Every game, as teams came up for initial walkthroughs and warmups, you always knew where to find Michigan football quarterback J.J. McCarthy. Look no further than at the base of one of the pylons.
And it turns out that an opposing player attempted to get in McCarthy’s head well before the game. And it almost worked.
Appearing on a Minnesota Vikings podcast, McCarthy was asked whether he’d rather walk barefoot through a foot of Minnesota snow or have his pregame ritual disrupted and he chose the snow — that’s how important his meditation is to him. But before the Wolverines played Purdue, a player attempted to disrupt his pregame rhythm.
“Wasn’t there someone that tried to interrupt your pregame meditation before?” Henderson asked, to which McCarthy replied “Yeah.”
“That was actually a Purdue (player),” McCarthy said. “Yeah, yes, they did interrupt it…But at the end of the day, it’s just like your thoughts trying to interrupt it.
“You just return back to your breath and get back to presence.”
In a way, it’s surprising it wasn’t someone from Michigan State or Ohio State. But in the midst of the alleged sign-stealing saga, Purdue was abnormally whiny about it.
McCarthy got the last laugh, however. Michigan not only won, 41-13, but McCarthy completed 24-for-37 passes for 335 yards.