ESPN Breaks Down Michigan's Quarterback Situation

Cade McNamara just led Michigan to a 12-2 record, a huge win over Ohio State, a dominating win over Iowa to win a Big Ten title and an appearance in the College Football Playoff. Yet there's a huge faction of the fanbase that believes it's time for JJ McCarthy to be U-M's quarterback.

Our own Chris Breiler recently penned an article explaining why McCarthy should get the nod citing his athleticism, Michigan's schedule, the surrounding personnel and the overall timing. It's hard to argue against those points, but damn...we all saw that McNamara did last year.

ESPN's David M. Hale published an article earlier today assigning all starting quarterbacks to a tier. For example, only three quarterbacks — Ohio State's CJ Stroud, Alabama's Bryce Young and USC's Caleb Williams — ended up in Tier 1, which is titled "Heisman or bust". That seems a little extreme, but all three players should probably toss nearly 50 touchdowns and have their teams in playoff contention.

Hale puts both McNamara and McCarthy in Tier 7: You might not have noticed, but they're pretty good, and then had this to say about them.

What to make of the Michigan QB situation? McNamara led the Wolverines to the College Football Playoff last season and became the first Michigan QB to beat Ohio State since Denard Robinson, a decade earlier. That he struggled against Georgia's defense in the Orange Bowl simply puts McNamara in a long line of QBs who met their match against the Bulldogs. Yet, it's impossible to look at McCarthy's talent and not have visions of an even brighter future with a more dynamic QB -- one who might ultimately be good enough to test even the toughest of defenses. Still, Michigan went the better part of a decade trying to find just one decent option at QB, so perhaps Wolverines fans shouldn't be so quick to assume they have two capable starters now.

It is tricky. McCarthy seems to have much more upside, but it's almost all theoretical. We did see him make some amazing throws and utilize his athleticism at times last year, but he was never in control of the offense and never had to command the huddle and engineer clutch drives. McNamara did do some of that. We all saw what actually happened with him under center last season.

Of course, this year's version of Michigan's defense figures to be a little more porous than last year's, which means the offense will need to be more dynamic, efficient and explosive. The offense was those things last year, but largely because of the running game only. Michigan might very well be able to lean on the running game again in 2022, but imagine adding a dual-threat, live-armed gunslinger to that unit. That's what has McCarthy supporters begging for a changing of the guard.

Whoever wins the job is going to have a lot to work with. The wide receiver room is smart, experienced, talented and fast. The running back duo of Blake Corum and Donovan Edwards might be the best in the Big Ten and has a chance to be one of the best one-two punches in the entire country. A big reason for that is because the offensive line might actually be better than the unit that won the Joe Moore Award last year with NFL prospect Olu Oluwatimi in at center and a more athletic option at right tackle regardless of who wins the job. Throw in versatile and athletic tight ends Erick All and Luke Schoonmaker and you have what could be one of the most prolific Michigan offenses in the history of the program.

With the right quarterback...