They’re a Record-Breaking Odd Couple : Wolverines: Elvis Grbac and Desmond Howard aren’t from the same mold, but they are certainly playing on the same wavelength.
They’re not exactly Mutt and Jeff, but the 6-foot-5 Croatian-American quarterback and the 5-foot-9 African-American receiver do make an unusual combination.
Elvis Grbac and Desmond Howard have been together for seven years, three at St. Joseph High in Cleveland and four at the University of Michigan, where they became the most prolific passing-for-touchdowns tandem in collegiate history. In high school, they were basketball teammates for two years before playing football together.
In a way, Howard is responsible for Grbac’s becoming a Wolverine. When Gary Moeller went to Cleveland on a recruiting trip during basketball season to talk with Howard, St. Joseph’s point guard, he was taken by the athletic ability of a tall forward, Grbac.
“You could see the athleticism and the competitiveness,” Moeller said. “Everybody had told me, ‘If nothing else, he knows how to throw the ball from Point A to Point B.’ We just had to teach him when to throw to Point C. I think he’s grasped that pretty well.”
In a 24-14 victory over Notre Dame, Grbac completed 20 of 22 passes and has thrown a school-record 24 touchdown passes this season. The old record was 21, which he set a year ago, which is not bad for a quarterback who was listed No. 6 on the depth chart when he enrolled as a freshman.
Three years ago, Grbac was in Pasadena emulating USC’s Rodney Peete during practice as Michigan prepared for the 1989 Rose Bowl game, in which the Wolverines defeated the Trojans, 22-14.
After Demetrius Brown was declared ineligible the following season and Michael Taylor was injured before the Notre Dame game, the inexperienced Grbac--a redshirt freshman--was called to take over. He entered the game in the third quarter and completed 17 of 21 passes for 134 yards in the 24-19 Michigan defeat.
“Elvis is the kind of guy that can get smacked in the face and he’s still going to hang in there until the last second,” Moeller said. “We put him in against Notre Dame that first time, when most guys would have wet their pants, and it didn’t seem to bother him.”
What does bother him is continually being asked if he is named for Elvis Presley.
“Elvis is a common name in Croatia, like John or Joe is here,” he says. Grbac’s parents came from Italy in 1968, two years before Elvis was born. They were in Italy after fleeing Croatia--the family never calls its homeland Yugoslavia--because they did not like living under communist rule.
Howard gives Grbac much of the credit for his own success and that of the team.
“Elvis is definitely the smartest player on the field,” the Heisman Trohpy winner said. “He is the one who has to recognize things during the game, during a play, to make our offense go. He is such a student of the game that we have complete confidence in him.”
Grbac’s intelligent approach comes from studying films. Three nights a week and the night before a game, he is looking over the opposition on film.
“I scrutinize them for two hours at a time, concentrating on their pass rush, tendencies, blitzes and deep-back coverage,” he said. “I narrow down my focus. What I like most is the chess-match aspect of football.”