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Jake Garcia recently announced his commitment to play his fifth season of college football at Michigan. It is the quarterback’s fourth different program in five years and his 10th different school in nine years.
His longest tenure at one single program was just two years.
Garcia, a four-star prospect in the college football recruiting Class of 2021, ranked as the 11th-best player at his position. Guys like Quinn Ewers, Jalen Milroe, Jaxson Dart, Caleb Williams, Kyle McCord and J.J. McCarthy were ranked ahead of him. He is the only one who is not off to the NFL.
Quarterback transfer Jake Garcia has signed with Michigan, @chris_hummer and I have learned for @CBSSports.
— Matt Zenitz (@mzenitz) June 16, 2025
Additional QB depth for the Wolverines. Garcia, a former top-50 overall recruit who began his career at Miami, threw for 1,426 yards at ECU last year. Between Miami and… https://t.co/DKAvJg8bRU pic.twitter.com/rKDyBxXCs8
This move sets up an interesting quarterback scenario in Ann Arbor. By all accounts, five-star, No. 1-ranked recruit Bryce Underwood got paid a record amount of NIL money to start for the Wolverines in 2025. Head coach Sherrone Moore apparently decided to add another signal-caller to the mix to challenge him during fall camp. Garcia must feel like he can win the starting job if he is going to battle it out with a true freshman at his fifth school in four years! (Or he has accepted his role as the backup…)
The constant moving started in high school!
Originally from Whittier, California, Garcia began his high school career at Long Beach Poly but his head coach left after his freshman season. He decided to leave as well.
Garcia transferred to Narbonne High School in the Harbor City area of Los Angeles. He played only one season with the Gauchos because the program was ruled ineligible for the playoffs due to a rules violation from the year prior. That led him to La Habra High School in Orange Country.
And then the pandemic hit.
The California Interscholastic Federation cancelled all sports during the fall of 2021 as a result of COVID. Garcia transferred again!
This third move was the most insane. Jake Garcia’s parents legally separated as husband and wife so their son would be ruled eligible by the Georgia High School Athletic Association. He and his father moved across the country to the Peach State to enroll at Valdosta High School to play for infamous high school head coach Rush Propst.
The California-native started the first game of the season for Valdosta but the school later had to forfeit that win because he was deemed ineligible. As a result, Jake Garcia transferred… again.
The entire saga was documented by Netflix on the show ‘Titletown High.’
Even though Garcia was not eligible at Valdosta, weird GHSAA rules allowed him to be immediately eligible at a different in-state high school. He landed at Grayson High School in Loganville for the remainder of 2021 and the Rams won a state championship in his lone season as QB1.
Jake Garcia’s college football career has been a whirlwind.
Garcia was a long-time pledge to USC. However, he flipped his commitment to Miami at the last minute and saw limited action during two full seasons with the Hurricanes.
The lack of opportunity in Coral Gables pushed Garcia into the transfer portal for the first time. Missouri brought him in to compete for the starting job but he did not take a single snap for the Tigers in 2023.
Garcia announced his decision to enter the transfer portal for a second time just two days prior to the Cotton Bowl. East Carolina landed his commitment. The 6-foot-3, 203-pound redshirt junior started the first six games of the season for the Pirates in 2024 but it did not go well.
Not only did Garcia throw four more interceptions than touchdowns, ECU went 3-3 during that stretch. Head coach Blake Harrell decided to bench the fourth-year transfer quarterback just before halftime of a blowout loss to a terrible Charlotte team. He never got his job back.
That leads us to present day.
Jake Garcia hit the transfer portal for a third time right in the middle of spring practice in April. He committed to Michigan earlier this week. It is his 10th different school in nine years and fourth college in five years.