Although last season tells a different story, a quarterback battle is really nothing new in Ann Arbor. Nor is a head coach who’s in no rush to name a starter.
“For us, we’ll get a good feel as we go through training camp,” Michigan football coach Sherrone Moore said Thursday during his Big Ten Media Day press conference. “Don’t know what the day is, don’t know when it’ll be, but you guys will know as soon as we do.”
Moore paused for a moment, seemingly finished with his response, as the media started to move on to the next question. But Moore, cracking a smile, snuck in one last word:
“Maybe.”
It’s no secret that the quarterback position remains the biggest unknown for this year’s Michigan team. Just over a month out from the season opener, it seems like the three frontrunners are junior Alex Orji, graduate student Jack Tuttle and junior Davis Warren.
Though the Wolverines’ offense would look different with each quarterback under center, Moore emphasized a few of the irreplaceable qualities he and his staff need to see in a potential starter.
“The number one thing is who’s gonna take care of the football,” Moore said. “ … Our defense is going to provide him a bunch of different looks … so who’s gonna take care of the football? Who’s gonna make a play? And then next thing, who’s gonna really lean on the team-win and team-first mentality?”
Of course, even those qualities will show up differently in each candidate. Orji, a true dual-threat whose dynamic running abilities set him apart, would likely make a different play under pressure than Tuttle or Warren.
Regardless, Moore and offensive coordinator Kirk Campbell need someone they can trust in tough situations — no matter what each individual response looks like. While it’s impossible to replicate what former quarterback J.J. McCarthy brought to the table, that reliability is something Moore hopes his new crop of signal callers can take from their predecessor.
“The ability to be so cerebral in the most pressure moments,” Moore said when asked which one of McCarthy’s qualities he’d choose to instill in his quarterbacks. “(McCarthy) was just calm … but he was always ready to attack and you could always count on him.
“When the big plays were there and you needed somebody to make a big play, he’d make it — or he’d let whoever was supposed to make it make it and wouldn’t go out of the way to do something crazy.”
Moore recognized that it’ll take time and hard work for Orji, Tuttle and Warren to build that characteristic — especially to the high bar that McCarthy set. But he has no doubt that all three do have “the attributes you need to be a successful starting quarterback at the University of Michigan.”
So while Moore is in no rush to nail down a starter — just like former Wolverines coach Jim Harbaugh in previous years — he believes in his guys, and he’ll reveal the quarterback battle winner as soon as he figures it out.
Well, maybe.
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