ANN ARBOR, Mich. — When J.J. McCarthy is on, he’s really on. But when he’s off, Michigan football has tended to be in for a long day.
On Saturday, McCarthy had his worst performance in a maize and blue uniform, topping the two pick-six performance against TCU in the College Football Playoff. He had three interceptions on Saturday, though with none returned for touchdowns, but unlike in the playoff when he threw for 343 yards, McCarthy managed to go just 8-for-13 for 143 yards and two touchdowns.
While McCarthy’s play on the field has certainly matured, his performance off of it has also.
After the TCU loss which kept the Wolverines out of the national championship game, McCarthy answered one question and left the podium, leaving his teammates to answer for the season-ending defeat. Michigan of course won on Saturday, beating the Falcons, 31-6, but this time, despite his performance, McCarthy showed up to the postgame press conference and owned up to his mistakes.
“I’m gonna take all those on the chin, put them all on me,” McCarthy said. “There’s a lot of a lot of stuff that just obviously didn’t go my way and didn’t go off in some way. But I just can’t wait to watch the tape and just see the mistakes that were made and get better from it, honestly. But I’m gonna take all those on the chin. They were on me.”
While not all of McCarthy’s mistakes were egregious — his one interception on the sideline was his attempt to throw the ball away — he also made some clutch throws, particularly his two touchdown passes. But the junior quarterback looks at both the good and the bad the same: once the play is over, it’s time to move on.
“No matter what, whether it’s a great throw, or an interception, I’m always gonna move on and stay in the present moment, no matter what it is,” McCarthy said. “Just didn’t go well after the first one. And I’ve just got to watch the film and see what I can do better.”
Of course, this was also a different scenario in that his head coach, Jim Harbaugh, was not on the sideline for the third straight game after the program self-imposed a suspension for the nonconference slate. Thus, the man who was settling McCarthy down after his debacles was his offensive coordinator Sherrone Moore, who was the acting head coach for the Week 3 contest.
McCarthy says that Moore had a calming presence, and echoed the sentiment that he shouldn’t dwell on his shortcomings this week.
“His main message was just throw it in the ocean and keep being me,” McCarthy said. “That meant a lot to me to know that he still had the trust in me to keep throwing the ball and all that. Just keep doing me and that helped me out a lot.”
Now with Week 3 in the books, Michigan football will host an undefeated Rutgers team to open up Big Ten play. That game will take place on Saturday at noon and will be broadcast on Big Ten Network.