Cade has been about what you would expect for a first year starter who is only in his third year in the program (one of which was a Covid year). He has a lot of room to improve but he's been good enough to win two tough road games and lead the team to a 7-0 start with only 1 turnover. He makes very good pre-snap reads and is still working on improving his post-snap reads. He's shown a lot of promise in terms of accuracy on long and short passes but needs to improve in that area in terms of consistency. Sorry, but if JJ weren't the backup, I think that almost everyone on this board would be somewhat encouraged by his play and would be hopeful that he'll keep improving the rest of this year and in future seasons considering how inexperienced he still is. There have been tons of Michigan quarterbacks in the past that have been merely solid their first full year as a starter and gone on to have a great careers.
Instead, because we have a 5-star backup, there is a large contingent of people who dwell on or greatly exaggerate Cade's shortcomings because they are convinced that you can't have a great offense or beat Ohio State without someone with elite physical tools at quarterback. Here's a newsflash for anyone that doesn't remember: Shea Patterson was also a 5-star and even as an upperclassmen he didn't play winning football or take our offense to the next level. I hope JJ has a way better Michigan career than Patterson but as a true freshman there is certainly no guarantee that he's capable of playing winning football, let alone being capable of taking the entire offense to another level.
I'm not saying that I know who's better right now between Cade and JJ but I also know that no one else on this board does, either, and if JJ were already as exceptional as a few people on this board think, he'd already be starting. But almost no one is that good as a true freshman. People are talking about JJ raising the level of the entire offense and being Ohio State. We should just hope that he's competent if he has to play important snaps over the second half of this season. He's a true freshman.
I guess my point is that a lot of people are pretending that you can't win big with a guy like Cade because they wish JJ was the starter, but no one even knows if JJ is as good as Cade right now or even close to as good if he had to lead the offense for an entire game.
Instead, because we have a 5-star backup, there is a large contingent of people who dwell on or greatly exaggerate Cade's shortcomings because they are convinced that you can't have a great offense or beat Ohio State without someone with elite physical tools at quarterback. Here's a newsflash for anyone that doesn't remember: Shea Patterson was also a 5-star and even as an upperclassmen he didn't play winning football or take our offense to the next level. I hope JJ has a way better Michigan career than Patterson but as a true freshman there is certainly no guarantee that he's capable of playing winning football, let alone being capable of taking the entire offense to another level.
I'm not saying that I know who's better right now between Cade and JJ but I also know that no one else on this board does, either, and if JJ were already as exceptional as a few people on this board think, he'd already be starting. But almost no one is that good as a true freshman. People are talking about JJ raising the level of the entire offense and being Ohio State. We should just hope that he's competent if he has to play important snaps over the second half of this season. He's a true freshman.
I guess my point is that a lot of people are pretending that you can't win big with a guy like Cade because they wish JJ was the starter, but no one even knows if JJ is as good as Cade right now or even close to as good if he had to lead the offense for an entire game.
