Wolverine TV: Five takeaways from Michigan's 30-3 win over East Carolina
TheWolverine.com‘s Clayton Sayfie breaks down five takeaways from Michigan Wolverines football‘s 30-3 season-opening win over East Carolina. Watch in the video player above. Listen in the embed below or search ‘The Wolverine’ wherever you get your podcasts.
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Michigan quarterback J.J. McCarthy had a stellar performance, the basis for our first takeaway. He finished 26 of 30 passing for 280 yards and 3 touchdowns. The pass game took advantage of what the defense was giving them, with East Carolina stacking the box.
“J.J., he’s somebody you want to follow because of how hard he works, the type of leader he is, the type of consistent person he is,” Michigan defensive coordinator and interim head coach Jesse Minter said. “I told him one day in training camp I’ve never been around a more consistent player or leader. He gets excited when the offense makes a play, but the cool thing is it might be the backup quarterback makes a great throw and he runs out there getting exited.
“His level of confidence, consistency as a leader leads to performances like that. He works really hard; he’s put in a ton of work from January until now. Like a lot of the guys, you see fruits of the labor when you put in that type of work in the offseason. This team’s been really focused on the process over the year. We were ready to go out there and play week one, so it was exciting to see.”
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The Michigan offense and defense both got the job done in the first win, even though there are some things to clean up.
“To shortchange any win in college football I think is ridiculous,” Minter said. “These guys over the years have played really well in these type of environments, these type of games. Any time you get a chance to play against another team, you really want to play … it’s not about them. You want to play up to the standard you have for yourself. Our guys just really wanted to play well. It’s certainly great to play against other teams. Take these first three games to No. 1, win, because most important that allows our goals to stay intact to get better each week. It will be fun trying to make those improvements going into week two.”
Michigan will take on UNLV next weekend at The Big House.
