Michigan Football: Post-spring quarterback thoughts for Wolverines

Michigan football wrapped up spring practices earlier this month and here’s a breakdown of the quarterback position post-spring. 

It’s a pretty good time to be a Michigan football fan. The Wolverines have won back-to-back Big Ten championships and for the second year in a row, they return their starting quarterback.

Of course, as we know, J.J. McCarthy was able to overtake the 2020 starting quarterback, Cade McNamara, on his way to winning the job last season.

Once he had the stellar showing against Hawaii, the job was his and it proved to be the right decision after a 13-0 regular season, a win at Ohio State, and a damn good first season as a starter for McCarthy.

McCarthy completed 64.6 percent of his passes and averaged 8.4 yards per attempt. That’s legit and even though he did a lot of dink and dunking last season, from the Ohio State game on, McCarthy connected on plenty of deep balls and I’d expect to see that continue this season.

Overall, McCarthy accounted for 27 touchdowns (22 passing) and had just five interceptions. He was elite in terms of taking care of the ball while also offering some elite playmaking.

McCarthy is no game manager and as good as the running back room is, I think he’ll emerge as the Wolverines’ best Heisman Trophy candidate in 2023.

Blake Corum and Donovan Edwards could each run for 1,000 yards but I don’t see either having big enough numbers to win the Heisman. McCarthy might. More importantly, he seems poised to win a bunch more games as a starter this season.

However, as we learned this spring, McCarthy isn’t the only solid quarterback on the roster.

Looking at Michigan football’s backup QBs

I liked what I saw from Michigan’s quarterbacks during the spring game. Davis Warren put together some productive drives and now that he’s on scholarship, he’s a name to remember for the future.

If McCarthy heads to the NFL after this season, I anticipate Warren battling freshman Jadyn Davis for the job starting next spring, since Davis is expected to enroll early.

Alex Orji also had some good moments this spring and impressed me with his arm. At some point, I bet he’ll have a specialized role in this offense and if he continues to develop as a passer, especially in terms of accuracy, the former four-star recruit could have starter potential too.

Keeping all of those quarterbacks will be tough, but going into the future, there are multiple options at starter, although Davis is obviously the best long-term after McCarthy.

In terms of this season, Jack Tuttle also impressed me. I know his spring game stats weren’t the best. But he’s played in the Big Ten and is more athletic than I realized. If needed, I have confidence in both Warren and Tuttle in a pinch.

I’m not saying either is going to lead Michigan to a win over Ohio State next season, but they are more than capable of playing solid football if it was needed and the development of the young QBs (Orji/Warren/Jayden Denegal) is something to watch moving forward into the fall.

All in all, the quarterback position is in a good place, just like Michigan football.