Michigan football: The J.J. McCarthy vs. Joe Milton NFL Draft debate has already begun

It is not often in recent history that Michigan football has a quarterback in the discussion near the top of the NFL Draft, but the 2024 cycle looks like it could have a few familiar faces in the running. The first is junior J.J. McCarthy, who has been tabbed as a potential first-round pick by many draft pundits recently.

The second is Michigan transfer and Tennessee quarterback Joe Milton, who can throw a pigskin a quarter mile and has already shown promise in the Vols’ pass-happy offense.

The two are linked in interesting ways in Michigan football history despite never playing with each other. Milton started the first five games of the 2020 season before being benched in favor of Cade McNamara, who would go on to lead the Wolverines to a Big Ten title in 2021. McCarthy’s play in 2021 and strong 2022 camp helped him take the starting job from McNamara and lead the Wolverines to another conference crown and College Football Playoff trip in 2022.

Milton transferred out of Michigan during the 2021 offseason and landed at Tennessee, starting the first two games before being benched in favor of Hendon Hooker. Milton stepped into the Tennessee lineup last year when Hooker went down with a torn ACL late in the year. He completed 53-of-82 passes (64.6%) for 971 yards with 10 touchdowns and no picks. Head coach Josh Heupel runs an offense that creates a lot of opportunities through the air and scouts are betting it all clicks for Milton in year six in college.

Pro Football Focus named both in its top-10 draft-eligible quarterbacks for next season, putting Milton and McCarthy at No. 7 and 8, respectively.

“Get ready for a laser show in Knoxville,” PFF writes. “Milton has the strongest arm in college football and quite frankly, it might not be very close. His 11.1% big-time throw rate easily led all FBS signal-callers with at least 100 dropbacks. He has fewer than 700 career snaps across his five seasons at Michigan and Tennessee, so it’ll be interesting to see how he handles the starting job this season.”

McCarthy started the final 13 games of the season for Michigan, throwing for 2,719 yards with 22 touchdowns and 5 interceptions and 70 rushes for 306 yards and 5 scores. McCarthy’s ability to create plays when things break down for Michigan is among the reasons he could be of interest.

“McCarthy seized the starting job from Cade McNamara in the second game of the season and didn’t look back, quarterbacking Michigan to its second straight Big Ten title and playoff berth,” PFF says. “He thrives outside of the original play design. McCarthy’s five passing touchdowns outside of structure were tied with Maye and trailed only Williams and Bryce Young among Power Five quarterbacks. He needs to improve his consistency, as he had four games with sub-60 grades in 2022.”

Could Michigan unleash J.J. McCarthy in 2023?

Michigan knows it has a dual-threat weapon in McCarthy, but had him operate mostly out of the structure of the traditional offense last year. As the layers got peeled back, Michigan unlocked more of his abilities and head coach Jim Harbaugh openly wondered this offseason how much more they could do with him.

“Well, it’s a really good question,” Harbaugh said. “And something I’ve really thought about. I look at J.J.’s first whole first season as a starter and all the things he faced. Good, bad, cheered, booed. Hit run, throw — everything he did, it’s about as good as you could be. As a first-year starter, no question about it. I don’t think anybody’s ever seen anything — I haven’t seen anything like that, first-year starting quarterback. 13-0 on Christmas and we’ve never been undefeated at Christmas. And then I call that a season for him.

“The TCU game in itself I think was practically like a whole season of experience. Because of all the things that happened. Behind, come back, really behind, come back, really good. Every up-down hit. He was just in so many football situations in that game, it was almost like a whole season. So it was really good.

“This program has become like — good. OK, we lost that game, but it drives us, it makes us even more hungry. Something else comes up — good. We’ll work on that, we’ll fix that.”