ANN ARBOR, Mich. — It’s usually never a good sign if you’re halfway through a college football season and are on your third starting quarterback. However, for first-year Michigan football head coach Sherrone Moore, he’s hoping third time is a charm.
If seventh-year quarterback Jack Tuttle, who served as J.J. McCarthy’s backup last year, had stayed healthy this offseason, the strong likelihood is that he would have been the starter from the beginning. However, due to his injuries, he didn’t get an opportunity to see the field until Week 6 at Washington.
And even with that, Moore says it wasn’t a ‘crash course’ of sorts for Tuttle, it was more just getting his feet wet in an actual game now that he’s back healthy.
“Even though he didn’t practice, he’s been in meetings,” Moore said. “He’s been out there, so he’s seen it, he’s done it. He just hasn’t been able to practice and do all the things at full speed. And, obviously, throwing, the timing, and all that. So from the perspective of knowing and understanding the system, no, but getting the most, getting the things done, and timing with the receivers and the tight ends and timing the handoffs and all those things, that’s what he had to really progress at. And he did a really good job.”
The switch from Alex Orji to Tuttle wasn’t one that was made lightly, and not making change for the sake of change.
Players noted that Tuttle gave the offense a spark, and part of that was his calm demeanor, having been in college football for so long and understanding what it takes to lead an offense. Though Orji has immense, yet undeveloped, talent, Tuttle entered the Washington game as someone who’s been there, done that, and it showed in terms of his poise and ability to engineer drives.
“He’s been who he’s been,” Moore said. “Obviously, he hadn’t practiced for a whole length of time, and got to practice and played in the game. They call him Uncle Jack, a seventh-year guy that’s done it, seen it, been in the big game, been in all the games. So did a really good job, and he just continues to progress and do those things right now.”
Of course, he did have two turnovers — a fumble and an interception. They were costly and they directly correlated to the 10 points that Michigan lost by in Week 6.
Moore diagnosed the turnovers and says they aren’t big systemic issues with Tuttle. It’s more about honing in on some details both at his position and with the pass catchers. And he’s confident they’ll have those things fixed as the team progresses.
“I looked at everything,” Moore said. “The biggest thing in the picks was either route distribution and timing of the throw, protection was one — that really was that. And so when you get a mistimed route and a mistimed throw, that’s what happens.
“So we got to really focus on again, the little things around detail, the precision of the throw, the precision of the route, making sure those things are all timed up, and then putting guys in a position to make sure they’re successful. So moving guys around in different places, which I think we did a really good job with this past week. And excited to see them as we practice this week, though.”