Hot Take #1: Cade McNamara is Going to Improve A Lot Moving Forward
I'm an unapologetic Cade McNamara supporter, in part because I know it can certainly be worse and because the things he does well, as noted by Seth, are easily missed by the average fan amidst the frustrating mistakes. But perhaps in larger part, I know the untapped potential of this passing attack. Consider the following:
-McNamara had one redshirt season and then the mangled, highly truncated 2020 season under his belt entering this year. Note: quarterbacks tend to improve a lot over the course of their careers.
-Cornelius Johnson is in the same boat. It should also be noted that he played HS ball in Connecticut so some rawness was to be expected upon entering college.
-Mike Sainristil is also in the same boat and he played HS ball in Massechusetts.
-Daylen Baldwin is experiencing a massive step up in competition from what he is used to at the collegiate level and he arrived to Michigan late. To say his chemistry with his teammates is behind the curve is an understatement.
-Roman Wilson didn't even have the benefit of enjoying a normal redshirt season and he played his HS ball in Hawaii.
-Erick All appears to be gaining more and more confidence by the week.
-Ronnie Bell was presumably McNamara's #1 target and safety blanket all wrapped into one. Adjusting to his season ending injury takes time.
Sure, there are no guarantees in the list above. Perhaps our passing game will amount to last year's defensive tackle situation, where the younger players' development was slower than anyone had hoped, only to shoot past expectations one year later. But to my untrained eye, our passing attack looks like a collection of very talented players who are simply in search of some confidence and better chemistry. McNamara has to be more consistent from down to down, that's for sure. But it's really not hard to see a promising path forward in the back half of the season.
October 12th, 2021 at 1:53 AM ^
Title is more of a prognostication than a take. Post sounds like a bunch of excuses—basically conceding that the passing game needs to get better.
I agree that they will, but not because their H.S. competition was poor or because they haven't really had a chance yet. But because this team has a special dedication. And that's how you improve.
October 12th, 2021 at 3:29 AM ^
Well said and furthermore, my issue with Cade is that he has the ability to hit the long ball but he was awful at it in the Nebraska game. If he just hit a couple of the 5 or 6 long throws that he threw short, the game would have been a much more comfortable win, he short armed it all night long. Also he seems to have happy feet at times and is indecisive as well.
Generally he's doing an adequate job but he can play better and I believe he has the talent to do so.
But. JJ definitely is more talented and has a higher ceiling. I would like to see him be allowed to throw more when he's in there, his arm is electric.
October 12th, 2021 at 7:45 AM ^
DG on MMQB with Sam said part of Cade’s problem is he bounces before he delivers a throw which makes his job harder.
October 12th, 2021 at 9:24 AM ^
I really like DG's breakdown of Cade's mechanics on MMQB. He also mentioned Cade has a tendency to roll in the pocket if his first read doesn't come open rather than step up in the pocket; "get into the fight" he calls it.
He talked about these as tendencies that show when Cade is feeling rattled or nervous, all quarterbacks have them, they just manifest themselves in different ways. For him, he said he would roll and turn his back to the pocket. These are things that can be fixed with self awareness and coaching, so it's reasonable to assume with more game experience and coaching Cade can overcome those bad habits under pressure.
He did also say when Cade is not doing those things, his timing and accuracy are very, very good. So hopefully we'll continue to see Cade improve significantly as he becomes more comfortable with game pressure. My bet is that he will look very sharp against Northwestern (yes, they suck) after the bye week.
October 12th, 2021 at 9:47 AM ^
Yeah he was saying that Cade needs to "climb" up in the pocket to buy time and find opportunities. What makes me hopeful is that most of the issues are "fixable" as you said and when he's not doing them he's pretty good.
October 12th, 2021 at 8:04 AM ^
I wouldn't say Cade was terrible on long balls in the Nebraska game. Nebraska's CBs were doing a much better than other teams have. Some of them were a hair under thrown, but the CBs were still great in coverage on those deep balls
October 12th, 2021 at 9:21 AM ^
Unless you're going for the back shoulder, I'll maintain that it's better to overthrow a long ball than to underthrow it. Because the CB has to look back while keeping track of the WR (ie: keeping a non-interfering hand on him), the WR will always have his top end speed available. I don't care who you are, you cannot run at your top speed when keeping one hand on someone else while trying not to interfere. Seriously - brace an arm in front of you, so you can't swing it, and run full speed. Think you're as fast as you would be with both arms swinging? No way... This is why guys like CJ, Wilson, Edwards, etc will pull a step or two away from the DB on long throws.
Underthrowing it allows the DB to stay right there and contest. And contested balls will fall incomplete more often, if not get intercepted once in a while.
Overthrow the bomb and let guys run under it!
October 12th, 2021 at 10:13 AM ^
Isn't this counter to how QBs are coached? My impression was that they're taught NEVER to overthrow a bomb because, while a receiver can adjust to an underthrown ball and go up against a (usually shorter) DB, they can't do anything if it's overthrown.
October 12th, 2021 at 10:28 AM ^
To me, its not about under throwing or over throwing. Its more about the timing of the throw.
Cade can throw the long ball ~55 yards (just an estimate). With his normal trajectory, it takes X seconds to get from his hand to the spot where the ball lands (lets say for argument sake 4 seconds). This is pretty consistent.
Each receiver has a slightly different speed to cover that ground.
The main variable that significantly impacts the play is the timing of when Cade starts to throw the ball.
If he starts too soon, the ball is over thrown, if he starts too late, its under thrown. As you noted, the preference is to error on the side of starting too soon. That is the safer outcome (either a ball overthrown where no one can get it or a diving catch by our receiver).
I may be wrong here, but in each case our receivers had beaten the Nebraska CB by at least 1-2 steps. But Cade's timing was off all night with only the diving catch by Sainristil as a positive outcome.
This is where repetition and chemistry come into play. Make no mistake, MSU is looking very good on their deep passing game because Thorne and Reed have been playing together since the beginning of High School.
One might also remember the chemistry that Gardner and Gallon had, where they posted a video of Gardner throwing to Gallon blindfolded and still making the completion.
With the bye week coming up, this is a perfect opportunity to continue to develop said chemistry.
October 12th, 2021 at 11:21 AM ^
My take was that on one of the deep balls he threw it high like he normally does and the safety got over to help. The high ball makes it easier for the receiver to adjust to and run under but takes longer to get there. After that, he threw a much shallower ball that got there faster but was decidedly less accurate.
October 12th, 2021 at 2:08 PM ^
If a receiver can run under the ball and catch it, it’s not overthrown, it’s on target.
October 12th, 2021 at 9:07 AM ^
He makes the right reads, and is accurate. He doesn't take sacks. He is more than adequate, which is why the team is undefeated. He has all the intangibles, including not repeating mistakes. He's a slow runner and his arm is less than ideal. Yet, he does all the things a very good QB does to win games with a young WR corp.
Looking gift horses in their eyes makes a lot of you horse asses.
October 12th, 2021 at 9:50 AM ^
It's not just that he avoids sacks. His feel for where defenders are is elite.
October 12th, 2021 at 9:48 AM ^
If things go as expected, JJ will have plenty of chances to show his stiff against NW.
October 12th, 2021 at 9:58 AM ^
Careful there, showing your stiff usually gets you in trouble
October 12th, 2021 at 10:49 AM ^
Urban Meyer agrees
October 12th, 2021 at 10:50 AM ^
It ruined Pee Wee Herman's career and halted Louis CK's for some time.
Things didn't work out for Andrew Weiner either. So best to be avoided.
October 12th, 2021 at 10:25 AM ^
Cade just doesn't have the arm strength to consistently go long. That's why he was awful in the Nebraska game, and throughout the season. The ball hangs up too long, fast receivers have to wait. That being said, he is making the most of what he has, experience will help him get better, and makes up for his deficiencies with his head.
October 12th, 2021 at 10:51 AM ^
A bit of an exaggeration; it’s not as if every long ball is a wounded duck on a rainbow.
The difference between a Cade ball and a JJ ball at full speed might be the difference of maybe a full receiver step. That might be enough to make the difference between a catch in stride vs a contested grab, but Cade can make up that difference pretty easily by making a quicker read, and stepping up and setting his feet. Both of which can be learned. Especially by a smart QB, which I think he is.
October 12th, 2021 at 1:21 PM ^
JJs throws in the flow of the rpo game have yet to be unleashed.
They are getting set up for the teams ahead.
October 12th, 2021 at 1:53 AM ^
Looks like a lot of reasons to expect disaster.
October 12th, 2021 at 2:00 AM ^
Cade is definitely better than his haters think and he shouldn’t be cyan but I’m not sold on him. I hate to be so blunt but he is a serious drag on the running game. It’s bizarre to me because he has good pocket mobility and he’s not a statue but for whether it’s him, the coaches or a combination of the two we do not play 11 vs 11 on run plays. Fortunately we have the two best running backs since Hart to mitigate that!!
What he had been elite at, until Saturday, was the deep ball. But if he has another game where he misses every single deep shot (Sainristril’s reception was not a good throw) it’s gonna be hard to keep him in there.
BTW, Devin Gardner, who knows more about quarterbacking than anyone on this board, has all but explicitly said JJ should be starting on his weekly breakdown with Sam. Now, just because he’s been there doesn’t mean we need to mindlessly agree with him (I would not start JJ yet, despite my misgivings) but it’s food for thought.
October 12th, 2021 at 2:52 AM ^
I think yours is a good summary of how I feel about Cade up to this point.
My own 2 cents: Agreed about the “cyan”, Cade is not playing poorly and should not be labeled as a trouble spot. Although the color attribute is a distinction that has zero bearing on the play on the field, it is frustrating that either due to Cade himself rarely keeping or the coaches insistence on running plays predicated on faking a zone read look, our running game is not reaching its full potential.
The three most common areas of Cade’s game that writers and posters on this blog mostly agreed upon were: 1. Consistently making correct pre-snap reads, 2. Throwing a consistently accurate deep ball, and 3. Making smart, “winning”, football plays (making very few costly mistakes). In these three areas, up until this point, I would say Cade has done fairly well, but very far from elite-level play.
A consistent theme in the MMQB analysis provided by Devin Gardner that you mentioned is that the passing offense leaves a fair share of points on the board, mostly due to missed opportunities from missed reads or less accurate throws. Some good examples include Cade missing an open Mike Sainristil early on against Wisconsin and his poor throw that was expertly hauled in by Sainristil this past Saturday. These are two plays that really need to go for 6 if Michigan is to compete with OSU and other elite-level teams.
Another piece of information to consider is that Cade is not above average when it comes to passing efficiency. He’s only completed 60.5% of his passes; that places him at 76th amongst all QBs and 10th amongst B1G QBs. His Y/A average isn’t amazing either at 8.3; that ranks him 41st amongst all QBs and only 5th amongst B1G QBs which places him well behind Stroud, Thorne, and Martinez and on par with Clifford. If Michigan wants to beat the three remaining good teams on its schedule (OSU, PSU, MSU) Cade needs to start outplaying his counterparts.
None of this is to say that I am team “Start McCarthy”. Cade has been solid overall up to this point, at times he’s even been brilliant. But, I really want to see some big steps forward. Otherwise, I think this Michigan team will be held back by an offense that cannot keep up in a shootout. Something that concerns me about the offense beyond Cade’s play is that they are only converting ~62% of RZ trips into TDs. For comparison’s sake: OSU is converting ~77% of RZ trips into TDs. The offense definitely needs to convert a higher percentage of RZ trips into 6, but that’s more of a team issue than a Cade issue.
October 12th, 2021 at 8:24 AM ^
I wouldn't put too much into some of the MMQB "leaving plays on the field" thing. There absolutely are some plays being left on the field, a missed throw to an open receiver is an instance I would agree with. However, but if you were to watch all-22 film of any team you will find guys running wide open from time to time - possible they were the second or third read and the QB just never got a chance to look. A QB seeing or expecting pressure might be sped up to pick an early read as well if it is open.
October 12th, 2021 at 9:23 AM ^
However, but if you were to watch all-22 film of any team you will find guys running wide open from time to time - possible they were the second or third read and the QB just never got a chance to look.
This is a big point. It's easy to criticize a QB missing a wide open second or third read, but that complaint is only valid if the first read was covered. A QB missing a wide open second or third read because he threw to an open or open-ish first read isn't a bad play, it's just an unfortunate play call.
I also wonder if Devin has some unconscious bias in his analysis towards JJ because JJ is much closer stylistically to Devin was as a QB. Devin was highly athletic, had a huge arm, and could very much be considered high-risk high-reward. He was willing to take chances, and his tendency to spin and then run backwards when under pressure led to some spectacular plays, and some spectacular disasters. JJ is fairly athletic, has the NFL arm, and even if he isn't a gunslinger or risk taker (too early to tell, really) is going to make mistakes if for no other reason than he's a true freshman. Cade is very much the opposite. Not mobile (like, really at all), adequate arm but certainly not a cannon, and seems more likely to pass up borderline opportunities to avoid risking the bad play. Can't help but wonder if Devin sees JJ's potential and would prefer to roll with that, even though there's definitely something to be said for minimizing mistakes, especially with the RBs and OL that we have.
October 12th, 2021 at 12:05 PM ^
Yes. You're not going to hit every big play. You need to hit enough, particularly when you don't throw very often.
Against Wisconsin Cade hit enough. Against Nebraska...his hit rate on deep throws was 1/6 and some of them were bad misses. You can call it "enough" given that at least being willing to throw deep helped open up the running game a bit but that's a poor hit rate.
Overall he's probably not some elite deep ball thrower but he's also better than he was against Nebraska. If he can hit big plays at a rate of 50% or so that should be enough, because teams are going to continue to stack the box. There's reason to believe he will.
October 12th, 2021 at 8:55 AM ^
... and his poor throw that was expertly hauled in by Sainristil this past Saturday.
This is nitpicking, but I don't think I'd label that one a "poor throw." To me, a poor throw would be one that was off-target, underthrown, or otherwise uncatchable.
This one was more a case of "either the receiver can catch it, or nobody can." Yes, Sainristil had to make an incredible catch to make that a completion. But he had the room to do it - he didn't have to come back and try to muscle through the DB to catch an underthrown ball.
The Captain Obvious in me thinks it would have been nicer if Cade had taken a hair off that ball and dropped into Sainristil's hands for six points. OK, he's not perfect. But he's a damn sight better than what we've had at QB for the last two years.
October 12th, 2021 at 9:26 AM ^
He’s only completed 60.5% of his passes;
In his junior season, Tom Brady completed 61.1% of his passes, with 15 TDs against 12 INTs.
Cade is no Brady, but his completion rate isn't awful, especially when considering his extremely low turnover rate.
October 12th, 2021 at 9:53 AM ^
To be fair that was a different time and offenses were different. The leader completion percentage leader in 1999 would rank 22nd today. 60% is very average to slightly below now. The best QB's are upper 60's into the 70%+ range.
October 12th, 2021 at 10:13 AM ^
Those QBs that hit the upper 60s and 70+% generally don't throw downfield. Our offense throws downfield a LOT.
October 12th, 2021 at 10:31 AM ^
Some of that is RPO and quick game stuff, no doubt. However, the likes of Coastal Carolina, Oklahoma, Alabama, Ole Miss, Liberty, and Mississippi St. (among others) absolutely stretch the field vertically.
October 12th, 2021 at 5:12 PM ^
This just isn’t true. Of the 9 B1G QBs who rank ahead of Cade in completion %, 5 of them have higher or the same Y/A average as Cade. Of the 75 QBs in all of CFB who rank ahead of Cade in completion %, 34 of them have higher or the same Y/A and there are another 7 who are averaging between 8.0-8.2 Y/A (Cade at 8.3 Y/A). And, while Michigan is highly ranked in passing yards per completion (14.37 Y/com) at 21st, both MSU and OSU are ranked in the top 10 in this category at 15.71 Y/com and 16.90 Y/com respectively.
October 12th, 2021 at 12:43 PM ^
I would definitely agree with this take 100% ~ one of the key benefits for using a game-manager QB should be the ability to produce an accurate and efficient passing game.
Cade needs to get his completion rate closer to the 70% mark consistently to get to that next level in performance - i.e hitting the mid-range passes consistently and probably needs to be in the 55-60% range for the deep ball to punish defenses cheating up/stacking against the run.
October 12th, 2021 at 9:12 AM ^
He's a serious drag on the running game? So it's his fault the RBs sometimes don't get yards? His ability to be trusted in the pass game with getting the ball out to the right guy 99% of the time helps the running game. This is why JJ is still only coming in when they want to run RPO. Yes, we have seen JJ come in and throw the ball well, but I'd trust the coaches see something in practice that continues to solidify why Cade is the best option, overall, right now, for the team.
The young man doesn't buckle. He quickly recognizes mistakes and fixes them in-game.
Devin Gardner also though Joe Milton should have been a starter, and look where that guy is at Tennessee. I love Devin and wanted him to start at UM earlier, but look what happened to his career.
I'll trust the coaches over Devin, even though DG is one of my favorite players in the last two decades.
October 12th, 2021 at 10:25 PM ^
It’s either Cade or the coaches fault that we don’t take the free yards on zone reads that the defenses serve up when they sell out on the give. And it’s their fault that the running backs have an extra defender to deal with because the defenses know he won’t run
October 12th, 2021 at 10:54 AM ^
" just because he’s been there doesn’t mean we need to mindlessly agree with him". I agree with Gardner that JJ should start (when he is ready) but has DG really been there? He has privately trained hyped HS QBs who have mostly been busts (Milton?) and he himself largely underperformed during his time here, although the blame was assigned to his supporting cast by the local media. I have never understood Sam's love affair with DG, other than that he was a local 4 star.
October 12th, 2021 at 10:21 PM ^
What other high school quarterbacks has he trained? As far as I know most of the kids he works with are quite young.
And the “blame” for Devin’s lack of success is correctly assigned to coaching staff and offensive line. It’s a wonder he has any ribs left
October 12th, 2021 at 2:10 AM ^
This may be unpopular, but I upvoted both because I’m inherently optimistic (albeit more cautiously as a M football fan after the last decade) and because I have deep respect for the phrase “it could always be worse.”
There is likely nothing in CFB for which that phrase isn’t true, yet the derangement syndrome we affectionately call “being a fan” seems to leave most of us forgetting the axiom.
I’m thrilled for the McCarthy era to start … on a future day whose distance from now is unknowable. But even with his presumed higher ceiling, of course it could be worse.
JJ has shown out in select moments, not diverse moments; perhaps JJ’s successes are less sustainable across a full game than McNamara’s. Perhaps the offensive playcalling would go into more of a shell if he were installed. Maybe he’d be more turnover prone. Maybe McNamara would transfer and McCarthy would get injured and Villari would be all we have left.
Who the flip knows. Of course I don’t. But I have enough imagination to understand that worse is ALWAYS on the table and enough humility to anticipate that, even if coaches can make major mistakes, if there’s a gamble I want the team to make but the coaches clearly just won’t, the odds are high that they’re right and I’m wrong.
October 12th, 2021 at 2:29 AM ^
Please don’t post any more hot take threads if that is hot take #1?
Also, aren’t you the jerkoff that created the halftime thread declaring victory and jinxing the team in the 3rd quarter on Saturday?
October 12th, 2021 at 7:55 AM ^
If you really think a post on MGoBlog jinxes the team, then you shouldn't have any hot takes either.
October 12th, 2021 at 10:56 AM ^
Of course it doesn't *really* jinx the team. I would hope we all know that.
That said, you don't do that shit. The Fuckening** waits for opportunities like this.
** "The Fuckening" is the phenomenon that happens when stuff is just going too well -- it fucks shit up to bring the universe back into balance. Do not tempt the Fuckening. It always lurks when things are going well.
October 12th, 2021 at 2:53 AM ^
If cade hits all his deep balls Saturday (which he did before that game) in stride, they win comfortably. Red zone play calling/execution needs to improve alot also
October 12th, 2021 at 9:02 AM ^
This is objectively true.
I like McNamara, and I think he's a net positive, and as long as the coaches think he should start over McCarthy I'm not going to gainsay them.
But for the first time this year, McNamara just wasn't hitting the long ball. He left a couple short and a couple long. That game was over before halftime if he was his pre-Nebraska self on those throws.
October 12th, 2021 at 2:55 AM ^
McNamara's often cited accuracy problems aside, I hope Baldwin can up his game over the next month or so. He had something like 15 targets in the game, which tells us that he is getting open, and McNamara had a few misses to him. But there were also a few contested balls and others where he wasn't able to pull it in. Not sure how you can get a receiver to increase his hand strength and tenacity over the next few weeks, but converting a few more of those passes to him would make a big difference to Michigan's passing attack.
October 12th, 2021 at 10:57 AM ^
I thought Baldwin also attacked some fades the wrong way. He seems to like to put his back to the QB and catch balls over his shoulder, but that's way more difficult than doing what other WR's do where they turn their back to the sideline for fades. DPJ had a great example of this versus Indiana in 2019, where he lays out with his back facing the corner of the endzone so he can clearly see the ball coming whereas Baldwin missed 2 or so fades since he had to turn his head back just to see where the ball was coming. Wonder if that gets corrected during the bye week.
October 12th, 2021 at 12:00 PM ^
Baldwin is 100% on bombs thrown from JJ. I expect he will be the same against the buckeyes.
October 12th, 2021 at 3:14 AM ^
Dont know if anyone else noticed but the coaches took the zone read out of the playbook for Cade and I think it was a smart move.
October 12th, 2021 at 3:29 AM ^
I agree the starting job this season is still Cade's to lose. But JJ needs more playing time, I just hope the NW game is wrapped up at the half and JJ can play the 2nd half. I'm afraid before next season one of these two excellent QBs will be entering the portal. It's not like the old days where a underclassmen will wait his turn and play his senior season. I think in the long run JJ is built more for Gattis' modern RPO. I'm not sure if Cade will stick around to be the back up in 2022? But who knows the future and who will win the spring and summer camp QB competition. But eventually one of these QBs will be given the firm handshake before entering the portal.
October 12th, 2021 at 8:58 AM ^
Yeah I think that's very likely, that we see an entire half of JJ against Northwestern. They're a genuinely terrible football team.
We need this guy ready to go when Cade has an off day again.
October 12th, 2021 at 3:31 AM ^
He has a lot to improve upon.