When Jim Harbaugh arrived at Michigan in December 2014, he was known as a quarterback guru.
At San Diego, he helped Todd Mortensen and Josh Johnson become NFL players. He recruited Andrew Luck to Stanford and developed him into a No. 1 overall pick. And he resurrected Alex Smith’s career in San Francisco before reaching the Super Bowl with Colin Kaepernick.
When it came to developing quarterbacks, Harbaugh’s record was practically flawless. At every stop, he found a star at the most important position on the field.
Harbaugh is entering his sixth season with the Wolverines, his longest tenure at any one place as a head coach. And yet he’s still searching for his first star quarterback in Ann Arbor.
Somewhere along the way, the pipeline dried up.
It used to be a given that a Harbaugh-coached starting quarterback would get a chance at the next level. His first QB in Ann Arbor, Iowa grad transfer Jake Rudock, settled in after a shaky start and has bounced around the fringes of the NFL. It was reasoned that things would get better at the position after 2015, that Harbaugh would find his next star after he had time to recruit and develop the position.
Bit it just hasn’t played out that way.
Since Rudock, Michigan has had four quarterbacks start a game: Wilton Speight, John O’Korn, Brandon Peters and Shea Patterson. None have made it to the final roster of a NFL team. And it’s no coincidence that those players managed only mild success with the Wolverines.
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Speight and Patterson were solid but couldn’t get Michigan over the hump. O’Korn struggled mightily. And Peters, the only quarterback among those starters that Harbaugh signed out of high school, is now entering his second year as the starter at Illinois.
Harbaugh has signed five quarterbacks during his tenure, and those players have combined to complete 81 of 156 passes for 1,039 yards, eight touchdowns and five interceptions. Two of the three quarterbacks who combined for that production, Peters and Dylan McCaffrey, aren’t with the program anymore.
As for the third? Well, Michigan’s hopes and dreams for the 2020 season rest upon him.
“Known Joe (Milton) a long time,” Harbaugh said this week. “Recruited Joe, coached Joe, been around Joe on a daily basis. I mean, very talented. … He’s ready to play a game.
“People talk about his arm strength. He’s got great arm strength. He’s developed touch. He’s developed a passer’s touch. Throwing the appropriate throws. Most of all, I’m just excited to watch him compete.”
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Milton has been hyped up more than any player on the roster — and maybe the conference — who played as sparingly as he has (seven games) over the past two seasons. Part of that is because of his position: There’s the old adage that the backup quarterback is the most popular player on the team.
But it’s also because of his prodigious physical talent. At 6-feet-5, 243 pounds, he towers over most players, and he has the arm to go with it. Ever since Milton enrolled in spring of 2018, coaches and players have gushed about how fast and how far Milton can throw the ball. Defenders have joked about batting down Milton’s passes instead of attempting to catch them and risk dislocating a finger. Milton himself has said he can throw 85 yards; in 2019, he told reporters he can throw 76 yards without warming up.
And while we haven’t seen much of Milton, what little we have seen indicates that at least some of the praise is credible. As a runner, he has shown uncanny agility and speed for his size. As a passer, he has thrown a few fastballs and deep-ball arm strength won’t be an issue.
And yet, there’s a reason Milton sat on the bench through his first two seasons. He was far from a complete product when he signed with Michigan. At Olympia High School in Orlando, Florida, Milton never had a completion percentage over 50%. He was the definition of raw; a mound of clay in need of shaping. In particular, he struggled with throwing catchable balls with touch.
The Wolverines need Milton to be a different quarterback now. And they believe he is. Talk to anyone on the team, and they’ll speak glowingly of Milton’s progression this offseason.
“I know that he’s very ready,” said safety Brad Hawkins. “He’s playing with so much confidence.”
“Just to see him thrive and flourish, it’s been amazing,” said linebacker Josh Ross. “He’s been practicing really, really well and I can’t wait to see him go out there and ball.”
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Milton could very well become Harbaugh’s first star quarterback at Michigan, if the buzz about him proves true. And given the direction college football has gone in the past decade, that would bode well for the Wolverines.
Teams such as Alabama, Clemson and Oklahoma have been staples in the College Football Playoff because of elite quarterback play. Ohio State has quickly emerged as a QB factory that churns out strong-armed passers who pick apart Michigan’s secondary. And for all of its talent, LSU could not have won last season’s national title without Joe Burrow.
Can Milton become Michigan’s version of Justin Fields or Trevor Lawrence? That will depend upon Harbaugh recapturing some of his old magic as a quarterback guru.
“I’ve said it before: Let’s put a talented guy out there and see how it goes,” Harbaugh said. “I think you might be surprised in a very pleasant way.”
Contact Orion Sang at . Follow him on Twitter @orion_sang. Read more on the Michigan Wolverines and sign up for our Wolverines newsletter.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Can Michigan football’s Joe Milton become Jim Harbaugh’s Trevor Lawrence?
