Now comes the hard part. Now comes the pressure. The real pressure, not the come-in-at-halftime-and-save-us pressure – the save-our-season pressure.
Now comes the opposition’s full focus on the scout team, and the talking heads’ full attention, and the full-throated expectation from the crowd that booed in the first half Saturday, Oct. 17, at the Big House, roared in the third quarter, and will boo again if the first-down chains don't move often enough next Saturday.
Put simply, the name on the back of the jersey doesn’t matter.
Now comes everything that comes with becoming the starting quarterback at Michigan. Not that coach Kyle Whittingham would commit Saturday to starting Tommy Carr for U-M's "Big Noon Kickoff" showdown against defending College
Football Playoff champion Indiana the following week.
But, really, who is he kidding?
Not Indiana and coach Curt Cignetti, who have access to tape, presumably, and who will, by next Saturday, have seen what the Wolverines looked like with Bryce Underwood leading the huddle in the first half and what they looked like with Carr leading them for the second half in U-M's 21-18 comeback win over Penn State.
Yeah, small sample size. Also, go watch the tape. Not that you need to.
Not that Whittingham needs to, really, even though he said he would need to after his Wolverines ended their two-game losing streak in part because of Carr’s insertion under center at the break. Due diligence and all, I suppose.
Seriously, though, Whittingham knows what’s up. He’s just being cagey. Football requires him to be cagey. Because Cignetti and Co. can’t possibly prepare for the possibility of two starting quarterbacks, right?
That’s just football being football.
Whittingham being Whittingham, meanwhile, meant that he had to give Carr half the reps the week before the Penn State game. And had to talk up his freshman quarterback whenever he was asked about him – mostly because he couldn’t help himself. And had to eventually give him the ball in the third quarter Saturday against the Nittany Lions.
He saw the score, a 3-0 deficit that doesn't really cover how ineffectual U-M's offense was. He’d also seen the spring game ... and fall camp ... and practice every week between games. And all the games, too, from the sideline. And while that doesn’t provide the satellite view that coaches crave, it provides more than just a gut feeling.
Or it should.
And did for Whittingham, which is why he admitted Saturday that he made the change because he was looking for a spark, and admitted that the change did, in fact, provide the spark, and that Carr has some kind of indescribable quality to which others gravitate, known in the parlance of the cliché as the “it” factor.
“Well, he’s just got a presence about him that you want in your quarterbacks,” Whittingham said. “'The field general mentality' is how I defined it before. And he's an extremely confident young man. He doesn’t say a whole lot.”
'I prepared for this since Week 1'
For now, he doesn’t need to, despite Whittingham’s wish that he was a little more boisterous – hopefully, the decibels will come with time.
Then again, he may not need them. Not anytime soon. Toss a 19-year-old into the fray with the season teetering and watch him relax after his first throw? That says something, too. (Mostly that he saw J.J. Buchanan open over the middle near the first-down marker and didn’t hesitate to get it to him.)
He arrived as a three-star prospect from just down the road in Saline carrying the family name of his grandfather, Lloyd Carr, and older brother – and five-star recruit – CJ Carr (who mans the QB spot for Notre Dame). And though his name gave him a Q-rating most backups aren’t burdened with, it wasn’t until Underwood struggled this season that his name began to surface more than dolphins surface at Sea World.
Carr just kept preparing in case the moment came calling. Asked if he foresaw the jump from Saline High School to Michigan Stadium so quickly, he said, flatly:
“I prepared for this since Week 1. I prepared every day like I was a starter.”
He meant that. Then acted like it when he got the chance. Not with his noise level, per se, but with his stress level. Whatever nerves he had, he flushed after the first couple plays, and though he wasn’t asked to fling the ball around the field, he was asked to lift an offense that hadn’t scored in the first half.
Or come close.
And he did, running for one touchdown and missing another by about the width of a Wolverine boot, completing a few passes, protecting the ball, giving the huddle – and the team – a jolt.
“Our team really respects his work ethic and how he prepares himself,” Whittingham said. “I don't want to make this sound like Bryce doesn't do that. But Tommy, for a true freshman, has really come in and made exceptional strides.”
Now he’ll have to make a few more, and a few more after that. Because no matter what his coach says – or won’t say – about who will start against Indiana, it’ll be a shock if it isn’t Carr. It would also be coaching malpractice.
The tape has spoken for now, and it doesn’t lie: Carr gives U-M the best chance to win. This is his chance to show it – again.
Now comes the pressure.
For real.
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Contact Shawn Windsor: swindsor@freepress.com. Follow him @shawnwindsor.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Tommy Carr not the starter yet, but who are we kidding?
