SI All-American: J.J. McCarthy's Leadership, Consistency Shine In Big Win

Playing in a rainy environment, J.J. McCarthy still put together a strong outing in what was a big victory for IMG Academy.

Michigan commit J.J. McCarthy opened up his senior season in style with a big win over Venice (Fla.) on national television, and the highly touted quarterback followed that effort up with another strong performance against Edgewater last night.

In what was a 48-7 victory for the Ascenders, McCarthy executed the offense well throughout the rainy Florida weather. At first, McCarthy opened it up and made some tough throws, then the team shifted to a more run-based approach, and McCarthy did so seamlessly.

When the night wrapped up, McCarthy logged 154 passing yards and one touchdown on a 12-21 clip with 26 rushing yards to boot. Though that stat line doesn't exactly pop off the page, it should be noted that Edgewater is a talented team. They ended up losing in the state championship game against St. Thomas Aquinas last year, so Edgewater has a strong secondary that impacted IMG's strategy as well.

To break down his performance, Wolverine Digest spoke with SI All-American Director of Recruiting John Garcia Jr. who saw the big IMG victory in person.

Setting the stage: "The strength of Edgewater, who they played, is really their skill guys," Garcia said. "They have several Power Five guys, three at the skill positions and a lot of guys who play both ways. To pressure IMG, they did a lot of pre-snap movement to try to disguise coverage or blitz packages. That is really what you got to see J.J. operate."

"Not only with a driving rain, but they were backed up a couple of times because of penalties.They even started a drive at their own one-yard line, and there was really no negative plays, no damage there negatively for McCarthy, which tells you a lot of pre-snap and post-snap where he's at. We saw him sliding offensive line coverages. We saw him audibling pre-snap and then on the fly with some of those RPOs and those high-low type concepts that he executed correctly."

Strengths of J.J.'s game: "In terms of the mental element of identifying where he needs to go with the football in running and passing, I think he did a really great job," Garcia said. "That's something we don't talk enough about with quarterbacks is that point guard element. The run game nowadays is largely dictated by the quarterback in terms of when he elects to give the  ball, what look he's carrying out, and I think that's where J.J. was really mature."

"You can almost over-scout and want to start nitpicking, but even now there is not much to nitpick with J.J. That's part of why he feels like a relatively safe bet."

"I think J.J. is really good with all of those little things. I think his ball handling is really great, and that ties into his athleticism and overall understanding of the game. His understanding of what IMG wants to do is pretty far along. They came out wanting to spread it out a little bit, a little bit more RPO where they were three-wide, and he had a little bit more control as to whether or not it was a run or pass. As the rain picked up and their game progressed, they went more heavy, traditional run game where he's carrying out fakes. He did a little bit of everything in the game that we really can't see at a camp."

The leadership component McCarthy brings: "He does have his teammates attention, there's no doubt about it," Garcia said. "He's a captain. It's his team right now. Everyone is sort of playing  behind him. They showed a pre-game or halftime speech from that Venice game where basically there was some differing opinions, and he rallied the group and said let's come in here and talk and get after it in a certain way. It's easy to manufacture some of that in today's world, but when you see that when the cameras aren't on and in between plays, it comes off pretty real. As high as we are on the field with J.J.-- he's our No. 3 quarterback in America-- I'm pretty high off the field on J.J. having seen him now three times now live in the last year and in three very different settings. This is a very consistent kid, both physically and otherwise."

His consistency: "It's a great, great quarterback year in recruiting in this 2021 group, and for the largest portion of the Elite 11 after day one, we thought he would win it," Garcia said. "Another time I saw him was the IMG seven-on-seven over a year ago, and he was my favorite quarterback there. Now, obviously live in full 11-on-11 against a state runner-up in the state of Florida, I thought he just handled himself incredibly well."

What McCarthy can still improve on: "Can he improve? Of course," Garcia said. "He can get a little bigger. I think his third level game, his deep ball can be more on line. He can get it there with a little bit better timing, and obviously he's adjusting to the timing with his receivers. He missed one open touchdown possibility last night where he was a little bit long, so I think timing and anticipation can improve at that level, but those are obviously once-a-game type of players, so not a huge deal or anything to harp on."

"He's added a little bit of weight since he got to IMG, but that's just a durability thing. If you're mentally advanced, you can compensate for it. We've seen Tua Tagoviola do it. Drew Brees has done it for like 30 years at this point. You can beat a lack of size at that position with your mind in terms of timing with plays, knowing your body and your own limitations, when to not go for that extra falling-forward yard and things like that. He showed all of those things last night. The team he was playing is very talented, and hasn't really been beaten like that." 

Next week, McCarthy and IMG will travel to Brentwood (Tenn.) Ravenwood to play fellow Michigan commit Junior Colson and his squad.

What do you think of the way McCarthy has started his senior campaign? What would you like to see from the Michigan commit this fall? Let us know!