Michigan football quarterback facing crucial mental test

Tomorrow, Michigan football quarterback JJ McCarthy will look to lead his second-ranked Wolverines to a fourth-straight win, with the Rutgers Scarlet Knights coming to town. Last weekend, McCarthy struggled against Bowling Green, throwing three picks and under 150 yards against the Falcons en route to a 31-6 victory all said and done. This week, it appears that Jim Harbaugh is confident in his junior QB, yet the fact still remains that tomorrow is going to be a huge test for JJ and the offense.

Michigan football quarterback JJ Mcarthy looking to bounce back after down week against BGSU

During Weeks 1 and 2 of the season, JJ McCarthy was nearly perfect, boasting five touchdown passes and the nation’s best QBR heading into last weekend. Still, a shaky performance — which still saw McCarthy complete eight of his 13 passes for over 140 yards and a pair of touchdowns, as well as his three picks — has some fans worried about what this weekend may look like.

Now, not that the Rutgers Scarlet Knights are the best team that Michigan football will face all year — they aren’t — but RU still has a top-10 defense right now. More importantly, we are about to see how the junior Michigan football quarterback responds to a down game, something that we really haven’t gotten to see much of so far from McCarthy.

Jim Harbaugh still has full trust in his quarterback to right the ship

Rutgers ranks towards the middle of the pack when it comes to passing defense (55th), so JJ McCarthy and Michigan may want to air it out quite a bit tomorrow. Additionally, 9th-year head coach Jim Harbaugh will be back from suspension, so if anything goes wrong, there will be some immediate troubleshooting done. According to Harbaugh, JJ’s subpar Week 3 performance was not a trend that the Wolverines expect to continue; instead, it was simply the “law of averages” coming into play.

“The law of averages is going to catch up to you at some point,” Michigan football coach Jim Harbaugh said of JJ McCarthy earlier this week. “And you do what you can to keep those balls in the air. They want to come down. Where were we, where were we just at? We were comparing touchdowns to incompletions ratio, we weren’t talking touchdowns to interceptions because there hadn’t been any. I mean that — there’s no way that’s gonna continue. It’s not going to happen that way.”

Michigan football enters Week 3 as a 24-point favorite

JJ McCarthy, Jim Harbaugh, and Michigan football will take the field tomorrow at noon (ET) against Rutgers. Right now, the Wolverines are 24-point favorites to open Big Ten play with a victory, though before betting, keep in mind that the Maize and Blue are 0-3 against the spread so far this year.

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