Michigan football's J.J. McCarthy finding his frequency before Alabama, Rose Bowl

LOS ANGELES — Nine hundred and sixty-three hertz.

That's the frequency going through J.J. McCarthy's headphones when he sits back, eyes shut, back flush against the goalposts, and goes through his pregame meditation routine.

It has helped the signal caller for No. 1 Michigan football (13-0) through each of the first 25 starts of his career, where he is 24-1, defeated Ohio State twice and won two consecutive Big Ten championships.

However, as he sat inside an auxiliary room, deep in the lower levels of a hotel conference center in downtown L.A. on Friday morning, the 20-year-old quarterback who has the hopes of the nation's largest fanbase resting largely on his shoulders ahead of Monday's Rose Bowl against No. 4 Alabama (12-1) fully acknowledged the stakes of the game.

"I think for the outside, it's the biggest game in Michigan history, one of the biggest games in college football history," he said. "But to us it's just another football game that we're going to go out there and try to execute, play with physicality, and lock into all the little details that are going to show up in these big games.

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"We've just got to try to keep things simple, and obviously the magnitude of it is huge. But we try not to focus on that and just focus on each play at hand."

It's the same mentality McCarthy tries to achieve before every game, when he begins with his pranayama — a breathing exercise which combines with the frequency of the noise in his headphones to align his physiology and reach total clarity, to the point he says anything outside of his focus is perceived only as white noise.

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That's a difficult task to reach, even in the best of times, or on a day like Monday as he prepares for Alabama's defense. Among the most talented, linebacker Chris Braswell, a high school teammate of Michigan running back Blake Corum. McCarthy said what stands about the second-team All-SEC linebacker isn't just his strength, but his "finesse," which helped him record 41 tackles, 10½ for loss, and forced a team-high three fumbles.

Dallas Turner, another projected first-round NFL draft pick, is "one of the best players" McCarthy has ever seen. "Just in combination with the speed, the size, the technique." The consensus first-team All-American had a team-high 13½ tackles for loss and was second in the SEC with nine sacks.

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"It's not just those two, it's the linebackers, it's the corners, it's the safeties, it's the D-tackles, the whole team," offensive coordinator Sherrone Moore said Friday. "We've got to have a great plan to attack those players, to attack every player that they have on the field."

What Michigan really needs on Monday is for McCarthy to be special. He wasn't special enough a year ago when he threw two pick-sixes against TCU as U-M never led in the Fiesta Bowl loss.

McCarthy believes he has played worse games — his three-interception night against Bowling Green in September — but never with more on the line. That's what made it feel like the worst.

"In terms of just the moment that it happened," he said. "Yeah, I'd say it is."

After the game, McCarthy took the podium with Donovan Edwards and Mike Sainristil, answered just one question before declaring "we will be back, I promise you that," and walked off.

Not only was he right, but he explained more about the moment.

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It wasn't supposed to be seen as showing anybody up — in fact, he, Edwards and Sainristil all had a plan to walk off together, but he had to "take it on the chin" when he was the only one to do so — but instead it was supposed to send a message to the college football world.

"Just that we're ready to get right to work," he said. "It wasn't anything against the media or saying I don't want to answer questions, I'm too mad. It was just I wanted to be in the locker room with my guys, all the seniors I'm never going to see again, and just be there to relish in those last moments with them."

To prevent another disappointing loss, McCarthy will have to be better than he has since mid-November. He scored just one touchdown in the past five games as the Wolverines had to find ways to scrape by with single-digit victories against Penn State, Maryland and Ohio State.

He was said to be battling through a lower-body injury through some of that time but now, supposedly, is 100% − and not just the 100% you tell the media.

"Yeah, it's 100 percent," he smiled. "Everything is great in terms of ankles, knees, head, shoulders."

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Counting sack yardage, McCarthy has run for a loss of 22 yards on 24 carries the past five weeks; he'd run 35 times for 168 yards and three touchdowns in the eight weeks before that.

Earlier this week, running back Blake Corum said it "always helps" a running game when a quarterback is a threat to move, and whether it's specifically in the game plan or not, McCarthy said there's no question plays will need to be made on the fly

"I feel like naturally it will have to show just because the pass rush is going to be so good, and they fly around and they get to the football," he said "When you see the teams that get close to beating them or have beaten them, the quarterback is running the football a lot, and getting those six yards when nothing is to be had."

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McCarthy's overall demeanor on Friday felt more sure, more calm than a season ago when he did his best to act that way and speak those emotions into existence.

Wide receiver Roman Wilson has noticed too — how in practice McCarthy was once calm, but operated as though he needed to prove himself in games. That's not the case anymore.

Moore pointed out how teammates voted McCarthy as team MVP while head coach Jim Harbaugh said when a quarterback wins that award, not only does it mean he's well liked, but the team's had a good year.

McCarthy seems to have found his CFP frequency — right at 963 hertz.

"I feel like last year, I got caught up in the noise and all the emotions of it," he said. "I'm just trying to stay simple, trying to focus on dominating meetings, dominating practice and just being around my guys

"This one is at one of the highest intensities it is. I'm not going to sugarcoat it or downplay it. But at the end of the day it's just going out there, executing and doing whatever we can to win the game."

Contact Tony Garcia: apgarcia@freepress.com. Follow him at @realtonygarcia.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan football's J.J. McCarthy 'trying to stay simple' in Rose Bowl