ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Saturday was a catastrophic day for Michigan quarterback Cade McNamara.
With the Wolverines conducting an live tryout for the starting job for all of the college football world to see, McNamara played OK, but not stellar. Considering Michigan’s aspirations, coupled with J.J. McCarthy’s talent, that’s not what you want from the incumbent starter, who we had heard (both on and off the record) about how good his fall camp had been. The trouble is: it’s the games that matter most, and in front of 109,000-plus, McNamara’s game was somewhat ho-hum.
Now, it wasn’t as bad as some make it out to be. The offensive line was OK on Saturday, not quite yet at the Joe Moore Award-winning level as it was a year ago, which is to be expected with some new pieces. There were several drops by the receivers, including McNamara’s first throw to senior Cornelius Johnson, which hit him right in the chest. Michigan fans clamoring for McCarthy would have you believe that McNamara is errant, and has been errant, and while that’s sporadically the case — as it is with nearly every quarterback — he’s been relatively accurate over the course of his career. However, Saturday saw McNamara playing tight, going almost exclusively to checkdowns. And if Michigan wants to elevate beyond simply being a Big Ten champion and College Football Playoff semifinalist, it will need more than that.
In fact, Jim Harbaugh alluded to what the team needs on Monday when he was asked how the Wolverines will need to stay focused against an overmatched Hawaii team in Week 2.
“We’re just trying to get as good as football as we can, as fast as we can. You always respect your opponent. You take nothing for granted. And also, we’re going to need to improve, we have to improve,” Harbaugh said. “I saw some darn good football teams playing after our game, watching them on TV. Teams like Georgia, Ohio State, Alabama. Notre Dame was real good. A lot of good football teams out there and playing good, so we’ve gotta get better, better, better, better, and better. That’s what I’m talking about.”
This is not to take anything away from McNamara. He elevated the program through his leadership and his capability over the past year-plus. Much of what it takes to succeed at the quarterback position exists before the ball is even in his hands, and McNamara has been stellar at reading defenses. However, McCarthy does possess tangibles that McNamara does not, and that’s OK.
This is not a direct comparison, but think of Alabama in 2018. The Crimson Tide had a returning starter in Jalen Hurts, who had been to a national championship game two years before. Hurts was the starter in the subsequent national championship game, but was benched in the second half in favor of upstart Tua Tagovailoa, whose upside helped lead Alabama to a victory over Georgia. Tagovailoa and Hurts started the 2018 season splitting time, but the former’s talent was too great to ignore, and Tagovailoa supplanted Hurts as the team’s starting quarterback. Though the Crimson Tide didn’t reach the promised land overall, having lost to Clemson in the 2019 national championship game, with Tagovailoa as the cemented starter, Alabama went 14-1 that season.
That same year, the aforementioned Clemson team had a quarterback fiasco of its own. Kelly Bryant, who led the team to the College Football Playoff in the 2017 season but lost to Alabama in the semifinal, had an upstart quarterback of its own in freshman Trevor Lawrence. Bryant and Lawrence split time in 2018 in the first four games, but Lawrence ultimately usurped Bryant, installed as the starter in Week 5, which led to Bryant’s transfer to Mizzou.
These are not easy decisions. As said, Cade McNamara elevated the program. If you’ve read us here or listened to me on the Locked On Wolverines Podcast, I have firmly been in McNamara’s corner all along. However, McNamara needed to take a big step forward in meaningful action once he got the opportunity. And in his first start of his second season as the starter, he underwhelmed. If Jim Harbaugh wants to elevate Michigan to the next step, contending with Ohio State for the Big Ten and going beyond the first round of the College Football Playoff, while McNamara may be able to get you there — he managed the first part in 2021 — he’s going to need to show better than he did against Colorado State. The offense shouldn’t look lackluster against Mountain West teams, no matter their caliber. McNamara’s selling point had been efficiency, and regardless of the circumstances — offensive line woes, receiver drops — a 50% completion rate isn’t going to cut it.
Now, these arguments preclude J.J. McCarthy’s first start, and we’re only assuming to know what we’re going to get. But McCarthy came in and completed 100% of his four throws against the Rams, while adding three carries for 50 yards on the ground. He makes defenses account for his running prowess, which gives the offense and extra element. We’ve seen Harbaugh go with this option before in his coaching career, ultimately supplanting incumbent ‘game manager’ type Alex Smith for upstart athlete Colin Kaepernick during his tenure with the San Francisco 49ers. McCarthy still has to prove he can handle being the starter at the college level, because while we’ve seen him in spot duty, we haven’t seen his body of work extensively. We’re assuming he’ll make the most of his situation against an atrocious Hawaii team that’s been blown out by Vanderbilt and Western Kentucky. If he performs as expected, it’s pretty cut and dry. If not, back to the drawing board.
McNamara, after the Colorado State game, said he felt he had done enough to earn the starting job coming out of fall camp. While that may be true, 9-for-18 for 136 yards and one touchdown against a team contending for nothing is enough to lose it.
College football is a fickle sport, filled with reactionaries. We try hard to stay above the fray there, but when you have your internal competition breathing down your neck and you don’t close the door on the question, the question remains fair game. What McNamara needed to do was take the question out of Jim Harbaugh’s hands and make it obvious he’s the best choice for the job. But, instead, now, the question is: did we see Cade McNamara start for Michigan for the last time?
Four days ago, I would have said no. Now, I don’t know the answer — and that’s a problem for Cade McNamara.
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