SANTA CLARA — With the acquisition of Jimmy Garoppolo, the 49ers hope they have a quarterback who can serve as the face of the franchise.

And what a face it is.

“He’s a good-looking guy,” Dino Babers, his college coach, confirmed to the Bay Area News Group this week. “Dark hair. He’s going to tan up very well in that California sun.”

The 49ers certainly like the cut of his jib, which is why they’re gearing up to pay Garoppolo a pretty penny. Acquired this week from the New England Patriots in exchange for a 2018 second-round draft pick, the quarterback is eligible for free agency after this season.

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“We brought him here because we want him to be the quarterback of the future,” Shanahan said at the introductory press conference, where Garoppolo’s agent, Don Yee, was among the crowd.

It’s heady stuff for a passer who served as Tom Brady’s seldom-used backup over the past three-and-half seasons. Garoppolo arrives as a bit of a mythical creature, a little-known quarterback from Eastern Illinois University whose aura stems largely from his association with the Patriots’ dynasty.

Like benchwarmers Matt Cassel, Brian Hoyer and Jacoby Brissett before him, he’s been enhanced by Brady’s second-hand smoke.

But Garoppolo, 26, who has only two career starts, has long been one of the most coveted backups in the NFL. Scouts view him as an understudy with leading man potential.

“I’ve told people a thousand times: He’s the most accurate quarterback I’ve ever seen,” Babers said.

Babers, like Garoppolo’s other former coaches interviewed for this story, say the pinpoint passes, quick release and leadership style offer everything the 49ers would want as they try (again!) to rise from the NFL ashes. San Francisco is 0-8 heading into Sunday’s game against the Arizona Cardinals at Levi’s Stadium.

Garoppolo won’t play this week because he’s still learning the playbook. Still, he might be the most popular player in the stadium. He’s the 6-foot-2, 226-pound symbol of hope.

“The film’s just impressive,” general manager John Lynch said. “I don’t think you have to be some quarterback savant to see that.” Like our San Francisco 49ers Facebook page for more 49ers news, commentary and conversation.

Babers, now at Syracuse University, was the head coach at Eastern Illinois the last time Garoppolo had a full-time gig, in 2013. It went OK: Garoppolo shattered school records by throwing for 5,050 yards and 53 touchdowns while orchestrating a hair-on-fire offense that racked up 48.2 points per game.

Eastern Illinois coaches knew Garoppolo could handle the frenzy from the moment they dispatched a recruiter to the Chicago suburb of Arlington Heights.

Charlie Henry, the former offensive coordinator at Rolling Meadows High, remembered greeting Eastern Illinois offensive coordinator Roy Wittke by taking him into the coaches room. There, standing at a whiteboard, Henry drew up a few of the empty-backfield, five-receiver sets Garoppolo was operating on Friday nights. Then Henry ran through various line checks and blitz protections the 17-year-old had to make before snapping the ball.

“We had a fairly sophisticated passing attack for a high school. And (Wittke) looked at me and said, ‘You ask him to do that? And he can?”’ Henry said by phone this week. “I said, yeah, because he understands what we’re looking for and he understands the game. The guy was pretty impressed.”

In high school, though, as in the NFL, Garoppolo managed to stay under the radar. In fact, it took a stroke of luck for him to wind up playing quarterback at all. The three Garoppolo boys — Jimmy, Mike (older) and Billy (younger) — weren’t allowed to play football at an early age.

So they played soccer for a few years until their spirited backyard pigskin games made clear their true sport of choice. Mike became a star defensive player at Rolling Meadows, and former Coach Doug Millsaps just figured Jimmy would follow suit as the next linebacker in the family.

“But I happened to play catch with him when he was a freshman,” Millsaps said, “and realized he might have a different gift in life.”

Jimmy made a slow transition from smasher to passer, staying primarily at outside linebacker as a freshman and sophomore. (“In fairness, he was a good outside linebacker,” Millsaps said.) Behind the scenes, though, Garoppolo worked with Jeff Christensen, a former NFL quarterback who became the kid’s guru for throwing mechanics.

Christensen taught Garoppolo to throw in the style of Brady, of all people, using film to show the kid the impeccable weight transfer and quick release of the four-time Super Bowl MVP.

But by the time Garoppolo was ready to put on his own show for major college recruiters, he was cursed by dark clouds.

“I think it rained literally every Friday his senior year,” Henry said with a laugh. “This was before everybody had turf fields in our area and were playing in mud bowls, for the most part. … I think that limited his statistics as far as getting recognized and getting numbers that might have sent him (to a bigger college).”

Henry paused.

“But I think it worked out for him.”

Garoppolo went on to break just about every Eastern Illinois passing record, marks that belonged previously to the likes of Tony Romo (who later made four Pro Bowls with the Dallas Cowboys) or Sean Payton (who won a Super Bowl as the head coach of the New Orleans Saints). Another notable Panthers quarterback had his career cut short by a devastating hit on the practice field. It left Mike Shanahan with a life-threatening lacerated kidney, so he gave up playing for a career in coaching, just like his son, Kyle, would do years later. For complete 49ers coverage follow us on Flipboard.

In perhaps the most relevant statistic for 49ers fans, Eastern Illinois steadily improved from a 2-9 record in Garoppolo’s freshman year to a 12-2 first-place finish in his senior year.

“He did such a great job here. Really poised. Great leader. Bright kid,” said Mike Bradd, who was the Panthers’ radio broadcaster for Garoppolo’s career.

Even while playing in the Ohio Valley Conference, an NCAA Division I subdivision, Garoppolo managed to catch the NFL’s attention. Coming out of college in 2014, his NFL.com profile deemed his strengths: “very quick trigger and good wrist snap that translates to a smooth throwing motion and clean, compact delivery (no windup). … Lightning quick release quickness. … Urgent decision maker.”

There’s even good news in NFL.com’s rundown that year of his weaknesses: “Works heavily out of the shotgun in a spread offense, and footwork could require adjustment to working under center … deep accuracy could stand to improve .. makes a lot of simple, one-look reads.”

Those are mostly correctable flaws, things that can be fixed with experience. And as the 62nd overall pick in the 2014 draft, Garoppolo essentially wound up with a scholarship to a quarterback grad school. He spent three-plus seasons studying in the shadow of Brady, whose footwork, deep accuracy and complex reads are the stuff of legend.

“You spend so much time with the guy that you pick up little things that he does that you find helpful and you put it toward your own game,” Garoppolo once said.

He got a chance to substitute for his teacher in the first two games of last season while Brady was serving an NFL suspension for his role in Deflate Gate. In Week 1, he went 24 of 33 for 264 yards to lead a victory over the Arizona Cardinals. In Week 2, a 31-24 victory over the Miami Dolphins, Garoppolo threw for 232 yards and three touchdowns before being knocked out by a shoulder injury.

Millsaps watched those games and saw the same traits he once saw in Garoppolo at Rolling Meadows High.

“His command of the offense jumped out,” he said. “I don’t think there was any doubt that he understood what was being asked of him and how to attack. No stage is too big for him. The bigger the stage, the better he is.”

Now, the 49ers are banking on Garoppolo to get their long-dormant offense going. The man once expected to inherit Brady’s shoes will instead follow in the footsteps of Joe Montana and Steve Young.

“Those guys … I mean, just to be in the same sentence as them,” Garoppolo said, grasping for words on the day he arrived. “Being in this organization, just the rich history of it, it’s special. Not every organization is like this. So it’s a great opportunity.”

The 49ers are thrilled with the trade. Now, they expect to be handsomely rewarded. Very handsomely.

“I think that you’re going to have two bookends: You’re going to have Tom Brady, one of the best-looking cats on the East Coast doing a fantastic job, and you’re going to have Garoppolo on the West Coast with his tan doing a fantastic job,” Babers explained.

“I’m waiting to see somebody in the middle states pop up to see if they can balance this thing out.”