Offense notes: J.J. McCarthy delivers 'titanic effort,' but miscues doom title hopes

On paper, Michigan football’s offensive output would suggest a victory and trip to the national championship game. They finished the day with 527 yards of total offense and 45 points. It should have been enough to get it done.

It was not, losing to the TCU Horned Frogs by a score of 51-45, ending the season abruptly with the biggest prize now off the table.

Two of TCU’s touchdowns came via interceptions for touchdowns gifted to them by sophomore quarterback J.J. McCarthy. We got the full McCarthy experience on Saturday, throwing for 343 yards, 2 touchdowns, and 2 picks. McCarthy was also responsible for a gargantuan comeback that allowed him to have the ball in his hands with the game on the line.

“It was a titanic effort. Just a phenomenal effort by J.J, a titan of an effort. I am so proud of him just like he was my own son,” head coach Jim Harbaugh said after the game. “What a competitor he is. Ronnie Bell, Mike Sainristil, I could go on.”

Harbaugh continued: “The J.J. McCarthy that I know on a day-in, day-out basis, daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, he’s a great player, great talented player, great athlete, great leader. And the best thing about him is he always puts the team above himself. Tremendous competitor. Just phenomenal.

“His first season as a starter, I don’t think there’s anybody that’s ever done anything quite like what he did this year. And that was true in this game. The throws that he was making, and the throws that Ronnie Bell and Roman Wilson and Colston Loveland and the guys were catching. I mean, it was at a very, very high level. No question about that.”

McCarthy answered only one question in the postgame press conference before walking out of his session. He made sure to give credit to the TCU defense but vowed Michigan would return to the national stage.

“All credit to them,” McCarthy said. “They won the game in the 60 minutes that were played. They’re a good football team. No matter what it is, they got the win. Fought our hearts out. There’s a lot of things that we could have done better. Can’t wait to watch the tape. But we’ll be back, and I promise that.”

Red zone woes doom Michigan

There are plenty of things that went into Michigan’s loss to TCU, but its wonky playcalling and miscues in the red zone doomed them in the Fiesta Bowl. The Wolverines scored on 5 of their 7 opportunities inside the 20-yard line, but the two misses were critical, and had massive repercussions on the game. An attempted trick play on the opening drive – emulating the Philly Special – was a misfire. Then, after the officials erroneously overturned a Roman Wilson touchdown, running back convert Kalel Mullings fumbled the handoff exchange from McCarthy on first-and-goal from the half-yard line.

Regardless of what happened before then, they go on the stat sheet as squandered opportunities.

“We were one short of executing the touchdown, the turnover,” Harbaugh said after the game. “They made their fair share of mistakes. We made ours. They made their big plays. We made our big plays.
And we just had one fewer big play, one less misfire.”

The trick play on the opening drive was especially maddening. Michigan was too strong up front throughout the year to rely on tricks and tomfoolery that early in the game. Harbaugh wore that play call and owned it in his press conference.

“We thought it would work. I take full responsibility for it not working, and should have had something different called,” he said. “Put that one on me. They had it wired and they had it well-defended. Sitting here now, definitely wish I would have called a different one.”

Those miscues, added in with the 2 pick-sixes, made a 45-point output disappointing. It could have, and should have, been so much more.

Back to the drawing board

Sophomore running back Donovan Edwards did his best to step in for Blake Corum, but was unable to replicate a 54-yard run on the first play from scrimmage. Take away that run, and he had 22 rushes for 65 yards. Michigan’s dominant run game was far from it. TCU vowed it would stop the run and backed it up.

Michigan was thrown off schedule and, as a result, thrown off its road to a national title.

“It sucks that we lost the game,” Edwards said. “Our whole season preparation has been to win a national championship, and this is the second year that we have lost in the 14th game of the season. So we’re just like, ‘We will be back.’ Same thing we said last year.”

Michigan now has to go back to its roots and put in the same amount of work it did to reach the heights it found in 2021 and 2022. Edwards and McCarthy will again factor in to a hopeful championship contender.

“It ain’t nothing to it. Just back to the drawing board, you know? It’s like we got a good amount of the same people that were here last year and this year. So the new guys that are here this year, they understand what it takes.

“The freshmen that were here, Will Johnston, Colston Loveland, et cetera, et cetera, they understand what it takes and the preparation that we have to be able to be in positions like this. So we’ll be back.”

Miscellaneous U-M offensive notes

• Michigan had 527 yards of total offense against TCU (342 passing, 185 rushing).

• McCarthy’s 12 wins to start his career are the most in program history prior to his first loss as a starter vs. TCU.

• McCarthy’s 343 yards passing made for his second career game over the 300-yard mark, surpassing his 304 yards at Indiana this season.

• Edwards rushed for 100-plus yards for the fifth time this season and third straight game, finishing with 119 yards.

• Senior wide receiver Ronnie Bell led the team with his best receiving game of the year with 6 catches for 135 yards and a touchdown, his fourth of the season through the air and fifth overall.

• Junior Kalel Mullings scored his third career touchdown run on a 1-yard rush in the third quarter.