Colorado State, Hawaii To Face Different Michigan Quarterbacks In Weeks 1 And 2
Jim Harbaugh’s Michigan Wolverines will use the Mountain West to determine their quarterback competition.
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Well, that’s one way to do it.
Plenty of college football teams go into a season still trying to resolve a quarterback competition, but few have gone to the lengths that Michigan Wolverines head coach Jim Harbaugh intends to address his own.
QB Update pic.twitter.com/hwDJQmETQK
— Michigan Football (@UMichFootball) August 27, 2022
In a statement put out by Michigan football’s official Twitter, Harbaugh said that his Wolverines are “not ready to say who [their] starting quarterback is”. It goes on to clarify that Cade McNamara, who started 14 games in the team’s run to the College Football Playoff last season, will be under center when they host Colorado State in Week 1. The following week, challenger J.J. McCarthy will get his turn to start against Hawaii.
Where such competitions are often considered on a drive-by-drive or quarter-by-quarter basis, both McNamara and McCarthy will get a sixty-minute audition against a pair of Mountain West defenses that, from Harbaugh’s implied perspective, will be roughly as productive as each other in 2022.
McNamara completed 210 of his 327 pass attempts for 2,576 yards, 15 touchdowns and six interceptions last year, leading the Wolverines to their first outright Big Ten championship since 2003. McCarthy, by contrast, didn’t start but saw action in 11 different games throughout 2021, completing 34-of-59 passes for 516 yards, five touchdowns and two interceptions.
