The 14-0 Michigan Wolverines are preparing to play for the College Football Playoff national championship against the 14-0 Washington Huskies.
Quarterback J.J. McCarthy, fresh off a three-touchdown passing performance in a 27-20 overtime win over the Alabama Crimson Tide, spoke with reporters during the team’s Wednesday media session in preparation for Monday’s title game.
The former IMG Academy standout answered a bevy of questions, including those centered around the team’s sign-stealing scandal.
In his response, McCarthy didn’t shy away from calling out other programs and basically chalking it up to it’s something that nearly everyone is doing, it’s just a matter of not getting caught. For some reason you can bet Harbaugh didn’t want him speaking in that manner, but he did.
McCarthy Talks Long And Wrong
The former five-star recruit didn’t hold back on his feelings, and of course he took a shot at the Wolverine archrival.
“I also feel like it’s so unfortunate because there’s probably — I don’t want to say a crazy number, but I’d say a good number, 80 percent of the teams in college football steal signs. It’s just a thing about football. It’s been around for years.”
McCarthy calling out everyone else is his way of saying we’re not the only ones doing it. In fact in his next comment said it all as he even used school names. He also says that the Wolverines’ hand was forced by archrival Ohio State.
“We had to adapt because in 2020 or 2019 when Ohio State was stealing our signs, which is legal and they were doing it, we had to get up to the level that they were at, and we had to make it an even playing field.”
Interesting that McCarthy would say this because he didn’t arrive at Michigan until 2021, and the Wolverines opted out of the 2020 matchup because of COVID-19. Maybe it was the 2019 thrashing when Ohio State hung 56 on them at “The Big House” after scoring 62 the previous season at “The Shoe.”
McCarthy Doesn’t Want Accusations To Lessen Success
McCarthy, who’s 26-1 as a starter (the highest winning percentage of any starter in past 10 seasons) also mentioned how the accusations could actually diminish what they’ve accomplished. And that alone bothers him because he stated, “we do work our butts off.”
While that sounds good, if they did in fact steal signs it could definitely diminish what they’ve accomplished a bit. Wolverines head coach Jim Harbaugh, who was suspended twice this season, three games at the beginning for violating COVID-19 restrictions, and the final three games for the sign-stealing scandal, seems unbothered by it all, telling reporters this on Wednesday.
“I don’t know if you want to live in rumorville or speculation, but we just don’t really have any room to be doing that at this point.”
At this point Harbaugh has one foot out the door to the NFL anyway.
