It's the problem any football coach would love to have.
It's the "What do I do with all this inheritance?" problem. The "Which high-paying executive position should I take?" dilemma. The "Who's the supermodel that will accompany me to the awards ceremony" conund... okay you get the idea.
To say Jim Harbaugh has an embarrassment of riches at the quarterback position is putting it mildly. This is a coach who's relied on transfers from Iowa (Jake Rudock) and Ole Miss (Shea Patterson) for half of his six years at Michigan. The man has been so desperate for a catalyzing presence behind center that he let a catch-lightning-in-a-bottle hunch dictate his choice of an underqualified and underconfident Joe Milton to run the Wolverine offense last season, with disasterous results. Now, instead of trying to find one quarterback, he's in the position of having to choose from two.
His choice thus far has been Cade McNamera, the junior who came off the bench on a chilly night in New Brunswick, New Jersey, last November and saved Michigan's bacon, turning near-certain defeat to Rutgers into a triple-overtime win in an otherwise forgettable 2-4 season. Cade has been good. He's been very good, in fact. Good enough to lead the Wolverines to a 7-0 record and the nation's #6 ranking. Solid enough to compile a very reliable completion percentage of 63%, surrendering a single interception in 146 pass attempts. And a game manager extraordinare, enabling the Wolverines to run an exhausting 92 plays from scrimmage and control the ball for nearly 40 minutes of Saturday's 33-7 submission hold over visiting Northwestern.
Playing the role of the patient understudy is true freshman J.J. McCarthy. A five-star quarterback from the prestigious IMG Academy, the nation's #2 high school prospect last season and Harbaugh's best QB recruit ever--including some kid named Andrew Luck. In a word, McCarthy's presence has been electrifying. As catalyzing an effect on the Wolverine offense as anyone since Denard "Shoelace" Robinson, a sprinter on Michigan's track and field team with a 4.32 40-yard dash who in 2010 became the only player in NCAA history to both pass and rush for 1,500 yards.
The first touchdown pass of J.J.'s college career was a highlight reel in and of itself. The 18-year-old redhead from La Grange, Illinois, scrambled to his left, cutting through defenders and outrunning a Western Michigan lineman along the Michigan sideline before lofting a missle across his body and across the field to the opposite sideline 40 yards on a rope, hitting not-all-that-open wideout Daylen Bladwin in stride for a most improbable 69-yard score. Wolverine fans who've waited years for a savior at the position started buzzing, and they haven't stopped since.
That buzzing quickly turned into the whir of a power saw that has cut the Wolverine faithful into rivaling factions. A sizeable portion, many of whom have supported Harbaugh's long and less-than-fruitful tenure in Ann Arbor, feel that Cade is the guy Jimmy should stick with. After all, the team has turned to him for seven Saturdays and they've been victorious each and every time. He's proven himself to be the leader of this team, he led the Wolverines to back-to-back wins in the very hostile environments of Madison, Wisconsin, and Lincoln, Nebraska, rallying his offense with two come-from-behind drives in the fourth quarter at the latter venue to secure a hard-fought win.
Then there's another sizeable portion, many of whom have wanted Harbaugh replaced as head coach, who call on him to pull the trigger on J.J. Yes Michigan is undefeated they say, but the defense is more responsible for that than the quarterback. They cite games against Washington, Rutgers, Wisconsin and Nebraska where the offense had sputtered and the game turned on defensive and special teams plays. Furthermore, while acknowledging that Cade is decent enough, J.J. can do two things better: run and pass. He's the better athlete and has way more up side, and every game he's reduced to spot duty or wildcat situations is a missed opportunity.
So, herein lies the most fortunate of all circumstances. Two Macs, one ball. Who's it gonna be, Jimmy? McNamera or McCarthy? The guy who got you to this point? Or the guy perhaps best equipped to slay the dragons on the remaining schedule, including the equally unexpected top 10 team from East Lansing they face this Saturday and the perennial top 10 team from Ohio that awaits on the final weekend?
Harbaugh's cupboard is so full this season that the one guy with the real-world experience, transfer du jour Alan Borman, isn't even in the discussion, despite amassing over 5,200 passing yards in three years at Texas Tech. In effect, his third-string QB could well have won the starting job in any of Jimmy's previous six seasons in Ann Arbor. Unfortunately for Alan, he landed here the year there were two better options.
No one's sure what Harbaugh will do, if he'll do anything. Currently his offensive strategy appears to be run first, run second and then, when all else fails, throw. Senior Hassan Haskins and sophomore Blake Corum are both among the top five rushers in the Big Ten. A big reason for that is the gelling of the offensive line in front of them, a line that has dominated each opponent in the trenches thus far, allowing just three sacks in seven games. What's resulted is pure run-heavy, Harball-control offense. One of the more predictable in the nation to be sure, orchestrated, ironically, by one of college football's least predictable coaches.
But it's much easier to enforce your will on another team when they're not able to stop what they know is coming. After all this time, Harbaugh must know that he can only bully the teams he's stronger (or smarter) than. The Wolverines' 38-17 upset of Wisconsin was his first as an underdog in 13 tries at Michigan. The line has always been that he wins the games he should, and loses the games he shouldn't. So, with the three best defenses on Michigan's 2021 schedule among the five they've yet to play, are we bracing ourselves for yet another year where the irresistable force becomes much more resistable when facing the immovable object?
History suggests yes. Jimmy is 1-9 in his last two games of the season. But this year, something just feels different. Maybe it's the fact that his contract was extended but his base was a fraction of what it had been, with multiple incentives in place that would pay him the $8-9 million he had been earning, and even more, if he delivers results. Conference championships. College Football Playoff berths. Maybe it's the freshness of his new defensive coordinator, Mike McDonald, a Georgia grad and seven-year Baltimore Ravens assistant offered up by his very own brother John.
Or maybe it's the tall, wiry teenager with a cannon for an arm, jumping onto the field to throw medium-range darts with every TV timeout. The freshman who gave Harbaugh his verbal commitment two and a half years ago. The kid who has nearly a fifth of Cade McNamera's passing yards this season in just 12 completions.
While changing signal-callers mid-stream may seem like a regrettable, palm-sweaty move, history says otherwise. The practice has almost become vogue among the college football elite. Dabo Sweeney replaced starter Kelly Bryant (who ended up transferring to Missouri) with freshman Trevor Lawrence five games into what turned out to be an undefeated national-championship season for Clemson. Nick Saban famously pulled the trigger and replaced Jalen Hurts (who ultimately relocated to Georgia) with true freshman Tua Tagovailoa at halftime of the CFP national championship game, a game Tua won over the Bulldogs with an incredible touchdown heave in overtime. Oklahoma is in the process of doing the same thing, replacing Heisman front-runner Spencer Rattler with freshman Caleb Williams midway through the Red River Showdown with Texas. Williams and the undefeated Sooners overcame a 21-point deficit to beat the Longhorns and save their season.
Michigan was involved in the most famous NFL mid-season switch, when second-year backup Tom Brady filled in for injured starter Drew Bledsoe during the 2001 season. Bledsoe got better but he didn't get his job back, as Bill Billichick chose to stick with the former Wolverine. The move paid off with the Patriots' first-ever Super Bowl championship. And Harbaugh himself pulled the trigger on his own quarterback, inserting Colin Kaepernick in place of Alex Smith halfway through what turned out to be an NFC championship season for the San Francisco 49ers. All of these moves took brass balls, yet all paid off in spectacular fashion.
Which brings us to the situation in Ann Arbor. There's little question between the two, who the better quarterback is. It seems clear that both can win. But can both play on the same field as the CFP giants?
I don't think I've ever used the G word with this coach. But the one thing that in retrospect may be a genius move, is that no opponent has seen enough of J.J. to scout against him. If Jimmy brought him in to run the offense in the second half, I don't think MSU would know what hit them. It's one of those rare things where he's got the kid a decent enough amount of game time to get him comfortable with the first unit on the field, but not really enough exposure for anyone to scheme a defense to stop him.
The more I think about it, the more I think he's trying to see how sparingly he can use him and keep the team winning games. He might be able to get out of EL with a win running the offense the way he has, and MSU will be the last ranked team they face before OSU. So he could keep J.J. in his back pocket and make the move right before he plays the Nuts. A team he's never beaten, a team who'd be coming off a big game against MSU, a team as ripe for losing to Michigan as they've been in years. A team that wouldn't know what hit them.
Who knows if that's reaally going through Harbaugh's head. But I'd rather tell myself it is than allow me to think that he doesn't know what he's got.
