Michigan Football: Five questions for Wolverines in The Game

Can JJ McCarthy really step up this week?

Listen, it’s no secret that JJ McCarthy hasn’t quite lived up to the hype in terms of production this season, but if he leads Michigan football to a victory, all of the criticism of his play goes out the window. He will be definitely be forgiven.

The thing is though, we haven’t seen evidence to suggest that McCarthy can (aside from the Indiana game) step up and make the throws when necessary.

If Blake Corum or Donovan Edwards or both running backs do not play against Ohio State, can Michigan lean on McCarthy’s arm to go out and win the game?

I’m a little skeptical of that.

At the same time though, McCarthy has wanted to beat OSU as the starting QB at Michigan ever since he got to campus.

JJ has posted numerous memes targeted at Ohio State and has been counting down the days until the OSU game on his Instagram for months.

Plus, JJ has another motivating factor to beat OSU (aside from just wanting to beat a rival): revenge.

JJ actually grew up an Ohio State fan. (Ironic, right?). When JJ was in high school, Ryan Day apparently told him that OSU wouldn’t be taking a quarterback until the end of the summer (2021).

JJ took his official visit, but when he got there, he didn’t feel the love and family atmosphere like he expected, and it almost felt like OSU didn’t really want him.

Well, his gut feeling turned out to be right, as, on April 30th, Kyle McCord committed to Ohio State, thus leaving JJ McCarthy in limbo, confused and hurt, because Ryan Day lied to him about what he actually meant to their program and supposedly how “special” he was.

We all know how the story ends. JJ ended up committing to Ohio State’s rival, the Michigan Wolverines, and the rest is history.

I went back to the past to dig up old information because I want to mention that if there’s one game where I think JJ will make sure to play his ass off, it’d be this game.

Not just because of the rivalry and how important it is to beat the Buckeyes, but because JJ was lied to, and this rivalry hits more on a personal level than average.

We’ll see if JJ can step up, but I think this is the game we could finally see JJ hit his deep shots and play like the five-star QB we’ve wanted to see all year.

Hopefully, Donovan Edwards, Luke Schoonmaker, and Trevor Keegan, all return to help out the offense and JJ McCarthy.