The night before signing day, McGuffie still wasn’t sure how he fit in.

“I thought I was going to have a heart attack and die," McGuffie told the Chronicle. "I couldn't sleep all night."

He skipped his high school’s signing day ceremony to continue to think about his college choice, according to the newspaper. That afternoon, McGuffie talked to Chris Lathrop, his high school teammate who signed with Texas A&M.

"He told me, 'My heart wants to go one way, and my (head) is telling me to go another way,' " Lathrop told the Chronicle.

McGuffie ended up sticking with Michigan and sent his letter of intent that evening, after Rodriguez had received letters from most of the class.

In June, McGuffie arrived in Ann Arbor and began taking classes and working out with the Wolverines.

One of the guys?

The Wolverines had just finished their speed and agility drills one day this summer. Junior defensive end Brandon Graham and freshman linebacker Kenny Demens were doing backflips.

The other players wanted to see what McGuffie could do. He just wanted to start seven-on-seven drills.

A search for “Sam McGuffie” on YouTube returns more than 175 videos. The videos are immensely popular — one has more than 2.5 million views. Fans, players and coaches have all seen them. They feature McGuffie flipping over players, leaping defenders, making astonishing cuts and running with incredible breakaway speed.

But McGuffie wants to escape the fame of the videos.

“I’m just tired of all the flipping and all that junk,” McGuffie said. “Anything that shows up on the internet, I’m not for. I kind of learned my lesson from that stuff.”

But there was no avoiding it now. All his teammates wanted to see him in action, and were challenging his ability to match Graham and Demens. McGuffie felt he had to comply.

McGuffie jogged back a bit, then ran and front-flipped over 5-foot-9 freshman receiver Terrence Robinson. He also did a 360 backflip.

“Sometimes, I’m really surprised (he did it) because he’s a no-nonsense guy,” redshirt freshman defensive end Ryan Van Bergen said. “That’s the first time I’d ever seen anything like that.”

McGuffie just wanted to blend in with his freshman teammates at Michigan, but his fame and YouTube clips beat him to Ann Arbor.

“We heard of him jumping over people,” Van Bergen said. “But on the defensive side of the ball, (we thought,) ‘We’ll wait and see if he can jump over a college defender.’ ”

There was a feeling out period for McGuffie off the field, too. He has always had a very calm demeanor. When he was younger, his mom called him a “little old man.”

“He never has been a real talkative kid,” said Ed Pustejovsky, McGuffie’s high school coach. “He’s quiet just by nature, I guess.”

McGuffie’s teammates say he has opened up a bit since he arrived in Ann Arbor. But that hardly means he’s talkative now.

“When he first came, he was completely quiet,” Graham said.

For McGuffie, opening up means he sometimes joins in conversations. He won’t ignore someone talking to him, but he's rarely the first person to talk.

Van Bergen initially didn’t care much for McGuffie when they first met.

“I thought he was being quiet to give off kind of a cocky attitude,” Van Bergen said.

But he just had to watch McGuffie practice to change his mind.

“I just noticed when he was making people miss in practice, scoring touchdowns, he wasn’t celebrating,” Van Bergen said. “He just jogged back and stood next to coach (Jackson), waited to go in again. I just realized the kid wants to play football. He doesn’t need to talk.

“Everybody celebrates a little bit. But Sam, the most I’ve seen out of Sam was like a fist pump in the air — one quick one, then back to normal Sam.”

A fist pump would be nothing compared to what Van Bergen and the rest of the team saw in August. Rodriguez introduced the “Gong Show” to Michigan this year. Freshmen do performances—skits, singing, impersonations.

McGuffie, fellow running backs Michael Shaw and Michael Cox and Bryan Wright, who is in charge of offensive quality control, were assigned to the same group. In a show concocted by Wright, they danced in spandex girdles.

“They were definitely doing some kind of shake-pop thing that would have some eyebrows raised around here,” Van Bergen said.