The Michigan football team is 5-0 to start the season after a big road win against Nebraska last week. The Wolverines are firing on all cylinders to begin the year, and they are currently ranked #2 in the country. A big reason for their success is quarterback JJ McCarthy. McCarthy has looked outstanding for Michigan so far this season, and he is currently leading the nation in QBR. This is the best QB play we have seen from the Wolverines in a long time.

Michigan football is back on the road this weekend and they will play Minnesota football for The Little Brown Jug. The Golden Gophers are going to have their hands full trying to contain McCarthy, and head coach PJ Fleck knows it.

“First of all, I got a chance to recruit JJ (McCarthy),” PJ Fleck said, according to an article from Blue By Ninety. “Not for very long, but I got a chance to recruit him. You know he’s very consistent in what he does. You could tell he’s an overachiever, he’s the ultimate competitor, but not only that, he connects the football team. Every time you watch JJ McCarthy talk in the media, he’s talking about somebody else. He’s talking about somebody else, he’s talking about his teammates, he’s talking about what makes — somebody asked him a question about himself, he’s talking about, ‘Well, these guys make me better.’ That’s a selfless teammate.”

That's the culture of this Michigan football program right now. Everybody is together, and it is a culture that Jim Harbaugh created there. It's special, and Fleck has noticed it.

“You get back to, you know, coach Harbaugh’s ‘We-fense,’ and he’s all about the team, the team, the team, the team,” Fleck continued. “His players speak the exact same language he does, and that’s when you know you have something. When the best players are not only the hardest workers, but when they’re in the media, they sound just like their head coach. That’s when you have something really special, and that’s authentic, it’s real.”

Fleck has also noticed that JJ McCarthy embodies that culture, and that's what helps make him so special.

“he is very efficient at throwing the football,” Fleck said. “I mean, he’s got a high completion percentage. You know their run game sets up their pass game, and then if they need to, it unravels the defense very quickly. And then they can run the football with efficiency and make the game really short. They control the time of possession, and he’s a big distributor of that. I mean, he’s the ultimate assist, like in basketball, he just continues to collect assists. Very efficient player and ultra competitor, you can tell, all about the team. So nothing but praise for him.”

 

 

JJ McCarthy has 10 touchdowns passes on the season so far for the Wolverines. We'll see if he adds more to that total on Saturday when Michigan goes up against Fleck's Gophers.