DETROIT — Last season, J.J. McCarthy had the best season from an accuracy perspective that a Michigan football starting quarterback has maybe had ever, completing 72.3% of his passes — numbers unseen in decades. So it will be a tall task to replace the Wolverines QB who has the best winning percentage ever as a starter, but Alex Orji is up for the challenge.
The problem? Not many have seen him throw the football.
Orji didn’t attempt a single pass last year, and though the starting job is still to be determined, Orji is aware that in order for him to win the role, he’ll have to be able to show what he can do with his arm.
The good news is he has an offensive coordinator who helped McCarthy (as the quarterbacks coach) who is aiding him in that regard.
“I mean, it’s pretty hard to play quarterback without throwing the football,” Orji said. “There’s a lot of focus placed on it. I think that Coach Campbell is just an awesome coach, just the way that he’s willing to help individually, whoever it is, from a seventh-year senior in the room to a freshman who has been there for seven days.
“Everyone talks about him like he’s always willing to help — he’s not only focused on one person or getting pissed at somebody whenever something doesn’t go exactly how even they think it should go. He’s just going to try to help us be the best that we can be.
“And so, kind of going back to that culture aspect, I think that’s the biggest thing is you see it coming from the top to the bottom — like it’s not just someone telling you to do it, you see our coaches doing it. You see our top players doing it, and it’s like I gotta be on the same thing. They finding success in this world, I kind of want to find the same thing.
The knock on Orji this offseason is that, behind closed doors, he may be somewhat erratic — though those are rumors at this point. But he’s well aware that if he’s going to win the Michigan starting quarterback job, it will be because he’s the most accurate.
Harkening back to his former head coach, he notes that it’s not being a dual-threat (as he is) that will win you a starting job. It’s not extending plays. It’s not having a rocket arm. No, the most important aspect is accuracy.
“Throwing aspect, Coach Harbaugh once told us, as a quarterback, accuracy was gonna get you paid, accuracy was gonna get you a job,” Orji said. “All the extracurricular — all the other stuff — it’s gonna keep your job. But at the end of the day, you’re not anything without accuracy.”