Michigan QB J.J. McCarthy faces toughest test of year. He can’t wait.
Now comes the pressure. No, not that kind of pressure. J.J. McCarthy doesn’t feel that. He welcomes all that comes with being the quarterback at a place like Michigan football.
No, I’m talking about the kind of pressure that a good defense exerts, the kind of pressure that Penn State excels in applying, the kind of pressure that collapses pockets and flushes quarterbacks and thumps them into the turf.
McCarthy hasn’t felt that yet this season. This Saturday at Michigan Stadium, he’ll get his chance. He’s counting down the minutes.
“Any game that I suited up for last year and didn’t play in, I had that game marked on my calendar,” McCarthy said earlier this week. “It’s a tremendous opportunity and I can’t wait to go out there and show what I can do against a great team.
Not because he has a special dislike of Penn State, but because he figured he’d be the starter this year, even if he never said that, and couldn’t wait to play a team he only got to watch play a year ago.
Which is another way of saying he’s been waiting for this game for roughly a year. Waiting, too, for the chance to see where he’s at, to gauge what it will feel like playing in a top-10 showdown against a team of more-or-less equal talent.
“For us as an offense to be able to put ourselves up against that?” he said. “We will see what we’re all about.”
He was excited as he said it. Smiling at the thought of it. Relishing the opportunity to continue the progression he’s shown from Maryland to Iowa to Indiana.
Quarterback speak?
Sometimes it’s the best play, like when McCarthy was asked about Penn State’s defense out of the gate Tuesday night as he stood — in socks — behind the podium inside Schembechler
Hall and didn’t blink.
“It’s just a defense with a lot of talent,” he said. “They’re coached very well, and their defensive coordinator puts them in the right spots, and they just let their athleticism show. You’ve got guys like Joey Porter that are extremely gifted physically and they’re in the right spots at the right time.”
Porter is one of the best defensive backs in the Big Ten and the son of Joey Porter, a longtime NFL linebacker, and he isn’t the only Nittany Lions defender who will eventually play on Sundays. Obviously, Porter stands out on the film McCarthy has watched, and his coaches had likely already highlighted him before he got to the podium Tuesday.
Still, the way McCarthy described the defense was impressive. Not just described it, but talked it up, as any quarterback should do before a big-game showdown.
Then again, he talked up his offense, too, and where it might be, and how it’s just getting started and how, if all goes well, it will be right where he thinks it can be — no, knows it can be — by the end of the season.
“I feel like we should not be being stopped,” he said.
Yes, lots of players say this. Some may even mean it. McCarthy believes it. Is convinced that he is just “scratching the surface” of what he can do. And he may be right.
Look at his completion percentages. While he tops college football in that number at 78%, most of his throws are of the higher percentage variety. That’s by design, of course. And until this point, that’s all U-M and Jim Harbaugh has needed from him.
But this isn’t why Harbaugh chose McCarthy over Cade McNamara. He chose him because of his ability to throw the ball down the field. And, perhaps more critically, his ability to make plays when the pocket collapses, to make plays under pressure.
As he has done in each of his three Big Ten starts, most notably against Iowa, when he ran to his right to avoid the sack and threw across his body to Donovan Edwards, 25 yards down the field in the end zone.
It was the kind of play that can’t be schemed against. The kind of play that keeps a drive moving against the kind of defense he will see this Saturday.
Those downfield throws are critical, too. Hit one or two in game like this and the chances of winning rise.
McCarthy says the missed deep balls are on him.
“Probably the biggest key and the only key is myself,” he said of why he hasn’t connected deep often. “(It’s) just really understanding that as I’m recovering from this injury in the offseason, I’m starting to get my strength back, being able to get back in that rhythm.”
He’s convinced his arm is stronger than it was before he hurt his shoulder. That the rehab took him back to where he was, and back to the future. Now it’s a matter of seeing through the ball, as he likes to say.
“The guys have been getting open,” he said. Those potential connections are one reason he thinks this offense is just beginning. Because he is just beginning. It’s easy to forget that because it feels like he’s been around longer than he actually has.
Recruiting hype and anticipation will do that. A drawn-out quarterback battle will do that, too.
McCarthy won that battle handily. Each game, he makes a play or two or three to remind everyone why he won it. Now it’s time to make the plays to win games like the next one on the schedule.
He has repped out every throw. He has tweaked his mechanics — the injury gave him time to do that, and he considers it a blessing. He has shown better decision making each week as he gets more snaps and sees more defensive fronts.
“I can go over all that stuff a million times but if you’re not actually in the moment it’s not as productive as being out there doing it in live action,” he said.
The preparation is finished. Now comes the pressure. J.J. McCarthy can hardly wait.