He's smart, mobile and accurate, and next year at this time he'll enter a competition with Ty Thompson, Austin Novosad, and Luke Moga to lead the Oregon offense into their first season in the Big Ten.
From St. Frances High Academy in Baltimore, Maryland, four-star quarterback Michael Van Buren committed to the Ducks on May 24. He chose the Webfoots over Penn State and Maryland. He told Max Torres of si.com, “Oregon has been my dream school since I was a little kid, time to turn it into reality.”
Among the most highly-coveted passers in the country, he had offers from Alabama, Miami, Michigan and Oklahoma, and Michigan as well. This young man turned down Nick Saban and Jim Harbaugh to become a Duck.
Like Bo Nix or Vernon Adams jr. before him, Van Buren is a poised leader with a big right arm. In his first start as a prep sophomore he threw for four touchdowns in a nationally televised game against Concord De La Salle.
St. Frances applying pressure 💎🔥 Sophomore QB Michael Van Buren with a ROPE to the back of the end zone. SFA up 21-7 #GEICOHSShowcase @SFAfootball_MD pic.twitter.com/r26Lo4JZgR
— NIBC (@NIBCOfficial) October 2, 2021
.@SFAfootball_MD punches back IMMEDIATELY. Gorgeous 52-yard toss from Michael Van Buren to Malik Baker and the Panthers enter the locker room with a 35-14 lead! @mike3k_ pic.twitter.com/PsmG89Ul4c
— NIBC (@NIBCOfficial) October 2, 2021
He told Mike Vukovcan of Nittany Sports Now, “I believe the strengths of my game are my accuracy, my ability to read the defenses and I’m able to improvise so if something isn’t there, I can use my legs to make something happen. I consider myself more of a passer than a runner to be honest.”
As a junior in 2022 he led Baltimore’s St. Frances Academy to a 9-1 record while earning All-Metro recognition from the Baltimore Sun. He completed 112 of 198 pass attempts for 1,707 yards and 18 TD while also carrying the ball 10 times for 125 yards and 2 TD.
Beyond the footwork, field vision and the advanced decision-making ability, what stands out about Michael is the leadership and character piece. After that big win over De La Salle as a sophomore, he helped head coach Messay Hailemariam wash the team’s uniforms. “He was helping with the laundry,” Hailemariam told 247Sports. “That's the type of guy he is. The type of leader. He is the whole package. From day one, he has been very coachable. He’s extremely humble but he's confident. He had a different swag to him.”
Back in the day, that sounds like a story an Oregon staffer might tell about Marcus Mariota. It's rare when you find a great athlete with the mindset of a servant leader. Those guys often turn out to be special.
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