J.J. McCarthy reveals how Bowling Green game impacted him

J.J. McCarthy had a bad game against Bowling Green earlier this year, there’s no sugarcoating it. The Michigan quarterback revealed it impacted him moving forward and since then, he’s looked like one of the best signal callers in the country.

McCarthy finished that 31-6 win eight-of-13 passing for 143 yards, two touchdowns and three interceptions. Those are the only three interceptions he’s thrown in eight games.

Basically, McCarthy’s been practically perfect since then.

“One of the biggest things I live by is staying humble and staying hungry,” McCarthy said. “And I feel like going into that game you know, I’m gonna have more touchdowns than incompletions. I just had to get reminded by God a little bit to stay humble. You know, respect every opponent no matter who it is, and yeah, I just feel like that just changed a lot of my mindset each and every week each, every day.” 

How does McCarthy stay humble? The Michigan quarterback kept it simple.

“I just keep it very simple,” McCarthy said. “It’s very simple, you know, focus on my day to day wins that I’m trying to accomplish every single day like just getting the cold tub or just having that bone broth that I have every single morning. Just little stuff like that, where, you know, just keep things in perspective for me and just head down, focus on getting better.”

On the season, McCarthy has 1,799 yards, 18 touchdowns, three interceptions and a 78.1% completion percentage.

McCarthy wants to stay humble and the Bowling Green game reminded him to do that every week. But there’s a bigger spotlight on him now due to the Michigan quarterback being the Heisman Trophy favorite.

“It’s a tremendous honor but, at the end of the day, I could care less about that,” McCarthy said. “I don’t really care about trophies. I care about championships. That’s the same thing that this entire team cares about. It’s a tremendous honor but we’re going to still focus on our goals and getting better every single day.”

As a member of the Class of 2021, McCarthy was a four-star recruit out of La Grange Park (Ill.) IMG Academy (Fla.), according to the On3 Industry Ranking, a weighted average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies. He was the No. 12 overall prospect in the state of Florida, the No. 9 quarterback in the class and the No. 47 overall prospect in the class.