Fremd's Tolzien enjoys the ride to Holy Cross

Mark Tolzien was familiar with the wild roller-coaster ride that is often a part of college football recruiting.

The Fremd senior quarterback watched his brother Scott's twists and turns before ending up at Wisconsin.

So, at least Mark Tolzien had someone close who could empathize with his situation. On Wednesday, he chose a school that was on board for a long part of the trip.

And the Cook County honorary captain of the 2007 Daily Herald All-Area team didn't deviate from his ultimate plan when he committed to Holy Cross, a Football Championship Subdivision (formerly Division I-AA) school.

"The mix of education and academics is one of the best you could find in the country," said Tolzien, who has a perfect 4.0 grade point average and is leaning toward a business major. "I said from Day One I wanted to go to a good academic school. I don't think I could go wrong with Holy Cross."

The 6-foot-1, 180-pound Tolzien completed 61 percent of his passes for 1,987 yards and 18 touchdowns this fall as Fremd won a school-record 11 games. The two-year starter quarterbacked two of the school's three state quarterfinalists.

But the recruiting process was hardly smooth -- just as it wasn't two years ago when his brother Scott was the Daily Herald All-Area captain.

Last week, North Dakota State offered a scholarship to another quarterback and asked Mark Tolzien to walk on to the team. Butler was also in the picture.

"There have been a lot of schools where I was a top-two, top-five guy and they've gone other ways," Tolzien said. "The way things happened they got their dream guy … a lot of crazy stuff like that.

"It's been frustrating, but then again I met a lot of new people and saw a lot of new things."

Tolzien liked what he saw on and off the field at Holy Cross, which was interested since the third week of the season. The program has had two straight 7-4 seasons and three straight winning seasons and finished second in the Patriot League last year.

Tolzien will learn from Dominic Randolph, who was 12th in the voting for the Walter Payton Award, the FCS equivalent of the Heisman Trophy. As a junior, Randolph threw for 3,604 yards and 30 touchdowns.

"They were 2 points away from making the playoffs," Tolzien said. "They're on the rise and right there with a chance to make the playoffs the next few years."

And Tolzien, who also got a lot of help from his brother Mike at Air Force and his parents in the process, is ready to do what it takes to lead Holy Cross there.

"It puts a little bit of a chip on your shoulder," Tolzien said of other schools that went different directions. "It's given me a new perspective on things that I think will really help me and make me work that much harder."