How Joe Milton's failure set Michigan football and J.J. McCarthy on the path to the top

INDIANAPOLIS — Almost 40 minutes after J.J. McCarthy seized the stage as one of the NFL scouting combine’s biggest headliners, the quarterback who was supposed to be Michigan football’s next great star appeared Friday morning inside Hall J of the Indiana Convention Center.

Here was Joe Milton, the man who once seduced Jim Harbaugh’s staff with his million-dollar arm, impressive build and fluid mobility. Four years ago, the former four-star recruit was the Wolverines’ anointed starter, set to take them to new heights after the disappointing Shea Patterson era had closed with a whimper.

But during a season delayed and truncated by a global pandemic, Milton quickly bombed and the Wolverines crashed hard. As Michigan stumbled to a 2-4 record, the flaws in his game were exposed. His dodgy accuracy and poor decisions led to repeated failures. He threw as many interceptions and touchdown passes before he was benched against Rutgers and Cade McNamara came to rescue the team from another embarrassing defeat. By the following spring, Milton was gone — ready to leave this disaster behind him and start his second act in the SEC with Tennessee.

But before he made his exit during the 2021 winter term, he had a parting message for the young hotshot quarterback who had just entered the program and inherited the same lofty expectations Milton never could meet.

During a private moment, Milton told McCarthy, “This is going to be your team. Learn a lot from Cade. But when it’s time to take over, take over.”

Reflecting on that conversation, Milton smiles.

“Obviously,” he said, “y’all see what he did with that.”

McCarthy would go on to become, in Harbaugh’s final evaluation, the “greatest quarterback” to ever play at Michigan. His college career began soon after the Wolverines had reached rock bottom under Milton’s command. By the time it ended, McCarthy and Michigan had made it to the top.

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“He’s a winner, man,” former U-M linebacker Michael Barrett said. “He knows how to make plays.”

“He can run out of the pocket. He can throw the deep ball, checkdowns, medium-sized passes,” running back Blake Corum echoed. “You name it, J.J. can do it.”

From the moment he burst on the scene in his Michigan debut with an eye-popping 69-yard, cross-field touchdown pass against Western Michigan, he tickled the imagination. Teammates marveled at his improvisational skills and daredevil approach. When they saw it produce great results, their confidence in him grew even more. After he unseated McNamara as Michigan’s QB1 in the second week of the 2022 season, everyone inside the program pinned their hopes on McCarthy, believing he could guide the Wolverines to the summit of college football.

By the end of his time in Ann Arbor, he fulfilled that promise, leading Michigan to a national championship in January and capping a magical 27-1 run as a starter.

His tenure with the Wolverines, former teammate Cornelius Johnson said, was a “sight to see.”

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NFL teams certainly seem intrigued. There is growing buzz around McCarthy, who has become one of this year’s most polarizing prospects. While some experts view him as a sure-fire first-round pick with plenty of upside, others wonder if he can carry an offense on a week-to-week basis because Michigan’s rugged, run-based strategy didn’t require him to throw a high volume of passes.

“Stats, for me, wasn’t really the big thing,” McCarthy said. “The only stat I cared about was Ws.”

Still, McCarthy’s chief detractors argue he is nothing more than as a dynamic game manager whose body of work isn’t great enough to warrant a major investment of draft capital. McCarthy’s top target at Michigan, Roman Wilson, begs to differ.

“I feel like he should be every GM’s dream quarterback,” the wideout snapped back.

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But there may not have been any debate about McCarthy’s professional future – at least not this year -- had Milton succeeded at Michigan. A convincing argument could be made that his personal failure in 2020 set the stage for the Wolverines’ rebirth and launched McCarthy’s accelerated journey to the NFL.

“I mean that’s a crazy hypothetical question,” said Johnson, a receiver who played with both. “I mean, you could say that. If anything happens, a switch here and there, we might not be in the same situation.”

Johnson thought about the what-ifs, days after reuniting with Milton and tossing the ball around with him earlier this week. But Milton hasn’t spent much time contemplating them.

“Honestly, no,” he said.

As he sees it, everything eventually worked out for him following his move to Knoxville. In his final season at Tennessee, he became a starting quarterback once again, completing 65% of his throws, posting a healthy 7.9 yards-per-attempt average and cobbling together a 4-to-1 touchdown-to-interception ratio. His production positioned him to earn an invitation to the NFL combine, where he occupied the same stage as McCarthy.

“I was blessed with the decision that I made,” said Milton, a fringe prospect. “Tennessee was the school for me. It made me who I am today.”

But in a strange way, Milton’s underwhelming stint as U-M’s starter helped make McCarthy, opening the door for him to become one of the school’s most decorated players and an NFL draft headliner.

As Milton said of McCarthy’s time at Michigan, “He was able to put on a show.”

And the NFL honchos here in Indianapolis are clamoring to see more.

Contact Rainer Sabin at rsabin@freepress.com. Follow him @RainerSabin.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: J.J. McCarthy's rise with Michigan football followed Joe Milton's fall