75 days until Michigan football: 'They said the kid couldn't throw the deep ball'
There’s much anticipation heading into the Michigan Wolverines football season, and TheWolverine.com is counting down the days until the Sept. 2 opener against East Carolina. We’ll discuss current Michigan events, the upcoming season and/or take a look at a significant number that correlates with how many days remain until kickoff, whether it be a player’s jersey number, a year, a date, a score, etc.
Michigan’s deep passing game was a subject of conversation during the entire 2022 season. The Wolverines had shown some flashes but failed to connect on many of them week after week. Players, coaches, media and fans all discussed it all year. Junior quarterback J.J. McCarthy, in each meeting with media, insisted the team was working on it behind the scenes, and that it was only a matter of time until it translated to games.
McCarthy spent most of the previous offseason injured, before battling for the starting quarterback job. The struggles were understandable given those two things leading to the lack of reps, but the Michigan offense was so good in just about every other area that fans wanted to unlock that missing piece.
Michigan did just enough to survive in a 19-17 win over Illinois the week before heading to play Ohio State. That included McCarthy leading a game-winning field goal drive with some nice completions down the stretch. But overall, the pass game was still lacking. McCarthy connected on 52.9 percent of his throws against the Illini, the third-straight week with a completion percentage less than 53.
“Does Michigan have enough offensive firepower to beat Ohio State” pundit after pundit asked all week long ahead of the No. 2 vs. No. 3 battle in Columbus. It was a fair question, too, with senior running back Blake Corum‘s status questionable (knee).
To that point in the season, on throws of 20-plus yards in the air, McCarthy had completed 11 of his 36 passes for 363 yards and 3 touchdowns with 1 interception.
He went out and hit on 3 of them against Ohio State, totaling 153 yards and 2 scores on those plays. He hit graduate wideout Cornelius Johnson on a 75-yard post pattern over the middle to put Michigan up 17-14 in the second quarter, just after he connected with the same receiver for a 69-yard score.
“They said the kid couldn’t throw the deep ball” FOX play-by-play announcer Gus Johnson said after McCarthy hit Johnson for the second touchdown.
“Well, he did there!” analyst Joel Klatt chimed in.
In the third quarter, Michigan’s quarterback found sophomore tight end Colston Loveland on a 45-yard touchdown strike, also a deep ball.
That performance from McCarthy helped springboard him to have more success with longer passes in Michigan’s final two games.
• Ohio State: 3-of-7 for 153 yards and 2 touchdowns
• Purdue: 3-of-6 for 82 yards and 2 touchdowns with 1 interception
• TCU: 5-of-7 for 203 yards and 1 touchdown
• Season: 22-of-56 for 801 yards and 8 touchdowns with 2 interceptions
With 75 days until Michigan kicks off the season, we can’t fail to mention junior running back Donovan Edwards‘ 75-yard touchdown run to put Michigan up 38-23 over Ohio State, before he ran 85 yards for a score to stick a fork in the Buckeyes.
Michigan ranked tied 18th nationally with 36 plays of 30-plus yards last season. Six of them came in one of the biggest games, against the Buckeyes, including 5 touchdowns of 45 or more yards.
Michigan football countdown to kickoff
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