Call me spoiled, call me a classic millennial/Gen Z (take your pick), call me whatever variation of entitlement you want, but what happened to natty-winning quarterbacks. Natty quarterbacking used to mean something. Watching a 21 year-old thoroughly tear through confused, equally-youthful receivers was the game. I may be an air raid snob who was raised on Big 12 quarterbacks acting like drone pilots spotting an Afghan wedding. I enjoy nothing more than a game dictated by long balls and miracle catches. And, truthfully, it feels like for the past 7 years or so the National Championship has been played as a pre- and postmortem tribute to Mike Leach.
Going into Monday night, I thought Michael Penix Jr., a man begging for a little league birth certificate check, was going to bring us back to the promised land. This isn’t only because I wanted Washington to win. After watching him sling for an entire game against Texas, I expected Penix to put an X on some Wolverine peni (not a great pun, I’m sorry).
Ghosts of Quarterbacks Past
We were spoiled with a run of quarterbacks – Bennett, Burrow, Lawrence, even Mac Jones – who blessed us with the high scoring games I love. This may be the mindset of a child, but I genuinely love high scoring games. Maybe it’s the Big 12 in me, maybe its the primal brain that likes bigger numbers. But these guys were running the table, putting up those prime 350-yard games with ease.
Last year’s national championship game was immensely disappointing. I thought it would be cool to see how a Big 12 school stacked up against the SEC team. Turns out, that leads to a murder. But with that murder, Stetson Bennett, who I imagine sells insurance in the Athens area now, put up some historic numbers in three quarters of work. We’re talking a masterclass in destroying the hopes of snobby rich kids who weren’t rich enough to get into SMU. He even got a WWE retirement-level send off, with a football stadium cheering him goodbye.
Sure, did it help to have Brock Bowers just reinvented what it meant to be a tight end by averaging more than 20 yards a catch. Maybe he’ll date Sabrina Carpenter after starting a podcast.
While National Championship quarterbacks have always been pass-happy, there has been a complete dominance from passing quarterbacks. Mac Jones, the man Bill Belichick can’t quit, threw for 464 yards in 2021. Again, he played for Alabama pre-transfer portal exodus, but that’s not a feat you can just pull off. I’m under no impression that I could step into the game and just win with ease, even with an NFL-caliber team in front of me.
It was just disappointing to go from a string of quarterbacks who looked like prime Drew Brees, to JJ McCarthy. I wanted Shrek 2, but instead I got The Last Jedi (for the record, I fully blame Rian Johnson for that movie; he thinks he is so much smarter than he is. Knives Out is a good movie, but Rian Johnson thought the plot twist was a genius move. It was not).
I could also blame Penix Jr. for his horrible play, but he didn’t win.
McCarthyism and the Blue Scare(d of Passing)
JJ McCarthy seems like a nice enough guy. Yeah, is it kind of weird he likes to brush his teeth with a left hand for brain waves, or something? Yes, this feels like something Andrew Huberman would promote so a guy in tech sales would have the willpower to send a few more emails.
He seems like a nice guy, but he’s going to get one, if not two, GMs fired for passing on other quarterbacks because they “just like his look.” Maybe I follow the wrong people on Twitter/X, but I saw nothing but praise for McCarthy after his Rose Bowl performance.
Listen, if we collectively are going to trash Brock Purdy for relying on 5-yard dumps and yard-gaining receivers, then we need to bring that same energy to a JJ discussion. What has happened to my national championship, where we’re running the ball. JJ McCarthy is supposed to be exploiting sophomore cornerbacks. And yet, he tries to recreate that Joe Burrow picture, who was a couple throws away from 500 yards.
Come April, I truly believe this picture will be shown side-by-side with Joe Burrow. He has a similar story: a quarterback who faced challenges early on in his career, only to overcome it. Listen, this isn’t a hit piece. McCarthy did what he was supposed to; that was the game plan. Harbaugh schemed perfectly. This isn’t the first time a Washington collective couldn’t stop the run in early January. Kudos to Harbaugh and kudos to McCarthy.
Is there probably something in this that Michigan is the first Big 10 team to win a natty in the playoff era? Probably, because any team in the same conference as Iowa is not putting up thrilling, pass-oriented games. There’s something about a conference built on the back of corn-fed mini Brock Lesnars that doesn’t enthrall my Big 12-raised senses. But next year, can we maybe get a guy who throws for 200 yards? I wanted to see a cornerback crying like that one Brazilian kid during that Germany-Brazil game.
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