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ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Once again, all eyes in Ann Arbor are on what Michigan football is doing on the quarterback front.
The position has been relatively inconsistent during Jim Harbaugh’s tenure, in many ways, through no fault of his own. Jake Rudock eventually showed out in 2015 and Wilton Speight had a solid year in 2016 before he sustained an injury at Iowa. 2017 was an injury-plagued year, and while Shea Patterson gets little credit for his tenure, he was solid, but not spectacular in 2018-19 — and that’s while having also sustained an injury on the first play from scrimmage in the latter year.
But expectations were Joe Milton was set to come in and change the trajectory of the position in 2020. Though he had a solid debut as a starter, the Florida native grew worse each week, and he eventually lost his job to Cade McNamara.
With Milton entering the NCAA transfer portal this offseason, the job is McNamara’s to lose. But this spring, he’s facing competition from freshmen Dan Villari and highly touted former five-star J.J. McCarthy. Though the competition will get deeper in the fall when Texas Tech transfer and former Red Raiders starter Alan Bowman arrives on campus, offensive coordinator Josh Gattis spoke about where the quarterbacks are as right now and what he’s seen from his signal-callers thus far in the spring sessions.
“I think the quarterbacks have done a really good job doing what we’re asking them to do,” Gattis said. “Obviously, first and foremost, is take leadership of the team. They’ve done a really good job of a group pushing each other. Cade, specifically, obviously with his experience, coming back and having game reps. I think that’s provided him some confidence in his play and confidence in his demeanor as a leader on the team.
“We’re very, very pleased. We’re only a handful of practices in. It’s too much time, too long to tell. But we’re pleased at the direction those guys are showing in their leadership and their performance on the field.”
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One benefit that Michigan has this year over last is it has been able to have spring practice.
While expectations were high for Milton & Co. in 2020, because of the coronavirus pandemic, they didn’t get those valuable reps through practice that a new starter would have otherwise gotten.
Look back at 2016: most pundits anticipated John O’Korn would be the man under center, but due to his performance in the spring, Speight got the nod and rode it to a 14-2 record as a starting quarterback.
Spring is instrumental for players in dire need of experience, and Gattis notes that, while McNamara does have some in-game reps, it’s not nearly enough to really tell what kind of quarterback he will or will not be.
“Yeah, it’s a tremendous amount of time right now, because it’s so valuable, having spring football,” Gattis said. “When you look at the season with so many guys that have played, even young guys like Cade — I think we ended up playing eight freshmen – but we only played six games. So it wasn’t like they played a very long season as far as getting game reps. And that’s the thing about quarterbacks is that you never really know about a quarterback until you see them in a game-like situation. So being able to have this time now where we can create those game-like scenarios, whether it’s good-on-good or move the ball periods or practicing in the stadium the other day, I think it’s valuable. It’s valuable to our team. We’re a pretty young team still. We’ve got a lot of returning players that are young players, so they need every bit of practice and experience they can get.”
Regardless, the quarterback position is the one most under the microscope on any college football team.
Milton was denigrated after losing his starting job by a sect of the maize and blue faithful as well as the media, but Gattis notes such criticism doesn’t paint the entire story, at least not truthfully.
Such is the life of a starting quarterback at the University of Michigan.
“I think it’s just the position itself,” Gattis said. “Obviously, to focus on the guys we have on our roster, but Joe did a lot of good things, a lot of good things on the field. If anyone tries to deny that, then it’s obvious that they didn’t watch the games. There was good things that he did; there was good things in his career. To harp on a young man about the negative, about the negative situations, obviously, when you’re not winning it all looks bad. It all falls on a couple peoples’ laps and quarterback is one of them. It falls on any other coach. I just think it’s the criticism of the position. A lot of times when things aren’t going well, you look to blame everything on that position from the outside eye. I think that’s where the quarterback position is so critical and it’s so sensitive. Every team in the country is – and that’s why it’s so valued in the NFL, when they have that one guy that they have, they highly invest in them. Because you want to have consistency, you want to have stability, you want to have a leader in that position.
“So it’s definitely one for our young players to understand, especially at the University of Michigan, that being a quarterback here at Michigan is a very, very tough job. It’s one that comes with a lot of responsibility. It’s one that comes with everything. It can come with fame, it can come with blame – it’s a lot. You have to understand, these still are young kids, 18, 19, 20-year olds. I don’t think we were ever perfect in our ages, in our years at that age. I don’t think it’s fair to critically assess the negatives of kids without pointing out the positives that these kids make.”
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