It was early in the spring of 2016, nearly two full years before the Georgia football team would travel to Pasadena, California, to play against Oklahoma in the Rose Bowl, when then-Alabama commit Jake Fromm sat in the back seat of his dad’s silver F-150 on the road from Athens back home to Warner Robins, contemplating a decision.

Fromm was returning from a last-minute visit to Georgia, his dream school — the one he’d wanted to play for from the beginning — and he was bringing with him a scholarship offer to suit up on Saturdays for the Bulldogs.

Most would imagine the choice between Georgia and Alabama would be a difficult one. After all, the Crimson Tide were fresh off back-to-back national championship appearances and had yet to miss out on a College Football Playoff since the new format had been introduced. But for Fromm, his dad Emerson, and his high school coach Von Lassiter, who was sitting shotgun, it was a decision that had been made long ago.

“You walk into the family’s house, there’s Georgia stuff everywhere,” Lassiter said. “He grew up watching those guys play, and you just knew that’s where he wanted to go.”

It was Fromm who voiced what all three of them were thinking.

“This is where I want to be,” Lassiter remembered Fromm saying

Birth of a legend 

Growing up, Jake Fromm was the quintessential “country boy,” and that meant hunting with his family, church on Sundays, and, of course, sports. Fromm played just about everything as a kid, excelling in football and basketball from a young age, but his first love was baseball.

Fromm first took the baseball diamond at 5 years old, and according to his mom Lee, he went from playing with the grass in the outfield to making all-star teams in two years. By the time he was 12, he was hitting home runs in the Little League World Series.

He got his first taste of national attention when he hit three homers and struck out 11 batters in four LLWS contests, but it wasn’t until later in his baseball career that his father realized the full extent of his son’s athletic potential.

According to the older Fromm, many stars of youth athletics are the beneficiaries of early growth spurts, and he couldn’t be sure that wasn’t the case with his son. But when Fromm hit four home runs in a single game as a member of the prestigious East Cobb Astros a year later, his father began to realize exactly what the 13-year-old was capable of.

“That was the only really moment where I was like this kid is going to be pretty slick,” he said.

Throughout his middle school career, Fromm kept his focus on baseball. He continued to play football and basketball in rec leagues, but those sports were merely hobbies.

Baseball, it appeared, was his future.

“In my mind, Jake’s on pace,” his father said of his thoughts at that point in time. “He’s either going to get drafted, or he’s going to go to college and play baseball.”

As a 14-year-old Fromm finished up middle school, his future appeared set in stone. But in the summer before his first year of high school, everything was about to change for the potential MLB prospect.

One good hit 

Fromm was in eighth grade when Lassiter, then the coach for Houston County High School’s football team, met him for the first time. According to Lassiter, “the word was he wasn’t going to play football,” as Fromm’s dreams at the time were still of playing in the MLB.

Despite this, Lassiter decided to make a trip to Mossy Creek Middle School to try to change the young athlete’s mind. Fromm’s reputation was already beginning to grow, but Lassiter still found himself pleasantly surprised when the two first met.

“He looked me in my eye,” Lassiter said. “He shook my hand firmly. He said, ‘Yes sir, no sir.’ It was probably one of the best first impressions that I’ve had with a kid that was in eighth grade of all my years of coaching.”

But most importantly, Fromm assured Lassiter of his intentions to play football for Houston County. It was an easy decision for Fromm, mainly because football was a fall sport. Baseball was played in the spring, and Fromm would need something to keep him busy in his first semester of high school.

“He said, ‘Well, let’s just play football because this is kind of cool,’” Fromm’s father said. “Even though I’m a baseball player, let’s just see how far we can take it.”

It didn’t take long for his focus to shift.

His mom remembers the very first summer practice she took him to in between his eighth and ninth grade years. She said she recalls the team going through a drill called “Bull in the ring.”

“It’s a big circle and they have to point out a kid,” she said. “So the two kids have to sprint to each other and hit.”

It was early in Fromm’s football career, but as his mother looked on and saw her son’s first turn to “get in the ring,” she was already having some misgivings about allowing him to continue.

“I’m like oh my God, this is not something I want to do anymore, ever,” she remembers thinking. “Let’s not play football anymore. I can’t do that.”

Meanwhile, her son was going through the exact opposite line of thinking.

“One good hit, and he loved football,” Fromm’s mom said. “It was just something about having one good, hard, clean hit, that I don’t know just something was set off in his brain. He loved it.”

And just like that, Fromm went from a baseball player who played football as a hobby to a football player who played baseball as a hobby. It was the first time Fromm’s plans for his future as an athlete would change.

It wouldn’t be the last.

High school hero 

Entering high school at Houston County, Fromm found himself behind senior quarterback Taylor Boyett on the depth chart. Looking back on the situation, Fromm’s mother said it was a situation which foreshadowed Fromm’s early college career.

“It’s very similar to what’s been going on at Georgia,” she said.

Fromm was not supposed to take over as the Houston County quarterback in that first year with the team, but for Lassiter, it was difficult to justify keeping the freshman off the field.

Entering the seventh game of the year, Houston County was 3-3, and Fromm was playing a couple series a game. The October matchup was against rival Warner Robins High School, a team Houston County had only beat twice in Fromm’s lifetime. After scoring in the first drive he was given in the game, Fromm stayed in and led Bears to victory.

The rest, as far as Fromm’s high school career was concerned, was history.

He went on to account for the most yards and touchdowns in Houston County football history in the next three seasons. He also led his team to a perfect 4-0 record against Warner Robins in his time with the team.

As the numbers piled up, so did the attention from college scouts. Over the course of his high school career, he was offered scholarships by schools all over the country, from Michigan State to Miami, Vanderbilt to Virginia Tech.

But through it all, he was eyeing one program in particular.

“Georgia was his first choice and always was,” Lassiter said.

His dad, a Georgia grad himself, said Fromm dreamed of playing quarterback for the Bulldogs even before he started taking football very seriously.

“It’s every kid’s dream in the state of Georgia to be the Georgia quarterback,” Fromm’s father said. “He probably couldn’t even tell you who the Georgia Tech quarterback was because nobody cared.”

Early on in the recruiting process, it appeared Fromm would have a chance to play for the team he had grown up watching on TV, as former Georgia offensive coordinator Mike Bobo recruited Fromm heavily.

But when Bobo went west to take over head coaching duties for Colorado State, Fromm was forced to once again undergo a change in plans.

Stripping the walls 

To replace Bobo, then-Georgia head coach Mark Richt hired Brian Schottenheimer, who took over as both offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. Unlike Bobo, Schottenheimer did not see Fromm as a part of Georgia’s long-term plan.

“Schottenheimer came in and basically [said], ‘We don’t want you,’” Fromm’s father said.

And just like that, Fromm’s dreams of playing for his home-state school, his father’s alma mater, appeared to have been dashed. It was a business decision, and Fromm himself did not take it personally.

For his mom, it was a different story.

The Fromms had been Georgia fans for a long while, and their house was filled with Bulldog paraphernalia.

“The entire game room was Georgia stuff,” Emerson Fromm said. “Helmets, pictures, a wall clock, a calendar, a Georgia dart board.”

Once it became apparent Georgia did not want the younger Fromm as a player, his mother decided the team did not deserve the family’s fandom. Over the course of two weeks, she worked through the house, taking down everything Georgia.

Although she admits her son “thought [she] was crazy,” she gave away everything the family owned that had a Georgia logo on it to friends and family members. What she couldn’t give away, she threw out.

“It was like, ‘Oh my God, what a dream that could be.’” she said. “And then suddenly somebody tells you, ‘No, you’re not really what I want.’ And it’s life, but still I have a choice. I can keep it in my house and look at it, or I can get rid of it and not look at it.”

According to the Fromms, the recruiting process from there was a bit of a blur. Georgia had been the plan, but not getting the offer he wanted was not something Fromm was going to dwell on.

With his dream school off the table, Fromm decided to verbally commit to the best program that wanted him, and one whose head coach he had a good relationship with: the University of Alabama, headed by living legend Nick Saban.

“He’s very generous, very thoughtful,” Fromm’s father said of Saban. “I love the guy, and Jake loves the guy, and that’s just a fact.”

The decision marked yet another change of plans for Fromm, but it was one whole-heartedly supported by his parents. His mom went as far as doing some significant redecorating.

“I had all Alabama stuff in my house,” she said. “And we were 100 percent in. We believed in it, we wanted it, we were headed there.”

Committing to Kirby 

Throughout his recruitment at Alabama, Fromm was courted mainly by Saban and then-offensive coordinator Lane Kiffin. Yet despite him playing offense, Fromm and his parents developed a close relationship with Alabama defensive coordinator and former Georgia player Kirby Smart.

“We went to Alabama a lot, a lot of their games,” Fromm’s mother said. “And for some reason, Coach Smart was always the one that we were sitting with at his table. So he kind of claimed us, and we claimed him.”

Following the 2015-2016 season, Mark Richt was fired as Georgia’s head coach, and things started to move at a blur once again for the Fromms. Smart was selected as Georgia’s head coach, and Schottenheimer was out as offensive coordinator.

The now former Alabama coach maintained the interest he had taken in Fromm while assisting in recruiting him for the Crimson Tide. It wasn’t hard for Smart to woo Fromm away from the out-of-state route.

“The reason he decommitted was Kirby Smart,” Lassiter said. “Him and Coach Smart had a really good relationship, and it was just days on the job that they called me and told me they were offering him.”

After the college football season ended, and as Smart was settling in as the Georgia head coach, the Fromms made several secret visits to Georgia. The program didn’t want to ruin the relationship Fromm had built with Alabama in case he decided to stick with the Crimson Tide, so the trips were kept under wraps.

It was just a formality, of course. Fromm and his entire support group knew where the young quarterback wanted to play, and it didn’t take long for him to make the decision everyone was expecting.

Within a few months of Smart being named as Richt’s replacement, Fromm had committed to being a Bulldog.

“That was everything that he ever wanted, was to play quarterback at Georgia,” Lassiter said. “And the rest is history.”

All that was left to do at the Fromm household was once again change the décor. For the second time, Fromm’s mother was forced to get rid of all the family’s sports-related decorations, trading in A’s for G’s and elephants for bulldogs.

Although she was happy to make the switch, his mom joked that her wallet was not.

“It’s a good thing he got a scholarship, because I’m broke now,” she said. “But yeah, it was pretty nice to get out and buy my Georgia stuff back.”

Living the dream 

When Fromm arrived in Athens as an early-enrollee, he was met with something he hadn’t dealt with since his freshman year of high school: competition.

Jacob Eason was just entering his second year at the helm of Georgia’s offense, and while he hadn’t lit the world on fire as a freshman, the former top-rated quarterback recruit was fully expected to hold onto the starting spot for the Bulldogs.

But Fromm’s dad said his son was never worried about his chances of winning the job. According to the older Fromm, the young quarterback believed he could beat out anyone in the country, or at least almost everyone.

“Lamar Jackson, Jake would probably look at him and say you know what, in that system, I’m probably not beating out Lamar Jackson,” Fromm’s dad said. “But for the rest of it, there’s not really a person in the country that he looked at and says I can’t beat him out.”

And while he opened the season as a second string, it didn’t take long for Fromm to get his chance.

Just a few series into Georgia’s first game of the season against Appalachian State, Eason took an awkward hit to the knee will running out of bounds. After attempting to return to the field of play, Eason slumped to the ground in obvious pain.

Meanwhile, sitting five rows up behind the home team’s bench in Sanford Stadium, two parents looked on anxiously.

“All of the sudden Emerson grabbed my knee and squeezed it, and I thought he was going to break my knee cap off,” Fromm’s mother said. “And I looked up and I was like ‘Oh my God.’”

“The anxiety started kicking in,” his father said of the experience. “Don’t screw this up. He’s not thinking this stuff. I’m just saying from my point of view, it was like good lord here’s your chance son, and just make the best of your opportunity.”

Down on the field, Fromm began to calmly prepare to enter the game.

Back in the stands, his mom was slightly less serene.

“I looked over at Jake, and he didn’t even have his helmet on, so I’m screaming at him like, ‘Get your helmet! It’s your turn buddy!’” she said.

It was earlier than Fromm was supposed to start playing, earlier than he could have possibly expected to get his chance. But by that point in his athletic career, Fromm was used to things not going according to plan.

He was ready to play.

Coming off the bench, Fromm completed 10 of his 15 passing attempts for 143 yards and a touchdown, securing an easy victory for the Bulldogs to start the season. And after that, he just kept winning.

Fromm won the first eight starts of his career as a Bulldog. Even when it became apparent that Eason was healthy enough to return, Smart and the rest of the coaching staff had already made the same realization Lassiter had made back when Fromm was a high schooler: they simply could not justify keeping him off the field.

Fromm didn’t face defeat until mid-November, in an away loss to Auburn. He followed up the only loss of his career so far with three straight wins, the last of which came in a rematch against the Tigers in the SEC championship game.

Less than a month after completing less than half his passes and getting blown out on the road against Auburn, Fromm went 16 for 22 and connected on two touchdown passes and a two-point conversion in the second meeting of the teams.

He’s experienced being the quarterback of the nation’s No. 1 team, three SEC freshman of the week awards, and is now facing the prospect of leading Georgia’s offense in a College Football Playoff game, the first in program history.

Yet through it all, those closest to Fromm say he hasn’t let the success go to his head.

For Lassiter, Fromm is still the same eighth-grader the former Houston County head coach shook hands with all those years before, never failing to add a “Yes sir” or “No sir” when answering questions.

“He’s exactly the same kid I met back then,” Lassiter said. “He’s just a remarkable human being, and unbelievable competitor, a relentless worker, and just a phenomenal, phenomenal person.”

To his father he’s still the young Georgia fan, wearing a Stafford jersey and pretending to throw touchdown passes in the family’s backyard.

“He’s playing backyard football, for him, except he knows the plays really well, and they get to wear cool uniforms,” his dad said.

Back then, Fromm had his mind set on being a baseball player. He never expected to be the quarterback of his favorite football team.

But it’s to be expected, really. Not much in Fromm’s life has gone exactly as he had planned it.

Back in that truck in the spring of 2016, Fromm was about to make one of the most pivotal decisions of his life official. He pulled out his cell phone and made two phone calls.

The first was to arguably the greatest coach in college football history in Saban. Fromm had some bad news for the Alabama head coach — he would be revoking his commitment to the Crimson Tide and reopening his recruitment.

According to Fromm’s father, Fromm spent over an hour on the phone with Saban while the Alabama coach attempted to “talk him off the ledge.”

“Saban finally just kind of relented with it,” Fromm’s dad said. “Just, ‘OK.’”

With the hard part done, it was time to make the second call, and this one would be significantly less unpleasant. Fromm dialed in the number of another SEC coach, one who was not quite as accomplished as Saban, but was considered on the rise by many.

And this time, Fromm had good news to deliver.

“He called Kirby,” his father said. “Said, ‘Kirby, I’m committing to the University of Georgia. I talked to Coach Saban, and this is what I want to do.’ Kirby said ‘Let’s go.’”

It’s unlikely that Fromm expected at that point to ever be playing against Oklahoma, a team the Bulldogs have never faced, in the Rose Bowl, a venue Georgia hasn’t visited since the 1940s, in just his first year of college.

But the unexpected is nothing new to the quarterback from Warner Robins. Georgia’s playoff run has been just one more turn in the road for Fromm, one more change in plans.