ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Michigan football fans waited, perhaps not so patiently, for their former five-star to finally get his real shot at leading the team. After just one week of the season, they got it, with J.J. McCarthy getting his first start and never looking back.
It’s been mostly good, but there have been a few inconsistencies early. But that’s just nitpicking in a lot of ways.
Likely the one thing that hasn’t coalesced this year has been the deep ball. While McCarthy looked adept at hitting receivers deep all of last year in spot duty as well as early this year, starting in Week 4 against Maryland, he started missing. And since, he hasn’t really hit many deep balls, including none in Week 6 against Indiana.
For McCarthy, he feels like the biggest factor is just consistency week-to-week. After his injury this spring, he’s gaining confidence in his arm again, and he realizes he just needs to rely on his ability and not overthink it when throwing downfield.
“Probably the biggest key, and the only key, is just myself, just putting the ball on them,” McCarthy said. “And just really like, understanding that as I’m recovering from this injury from offseason that like I’m starting to gain my strength back, my hips are more mobile, they’ve gained more strength, and just being able to get back into that rhythm again, and not be able to feel like that I need to put my all into a throw, and just realize I have a strong arm, just focus on it, see the ball through the throat and just deliver it to them. But the guy has been doing great getting open, I just got to put the ball on them.”
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While the deep ball hasn’t been a big factor yet this season, one thing that has is McCarthy’s overall consistency.
At 78.3%, he leads all qualifying quarterbacks (players who have played in 75% of their games and have thrown an average of at least 15 passes per game) across the country. Considering that he was throwing sub-60% in limited action last year, it’s a pretty big improvement, considering the increased sample size.
For McCarthy, the big thing there has, again, just been consistency intertwined with awareness. He’s learned he doesn’t have to do too much, but on top of that, once he figures out the best arm angle or ball placement, he reps that until it becomes muscle memory.
“At the root of it, at the base of it has just been the constant reps, that constant, since fifth grade, just working with my quarterback coach, always throwing,” McCarthy said. “I always approached it with that Kobe Bryant mentality, I’m gonna get 1000 shots. And well, you can’t really do that with your arm. I learned that last year with the SLAP tear and everything.
“But just continually repping out every single throw, so I know exactly how it feels when I want to put it a certain way—and just being in the present moment when the game is happening when the play is happening, just being completely present, going through every little pre-snap checklist in my head and just being able to deliver effortlessly.”
While his arm is well covered there, one of the more dangerous factors to his game is his legs — but we haven’t really seen him take off too much.
Against Indiana, he did run four times for 26 yards, but he’s seemed reticent at times, whereas last year, he often came in only to run. Perhaps some of his reluctance is due to not having an experienced backup with Cade McNamara currently sidelined with a leg injury. But part of it is his own recognition of when to give or when to keep.
He feels that he’s getting better at understanding when to do each, and that he’s learning from his mistakes.
“I feel like it’s just experience, like being in the situations and being given the opportunities that come with the game,” McCarthy said. “With each play, just being able to have that experience to grow from that. I mean, I could go in Glick and go over all that stuff right now a million times. But if you’re not actually in the moment and having that experience, then it’s not a true — I don’t want to say it’s not true growth, but it’s not as productive growth as being out there and doing it in a lot of bullets, live action.
“So I feel like just getting more opportunities at that has been helping tremendously. And learning from my mistakes week to week. I mean, we didn’t see any of that in Maryland. And I feel like there was a couple of plays in Iowa where I could have done a little bit more with my legs, and it’s just gonna get better and better as the weeks go on.”
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