Michigan Football: JJ McCarthy's Postgame Comments Describe Wolverines Perfectly
If you're a Michigan Football fan, you have to love what you've seen from the Wolverines over the first six weeks of the 2023 season. It might not be flashy or explosive, but the Michigan brand of football is consistent, efficient, and completely dominant. It's everything you want in a football team, particularly if you're goal is to win a national championship.
Prior to the game between Michigan and Minnesota last weekend, PJ Fleck praised Jim Harbaugh for creating one of the best teams he's ever seen. Although Fleck was certainly talking about the talent-level, he was also talking about the way that the Wolverines play complimentary football, the unselfishness among the players, and the buy-in that all players share toward achieving a common goal.
Photo: Christopher Breiler
"Coach Harbaugh does a great job of promoting team, team, team, team," Fleck Said. "The 'we-fense', I love that. I love that when he called it the 'we-fense'. But it's true. When you watch their team, they all talk about the team, they all play for the team. Sometimes you can't tell who's in the game and who just made that play because there are no, ya know, just one guy's the star. They're all the stars that make up their team. That's hard to do, that's hard to create, and I think he's done a great job of creating, I think, one of the best teams in the country."
Following Michigan's dominant 52-10 road win over Minnesota, quarterback JJ McCarthy's words lined up perfectly with Fleck's pregame assessment.
"I love this team so much because we play for each other," McCarthy said. "We don't play for individual accolades, we don't worry about the NFL, or anything in the future. We keep it in the moment, and we strive to get better every single day. It's a beautiful thing"
A beautiful thing indeed.
McCarthy, who has all the makings of a Heisman trophy front-runner, once again put together an efficient evening, while spending the entire fourth quarter cheering his team on from the sidelines. In fact, McCarthy has taken just four fourth quarter snaps all season long - all pass plays, all completions. His numbers aren't as gaudy as some of the other top quarterbacks around the country, and McCarthy is just fine with that.
As he said in his postgame interview, the mission for this 2023 Michigan Football team isn't about individual accolades. It's not about setting individual records and winning individual trophies. The mantra about 'The Team, The Team, The Team' rings true this season. The Wolverines want college football's ultimate prize, and they know that it will require a true team effort to get the job done.
Six weeks into the season, Michigan is very much on track to deliver a national championship back to Ann Arbor.
