Quarterbacks Payton Thorne, Cade McNamara react differently to subpar starts
Both Michigan State and Michigan opened their 2022 football seasons with wins over over-matched Group of Five programs. And, both programs saw their starting quarterbacks not play as sharply as what was expected.
Spartan quarterback Payton Thorne threw four touchdowns passes and totaled 233 yards through the air, but he missed on several throws and left some points on the field with those misfires. Thorne completed just 12-of-24 of his pass attempts.
“I was pretty disappointed with how I played but…there’s a lot of factors in that,” Thorne said. “There's definitely a ton of room to improve.”
Thorne also threw a bad interception right before the half, which halted the momentum that Michigan State had built prior with three consecutive touchdown drives.
“It was pretty stupid, that’s what it was,” Thorne said of his decision to throw across his body to the middle of the field, which resulted in the turnover. “Really not happy with that, at all.”
Likewise, Wolverine quarterback Cade McNamara came out sluggish with some early miss-throws to open receivers. Unlike Thorne however, McNamara didn’t make up for those misthrows with deep throws down the field that went for touchdowns.
Michigan’s QB also completed just 50 percent of this throws (9-for-18), but compiled just 136 yards and one touchdown before being pulled in the second half due to the Wolverines’ big lead.
“It was a clean game. We had one penalty. We had no turnovers,” McNamara said after the game.
“There was some stuff that didn’t go our way, but I thought we handled it pretty well. Building off of this, there was just kind of some first game stuff – I missed a couple targets, we had a couple drops. It looked like a first game, I felt like, on the offensive side of the ball. So, we’re definitely going to have to clean that up and I’ll be a part of that.”
Numbers-wise, it’s pretty clear to see that Thorne out-performed McNamara on Saturday, outside of the one interception that Thorne threw. Yet, the Spartan quarterback was much more critical of his own performance that McNamara was.
“I was very disappointed with the first half,” Thorne said. “We scored 21 points and had three nice plays, but I give all the credit to their defense and what they did.”
The quarterback situations at Michigan State and Michigan are also very different. Thorne is the undisputed starting quarterback and the unquestioned leader of the Spartan offense. McNamara, meanwhile, won’t even start in Week 2, as U-M head coach Jim Harbaugh wants to see if true sophomore JJ McCarthy provides the Wolverines with more of a spark.
McNamara was asked about the “unusual nature” of having two different quarterbacks assigned starts in the first two games, and the Wolverines’ signal-caller agreed with the wording of the question.
“I’d definitely say it’s pretty unusual,” McNamara said. “It was kind of a thing that I wasn’t expecting at the end of camp. I thought I had my best camp. I thought I put myself in a good position. And that was just the decision that coach went with.”
Michigan’s quarterback seemed displeased with Harbaugh’s decision to start two different quarterbacks in Weeks 1 and 2, but also said he’s grown accustomed to having to continually earn the starting nod in Ann Arbor.
“This is sort of something that I’ve been dealing with,” McNamara said. “Whether it was before I played with Joe [Milton], whether it was finally going in, whether it was last season and now it’s this season. I think, at this point, I have a callous made on how to deal with these things.”
So, while Thorne is focused on improving what he considers to be a subpar performance against Western Michigan, McNamara is wondering if he’ll even have his starting job after McCarthy gets his first career start against Hawaii this Saturday.
