The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
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Carthy assured. "He loves Tom Brady. He loves Coach Harbaugh. He loves Michigan, and its excellence. Those guys breed excellence. He wants that challenge to be what Tom Brady meant to Michigan. "If he is taking himself to that level, that means the team is winning. It's all about winning — Michigan win- ning. "Sometimes he'll get asked the question, 'Hey, man, do you want to win the Heisman?' 'Hell yeah, I want to win the Heisman. You know why? Because if I win the Heisman, that means my team is winning.'" A PERFECTIONIST'S MINDSET Holcomb first encountered J.J. Mc- Carthy when the talented youngster was only a seventh grader. They've worked together ever since, out of Holcomb's Next Level Athletix train- ing facilities in Carol Stream, Ill. Holcomb hadn't heard of the junior high youth back then, but he quickly learned — a lot. "Immediately, I could tell he was just a little bit different than any other seventh grader that I had ever met," Holcomb said. "Fundamentally, he was really good. He had a nice, natu- ral throwing motion. His stroke was pretty clean. "He had an athletic presence to him that told me immediately that he's got a lot of upside and natural abil- ity as a younger kid. We just kind of smoothed out some rough edges. He already had pretty good mechanics. He was a little bit of a ball lifter." He's absolutely a spirit lifter for any head coach or trainer, Holcomb discovered. He'd show the prodigy video of Brady, Aaron Rodgers, etc., who throw how Holcomb teaches. McCarthy possessed a knack for see- ing it, absorbing it and tweaking his own motion to match. "He's got an ability to self-correct mistakes or make changes that you need a quarterback to make," Hol- comb said. "That's probably his big- gest attribute. You ask him to make a change, and he has the ability to do it immediately. "When we teach some of the higher- level stuff now, it's the same way. The way he's wired, if it's not perfect, he'll continue to rep it until it's perfect." If there's a better incoming quarter- back in the nation, Holcomb would like to see him. "The skill set is just on a different level," Holcomb said. "The way he throws the football is just different than most. Arguably, he's the top quarterback in the class. "Obviously, I'm biased, but I had a chance to be at the Elite 11 finals and see who they feel are the top quar- terbacks in the country. There is no question in my mind that the physical skill set that he has, the athletic traits that he has and all the things he does on the field make him the best quar- terback in the country. "But it's the locker room, huddle, personal relationship, leadership skill attributes that completely set him apart." Holcomb witnessed those in per- son after watching McCarthy in a rare struggle, throwing multiple intercep- tions in a game at St. Louis. Two picks were clearly not his fault, Holcomb stressed. "Never once did he make it look like he was frustrated with the kids that may have made him look bad," Holcomb said. "It was the opposite. Over on the sidelines, you saw him with his arm around those kids, tell- ing them what they probably could have done differently. Those are the things he's going to bring to the ta- ble." Holcomb also says McCarthy — who played his final season at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., with and against some of the top prep per- formers in the nation — will be one of Michigan's best recruiters in the years to come. Jim McCarthy backs that notion. "When J.J. was younger, he had this certain knack about him, and I think it's carried on throughout high school," he said. "Kids seemed to gravitate toward him. Why? He's very accepting. He wants to include everybody." He also wants to be a Wolverine — period. When others fretted about Harbaugh's contract situation and 24 THE WOLVERINE MARCH 2021 2021 FOOTBALL RECRUITING ISSUE McCarthy will be trying to break into the starting lineup as a true freshman — just one of the many lofty goals he doesn't back down from. "He wants that challenge to be what Tom Brady meant to Michigan," his father said. PHOTO COURTESY THE MCCARTHY FAMILY Illinois-based quarterback guru Greg Holcomb "You see the physical ability on the field, but it's the other stuff that makes him. That's why I think he's going to win the job there as a freshman. He's not wired as a freshman. He's wired as an adult. He's got this maturity level to him."