Michigan-Iowa film study: Hawkeyes will test J.J. McCarthy’s NFL readiness
When it came to quarterbacks, it took Jim Harbaugh nearly a decade at Michigan to find and develop the one he wanted. Then, he found two.
What was he looking for? A few things: a quarterback who played with unbridled passion and toughness; a player who wasn’t afraid to get hit or get yelled at or play hurt — actually, just make that “someone who wasn’t afraid”; a football junkie whose confidence bordered on delusion.
Pretty clearly, he wanted himself.
That’s what he found when Michigan signed Cade McNamara ahead of the 2019 season. Harbaugh and McNamara hit it off as soon as they first met in Harbaugh’s office on a recruiting trip, when McNamara was committed to Notre Dame but pretty sure he wanted to play at Alabama instead. By the close of that initial football interaction with Harbaugh, he’d totally changed his mind.
Less than a year later, Harbaugh found J.J. McCarthy .
“He’s better than me,” Harbaugh admitted in public – perhaps for the first time in his life, about any QB in the history of football – after McCarthy’s first road win as a starter, in 2022. That win, ironically, came against Iowa , McNamara’s current team and Michigan’s opponent in Saturday’s Big Ten championship game.
-Ohio State final thoughts: Zak Zinter's injury, Sherrone Moore's playbook and moreMentally, one could argue Harbaugh and McNamara are more similar. NFL quarterbacks who’ve worked out with McNamara all leave with the same conclusion: McNamara thinks he’s a better player than they are, for real. McNamara wasn’t McCarthy’s friend when they were together in Ann Arbor. He was his competitor and his teammate — sometimes more the former than the latter. He’s still not happy about how the competition went, and there’s a decent chance he never will be.
Tell me Harbaugh the player would have handled that differently.
Michigan and Iowa will meet again this weekend, and the biggest bummer is that we won’t get to see McNamara and McCarthy — former teammates who hold special places in Michigan lore — do battle, as McNamara continues to recover from ACL surgery.
Maybe next year. Maybe in another football world, place or time.
For now, let’s take a look at another huge test for McCarthy, against another pretty great Hawkeyes defense.
There may not be a more polarizing NFL Draft prospect in this upcoming class, regardless of position, than McCarthy. That’s the case for a gaggle of reasons. Perhaps the largest is that his offense, when compared to most of his QB peers, severely limits his opportunities. Michigan’s offense is just different and, thus, the context for evaluating McCarthy is also different.
Take Michigan’s win over Penn State , for example. In that game, McCarthy, without his head coach, was asked to throw the ball eight times, on the road, against a team that couldn’t stop the run. None of his throws were off-target that day. He got the ball out when he was supposed to, made sure every run call was checked properly and won the game. Again.
The lazy narrative that day was he didn’t play well. The real narrative was he did exactly what he was asked in order to win, without complaint.
The concern with McCarthy right now is whether he’s ready to lead an NFL team on a down-to-down basis for a calendar year. He’s 20, doesn’t have a ton of attempts, and there are still inconsistencies with ball placement downfield. We could use more tape versus quality opponents.
Luckily for McCarthy and every NFL evaluator, Iowa will provide exactly that.
.0: Bears, Patriots land new QBs; Jayden Daniels crashes top 10Strictly from a coverage standpoint, Iowa’s defense is the best-coached group Michigan will have played this season. Penn State has more NFL talent. Ohio State was at least as good (if not a bit better) than Penn State. Iowa, though, is different. Even without star DB Cooper DeJean , Phil Parker’s zone-heavy group is intelligent, disciplined and can be very opportunistic.
McCarthy has shown growth this season in a number of areas, specifically from the pocket and on third downs. He’s been streaky at times, but his expected points added (EPA) per attempt versus zone is up from .22 last year to .53. He’s also improved his EPA number against man (from .32 to .50).
His worst day of the year came in a non-conference game against Bowling Green , when McCarthy was off-target on more than 30 percent of his throws and picked off three times. Two of those interceptions came against Cover 3. Maryland, another team McCarthy struggled with, also showed Michigan a lot of Cover 3.
And that coverage happens to be Iowa’s specialty. The Hawkeyes are also experts in variations of Cover 2 and Cover 6. Even without DeJean, Iowa has dangerous DBs in Sebastian Castro and Quinn Schulte . Michigan will not get very many man-coverage looks in this game, no matter how well it runs the ball early.
Sebastian Castro was everywhere vs. Wisconsin.Relive some of the DB's biggest plays from the rivalry win. x pic.twitter.com/LFbaPDGEvp
— Big Ten Football October 14, 2023
Up front, Iowa doesn’t have the horsepower we’ve seen from some of Kirk Ferentz’s other division winners, but that’s not to say it’s a bad group. Junior Logan Lee (6-foot-5, 291 pounds) has a few Lukas Van Ness -like traits as an interior rusher who is long enough to make plays on the edge. Aaron Graves (6-4, 293), a sophomore, might be the best of the bunch in terms of future upside.
Discipline is still Iowa’s greatest strength, though, as the Hawkeyes tackle better than anyone in the country — Iowa ranks No. 1 nationally in yards per rush allowed after contact (2.08). There isn’t a Jack Campbell on this year’s depth chart, but senior Nick Jackson and his fellow linebackers fit the run well and are very difficult to fool.
The other factor Saturday will be health, in a few areas.
Michigan will be without its best offensive lineman the rest of the way after guard Zak Zinter suffered a broken leg against Ohio State. Zinter is arguably the best guard in the country, so it’s a big hit for Michigan but also not a disaster. The Wolverines’ backup plan here worked out just fine last Saturday, and the line is still filled with talent. Karsen Barnhart , formerly Michigan’s starting right tackle, moved inside to guard after the Zinter injury. )he’s a better fit there anyway). Trente Jones , who started Michigan’s win over Iowa last year, then came in at right tackle and reminded people that he, too, is a pro prospect.
McCarthy’s health is another matter. He’d been hobbled by an ankle injury in recent weeks. Though that situation did look much better vs. the Buckeyes than it did vs. Maryland or Penn State, it’s still likely a concern to some degree.
Michigan’s biggest wrinkle for Ohio State featured backup QB Alex Orji , who came into the game to take Michigan’s designed QB-run package off McCarthy’s plate. Orji is a 6-foot-3, 236-pounder with an extreme blend of burst and agility as a runner, so much so that at one point this season Harbaugh considered using him as a kick returner.
Against Ohio State, Michigan brought in Orji (who made Bruce Feldman’s “Freaks List” ) to run its QB Bash series — a run-read package McCarthy has been using since Michigan started inserting him in rotation with McNamara as a true freshman in 2021.
As a result, nothing about that should come as a surprise to Iowa. However, it’ll be interesting to see if Michigan shows more from Orji in this game — and moving forward into any potential playoff matchup — that extends beyond the Bash series.
McCarthy has found great success with duo reads this season, and Michigan has all sorts of other concepts similar to these in the bag. If Orji can be trusted to throw the ball even just a little bit, Michigan could add a really valuable piece down the stretch and save some of McCarthy’s health.
Alex Orji breaks away for a big gain pic.twitter.com/BoLcb4GaRX
— FOX College Football November 25, 2023
For the Hawkeyes, the path to victory is the same as it is every week: find a way to fluster the opponent, no matter what’s going on with the offense.
QB Deacon Hill is a hulking 6-foot-3, 258-pound sophomore with a massive arm. However, he’s yet to harness it. Out of the 116 FBS quarterbacks with at least 200 attempts, Hill’s off-target rate ranks ... 116th. So, as usual, Iowa will look to manage the game. But, like when Iowa lost 31-0 to Penn State earlier this year, Michigan’s defense could make Saturday’s game a laugher if the Hawkeyes can’t find a way to run the ball a little bit.
For McCarthy, the biggest — and most fair — question scouts and evaluators have is whether he can put his team on his back if his run game isn’t clicking. The Ohio State game provided more data than the Penn State game, but hardly an overwhelming amount.
For me, McCarthy is a QB prospect who should land in the back half of Round 1 this draft. But he might wind up closer to mid-Round 2 on a few boards simply because there’s not enough of that desired data. His arm talent, acceleration, IQ and competitiveness are all things scouts love.
Iowa’s offense is bad. Everyone knows that. But its defense is outstanding, and it’ll provide another terrific test of McCarthy’s NFL readiness — and a chance for him to add to his ring collection.
(Photo of J.J. McCarthy: Keith Gillett / Icon Sportswire via )