarterback needs.”
Except that one thing – experience. He’s thrown his three passes, and he’s run a few plays against Colorado State as a visitor. That’s not a lot to go on, but the only thing which can change that is playing more snaps in a game.
To make them count, he’s done everything he can do to this point. No matter what happens Saturday, he’ll know he didn’t leave anything to chance. He doesn’t have to be perfect. He’s pretty sure he won’t be, but he won’t be unprepared.
“It’s a 12-game season. I think that in the back of my head, but right now , I’m all for Michigan,” he said. “There are people who talk about a lot of pressure, it’s Michigan, it’s 110,000 people, but I think I’m calm. I think I’m relaxed. I’m doing everything I can. The more preparation I do, the more film study I do, the more I’ll feel once I’m out there I’m prepared. If you’re not watching film and doing everything you can in your off time to get prepared for the game, once you get out there, you’ll know deep down you shouldn’t perform well because you didn’t prepare.”
Calm is a word used a lot by his teammates and coaches. Poised, too. On the field, Millen feels he is, but he also admits away from the complex he’s still a 19-year old guy prone to goofiness around his friends. Immaturity with them is acceptable in his book, just not off the field. There’s a switch there he flips every time he taps in for practice.
Mumme watched him on film and talked to him during the recruiting process, but he also asked his father, former college and NFL quarterback Hugh Millen, what kind of player they were getting.
“Oh yeah. I’ve seen the goofiness in him. All of them,” Mumme said. “The age in that room averages about 18 and a half. He’s got such a tremendous way of staying level-headed. I asked his dad, I said, ‘hey, Hugh, what’s he going to be like on game day? Is he a guy that’s going to need a lot of talking to, is he a guy that’s going to be really loud, is he going to be a guy who’s really calm and reserved?’ The thing his dad told me is you’re going to see a new side of his intensity, so I’m excited to see that, and hopefully we can control it in the right way, too.”
Deep down, Mumme feels they won’t have to at all, that the youngster will keep things in check himself. He knows about Michigan, as his grandfather attended the school and is a big fan. Clay is well versed about the lore of the place through his grandfather, who will need to shed his allegiances this one day.
He also talked to his father, just to cover all his bases.
“The environment will be a lot different when I get there. It will be a game, it will be loud, there’s going to be a lot of people there,” Clay said. “At the end of the day, it’s just noise. I talked about it with my dad because he’s played in Ann Arbor, so at the end of the day, it’s just noise. You can drive around in your car blasting music, and you can still drive perfectly fine.
“I’m excited to go out there and get an opportunity to go play. I’ve put in a lot of work into football, so getting to play on this stage will be fun.”
Norvell will keep in mind the quarterback he’s calling plays for is young, but only to a point. They won’t handle him with kid gloves, but they do intend to do so with some amount of care. His first start will be impactful and whether a coaching staff is developing a quarterback or a linebacker, you always want to create positive situations and avoid setbacks.
Norvell will call his offense with all of that in mind, but also with the intent of coming home with an upset in the bag and his starting quarterback feeling healthy. Some of that will be on Clay.
“I think we just keep in mind certain things. We want to protect him,” Norvell said. “We don’t want him to get hit. I think that’s the big thing with a young quarterback, you want him to keep improving and getting better, you don’t want him to take steps back. In everything we do, we spend a lot of time teaching him protections, how he’s protected, we always like to protect the quarterback’s blind side and let him read the pressure in his face. In different concepts, he’s got to make sure that he’s protected back side and he can see the pressure in his face. At the same time, that’s a balance because were pretty aggressive and we want to go after people and get our receivers out. We don’t want to be super conservative and keep everybody in max block, so there’s a fine line you walk with that. We want to give him the tools he needs to go attack these guys and win the game, but also, we want to make sure he can get through this game without taking a bunch of shots.”
Because this is a big game, but it’s also just the first start for Clay, they all hope the first of many to come. When it’s over, he’ll have a bit more of the one thing he lacks, experience. With each passing week, he’ll gain more and more until it is no longer part of the conversation.
If he takes full advantage of the opportunity before him, they’re all pretty sure the numbers will add up correctly, in all of their favor.