Nearly a dozen practices and at least one scrimmage had come and gone as Michigan football coach Jim Harbaugh strode toward a lectern inside Schembechler Hall on Wednesday, his cleats clacking along the tiled floor.
He had last spoken to the media at Big Ten Media Days in late July, when the primary topic of conversation was the ongoing quarterback battle between the incumbent Cade McNamara and the challenger J.J. McCarthy. Nothing had changed in the three weeks since Harbaugh’s surfacing in Indianapolis, and the elephant in his program was immediately addressed.
“Jim, you’re in the back half of camp now,” a reporter asked to begin the news conference. “Has there been any separation at quarterback one?”
The question would have been asked regardless of when Harbaugh scheduled what is likely to be his only interview session of training camp, but it felt particularly applicable given one of his comments on an athletic department podcast earlier this month. Harbaugh told the show’s host, ex-Wolverine Jon Jansen, that eight or nine practices into preseason is when a decision might be made, when enough time has passed for one quarterback to potentially separate from the other.
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Fans eager for an unimpeachable verdict in the ongoing saga of McNamara vs. McCarthy came away disappointed when Harbaugh said the players remain neck and neck. He offered little in the way of a revised timeline and instead, over the course of his 17-minute appearance, began laying the foundation for a race that could spill into the regular season.
“They both just continue to elevate their game,” Harbaugh said in response to the opening question, “really on a daily basis, in every little way. It’s pretty tight. They’re both playing at high starter-caliber.”
Though the calendar shows two weeks and change until the opener against Colorado State on Sept. 3, the final five days of that stretch will operate like a normal game week with Michigan formulating, installing and repping its game plan in practice. That leaves little more than a week for one of the quarterbacks to emerge before the Wolverines must devise a strategy featuring both.
Once again, Harbaugh left the door open for each possible…