This time of year in college football, fans engage in more talk about floors and ceilings than contractors. Around tailgates, bars and online message boards, players get pigeon-holed as capable of leading a team to a mountaintop, spiraling a season out of control, both results, or neither. That’s especially common at the quarterback position, as teams have proven for years that elite quarterback play can crash the national title picture more than anything else a non-elite team can do, and sub-standard quarterback play can get coaches fired.
It’s often an unfair way to analyze players and teams. Cade McNamara, for example, gets cast aside by fans and media members as a low-ceiling player despite literally delivering Michigan its best season in a generation last fall.
But Saturday night, as Michigan rolled Hawaii, 56-10, the armchair analysts scored a victory. J. J. McCarthy completed 11 of 12 passes for 229 yards and three touchdowns in the rout, dazzling tens of thousands of eyebrows in the process. The Wolverines’ five-star backup quarterback looked exactly like fans had hoped, and did everything right in his first try under the microscope.
Following Michigan’s win, Harbaugh didn’t have to political or tiptoe. Last week’s show-stealing relief performance from McCarthy didn’t look like a fluke, and the fourth-ranked Wolverines’ ceiling looked as high as it has in a long, long time.
A decision millions had spent months debating and pondering had been made mere minutes after the game had ended.
(This story continues below.)