JJ McCarthy Is How Fast?!

JJ McCarthy will get the start against Hawaii this week and he may lead the team in rushing if he's as fast as everyone says he is.

This week against Hawaii, it's officially JJ time. 

Michigan's sophomore quarterback JJ McCarthy has been waiting for this moment for a long, long time. The 6-3, 196-pounder was one of the top-ranked quarterback prospects in the country coming out of high school, so U-M fans have been excited about his debut for a while. No. 9 was used sparingly last year, and played just 11 snaps against Colorado State in Michigan's opener. In those 11 snaps, McCarthy went 4-for-4 for 30 yards and carried the ball three times for 50 yards and a score. 

Everyone knows about his arm talent, but it's McCarthy's running ability that appears to be getting better and better. The 50 yards against the Rams was a career high for McCarthy, but it feels like a guarantee that he'll set a new high mark against Hawaii this upcoming Saturday, especially when you consider how fast the signal caller is now.

On Monday, Jim Harbaugh surprised some people when he casually mentioned how fast McCarthy has been running this season.

"When a quarterback can run in the 4.5s, that gets to be faster than linebackers," Harbaugh said. "You’ve got to have a plan to contain that."

McCarthy addressed his own speed on Tuesday with a wry smile claiming that he's even faster than that.

"In high school i was 4.8s, if that," McCarthy stated. "I don't know when it happened with Coach [Ben] Herb[ert] but he got my speed down to like 4.5s, 4.4s...I want to say I'm in the 4.4s but we haven't put it on time yet."

Edge rusher Jaylen Harrell, who is a very athletic player in his own right, looked noticeably distraught when explaining how fast and elusive McCarthy is, and linebacker Kalel Mullings, who also plays running back, chuckled to himself when talking about how often McCarthy pulls the ball compared to Cade McNamara.

McCarthy's speed became something of legend last year when he took off like a shot in the Big Ten Championship game and got out in front of Blake Corum on the running back's long touchdown run against Iowa. Of course, we all saw the speed on display on Saturday against Colorado State as well, especially when McCarthy erased an angle on his 20-yard touchdown run.

McCarthy is going to run the ball and will likely run it very well against Hawaii on Saturday. Couple that with his escapability in and outside of the pocket, ability to throw the ball on the run and overall arm talent and he'll almost certainly be the starting quarterback moving forward.