Michigan Quarterbacks Coach Matt Weiss With Strong Words About Cade McNamara, JJ McCarthy
As Michigan's new quarterbacks coach, Matt Weiss is learning a lot in a hurry. He's never coached quarterbacks before and most recently coached on the defensive side of the ball with the Baltimore Ravens, making spring ball extremely important for him. On the most recent episode of the In The Trenches podcast with Jon Jansen, Weiss had great things to say about Cade McNamara. Weiss even did something Jim Harbaugh never does when talking about his quarterbacks.
"Cade is a guy who, I think for everything people are going to say or criticize him — he’s a guy who’s going to play 10 years in the NFL," Weiss explained. "You can say he’s not enough of this or enough of that, but at the end of the day, he’s very smart, makes great decisions, he processes things very fast and his accuracy and arm strength are more than enough to win with. He’s a guy that’s been awesome to work with. He’s extremely valuable to our team as our starter. I love the fact that we have him."
Harbaugh has never announced a starter during fall camp let alone during spring ball, so this is an interesting change of pace. However, true freshman JJ McCarthy will grow a lot from now until fall camp, and graduate transfer Alan Bowman isn't even on campus yet. Still, Weiss obviously likes McNamara a lot and has also been very impressed by the youngster.
"JJ is a highly talented guy," Weiss said. "Arm strength, mobility, great athlete — all that stuff is obvious as soon as you step on the field with him.
"I’ve been even more impressed with his approach to things. His maturity is far beyond his years. Early in the spring, I was asking about his routine — how he gets ready for practice, how he gets ready for games — as an 18-year old, your kind of expecting not much to be there, and he went through his whole routine of how he clears his mind, how he does his shoulder exercises. I’m sitting here thinking, ‘Man, can I get a copy of that?’ He’s been impressive in a lot of ways. I think for him, it’s a question of when, not if."
Weiss also talked about redshirt freshman Dan Villari and the rest of the quarterback room, who we likely won't see, but certainly play a part in the growth of who is on the field.
"You also have Dan Villari, who’s extremely talented, too," Weiss said. "He has arm strength, he has mobility. I've been working with him and he for sure is a guy who could develop into a really good player for us.
"Then you have the other guys as well, the walk-ons, who fill a valuable role for us. Ren Hefley, Peyton Smith, Max Wittwer and we have JD [Johnson] and Andy [Maddox] in the room, too, who are very valuable as signalers. It’s a great room. I’ve been really impressed with the talent in the room. That certainly was a draw to come here."
Even though Weiss doesn't have much experience with QBs, he's excited about the opportunity and really likes the idea of what a signal caller does in a college offense.
"Quarterback gives you the opportunity where you can hold the chalk last," he said. "Whether it’s an adjustment in a drop, or a change in a protection, or even in an audible with where you want to go with the ball, there’s opportunities to teach those things. That’s one of the really fun things about football — the strategic element of it."
