Michigan football quarterback earns high praise from Minnesota coach

This week, the Wolverines head to Minneapolis to face the Minnesota Golden Gophers. Leading up to the Week 6 Big Ten bout, Gopher head coach PJ Fleck took some time to give major praise to Michigan football quarterback JJ McCarthy, who is currently viewed as the top QB in the Big Ten and beyond.

Michigan football quarterback is on a roll

Michigan football quarterback JJ McCarthy has not seen a down of action in the fourth quarter this year, yet still has stats that are among the nation’s best. Through five games, McCarthy has completed over 79% of his passes for 1,071 yards, 10 touchdowns, and three picks — his 94.2 QBR is the best of any quarterback in the country right now.

PJ Fleck praises JJ McCarthy

Minnesota head coach PJ Fleck is yet to face JJ McCarthy; however, he is very familiar with the former five-star QB and is heading into this weekend with high expectations for the Wolverines’ junior signal caller.

“First of all, I got a chance to recruit JJ (McCarthy),” PJ Fleck said. “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.”

Wolverines’ have a great leader under center

JJ McCarthy has been known to be an elite leader for Michigan football, especially since taking over as QB1 at the beginning of the 2022 season. Jim Harbaugh says that Michigan plays team ball — his “we-fense” — which is something that JJ appears to be all-in on.

“You get back to, you know, coach (Jim) Harbaugh’s ‘We-fense,’ and he’s all about the team, the team, the team, the team,” Fleck said. “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. But he is very efficient at throwing the football. 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.”

Michigan football set to face Minnesota this weekend

As I have mentioned in the past, JJ McCarthy is closing in on a Michigan football passing record this fall — he has between 7-10 more games to throw 16 more touchdown passes, breaking the school’s single-season record. Right now, that number sits at 25 (Chad Henne), though if McCarthy can keep balling out, there may be a new name in Michigan’s record books.

This weekend, Michigan football puts its perfect record to the test for the sixth time in a row — the Wolverines will face Minnesota at 7:30 PM in Minneapolis on Saturday.

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