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INDIANAPOLIS — The final minute of Michigan’s news conference after the Wolverines’ 26-0 win against Iowa in the Big Ten championship game on Saturday night transformed into a one-on-one meeting between head coach and quarterback.

Coach Jim Harbaugh just didn’t seem to like what quarterback J.J. McCarthy was saying.

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“J.J., you didn’t make a mistake out there tonight,” Harbaugh said, cutting off his quarterback. “There wasn’t one play where you made a mistake.”

McCarthy said there was one throw that he’d like back. But Harbaugh continued.

“Maybe the one you could have run on where you threw to Roman (Wilson) on the incompletion,” Harbaugh said.

“Yeah,” McCarthy replied.

On that play, McCarthy had room to run as he scrambled to his left. But instead of taking off for what could have been a 10-yard gain or more on second-and-9 from Iowa’s 31, McCarthy contorted his body and fired a throw to Wilson in what was essentially double coverage. McCarthy still hit his best receiver in both hands, but the ensuing collision knocked it loose.

“But that was it,” Harbaugh said. “It was a near-perfect performance.”

“Appreciate that, Coach,” McCarthy said.

McCarthy’s self-critique and his stats say otherwise. He was 22-for-30 passing for only 147 yards. He was sacked four times.

But Harbaugh’s words do carry weight.

Minutes earlier, Harbaugh poured the praise on McCarthy even though he wasn’t asked directly about him.

“I would follow him to hell and back,” Harbaugh said.

“Likewise,” McCarthy interrupted.

But Harbaugh went on about his quarterback. He mentioned a throw that McCarthy completed on the run that was negated by a penalty, drops by his tight ends and also the protection issues up front with the Wolverines missing first-team All-Big Ten guard Zak Zinter.

“I mean he never hung his head,” Harbaugh said. “He never got on anybody. He’s just got this demeanor. The more you hit him, the more he’s just motivated to come back, which is amazing. Plus, he’s 20 years old. I think he’s the best quarterback in the country. Some will argue. But he’s got to be the youngest of the best. I see some other guys that are reclassified and been around for forever, but he’s just a kid.”

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In November, North Carolina coach Mack Brown called Drake Maye the best quarterback in college football after a wild double-overtime win at home against Duke. A few weeks before that, USC quarterback Caleb Williams pointed out his own uncharacteristic mistakes after an ugly, turnover-filled loss on the road against Notre Dame.

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I covered both games with the Bears potentially having the first pick in the NFL Draft. The Bears have to scout the best quarterbacks.

Harbaugh has McCarthy. And they win together. A lot. Their next game will be their best test yet. Michigan, the No. 1 seed in the College Football Playoff, will face Alabama.

But if you’re an NFL team that wants to hire Harbaugh as its coach, do you have to prepare to draft McCarthy, too?

If you listen to Harbaugh, who has praised McCarthy for everything for months, you might have to.

“The record he has speaks for itself,” Harbaugh said Saturday night at Lucas Oil Stadium. “The things you don’t see behind the scenes — you see the talent — but just the toughness, the dedication that he has for the team is unmatched.”

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I saw McCarthy play in high school. Notre Dame, my alma mater, hosted Nazareth and McCarthy in Week 8 of the 2019 season. They were two of the best teams in Illinois at the time. Nazareth was No. 3 and Notre Dame No. 8 in the Chicago Sun-Times’ top 25.

It was McCarthy’s junior season. Before it began, he had committed to Harbaugh and Michigan. He and the Roadrunners, one of the best teams annually in Illinois, won the 7A state championship a season earlier with McCarthy starting as a sophomore.

The #Bears High School All-Star winner for Week 5 was J.J. McCarthy of Nazareth Catholic Academy who completed 18-of-27 passes for 425 passing yds w/ 5 passing TDs & 1 rushing TD. pic.twitter.com/FjGSThVUOL

— Chicago Bears (@BearsOutreach) September 28, 2018

It was a close game against Notre Dame, a defensive battle. Nazareth led by a touchdown at halftime and its one score was pick-six by its defense in the first quarter.

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I watched the game from the end zone. I remember thinking something along the lines of, “OK, this is the kid going to Michigan? What’s so special about him?”

And then you saw it.

In the second half, McCarthy ripped a laser down the right sideline for a long gain. It went for 40 or 50 yards. It changed the game. The velocity and arc of McCarthy’s throw stood out initially, but he also hit his receiver in stride. It was different. It was D-I.

At least, that’s how I remember the throw and that moment.

Nazareth defeated Notre Dame 21-0 that night. Nazareth scored a late touchdown for the final margin. Nazareth made another run at a state title with McCarthy, eventually losing to Mount Carmel — another state power from Chicago’s South Side — in the 7A championship game. It was Nazareth’s only loss that season.

The 2020 high school season in Illinois was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. McCarthy wanted to play and left for national powerhouse IMG Academy in Florida. The wins kept coming for him. The losses never did. IMG went 8-0 and finished No. 1 in USA Today’s national rankings. McCarthy was named the 2020 MaxPreps Florida Player of the Year.

Nazareth, though, never left McCarthy’s Michigan bio. The story about his relationship with UNLV defensive lineman Ryan Keeler, a teammate and close friend at Nazareth who died in February from a heart arrhythmia, has endured throughout this season.

How would a local kid handle being the quarterback for his hometown Bears? How would he handle everything that comes with it? Is he built for the Chicago market?

Other teams don’t have those questions. General manager Ryan Poles, though, believes in investing in local players. Three of the Bears’ best players this season — tight end Cole Kmet and linebackers T.J. Edwards and Jack Sanborn — are from the Chicago area.

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“There’s something to it for me,” Poles said in March. “I think when you have pride of your local team that you grew up watching, you knew what this club meant to the city, and you saw some good times and some good players. I think you’re a little bit more motivated to perform at a high level and also lead because you’ve seen guys do it at a high level before you. So I always like that aspect. I think it just means a little bit more.”

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When you ask evaluators about the top quarterbacks for the upcoming draft, they rave about Williams and Maye’s physical gifts.

It’s their arms, legs, creativity and more.

With McCarthy, the praise is different. It always starts with his intangibles. It’s everything that Harbaugh said after Michigan beat Iowa. There is something to him. He’s widely considered a great teammate. They love him.

“He’s a winner,” a scout said.

Others said the same thing about him.

The Wolverines are 25-1 with McCarthy as their starter. He just wins. McCarthy was like that in high school, too. He went 36-2. His college record will improve his stock with many teams. He’s the first Michigan quarterback to beat Ohio State in back-to-back seasons since 1990-91.

His team-first demeanor, energy, moxie and presence deserve to be highlighted. McCarthy was the first one to congratulate Michigan’s field goal unit when it came off the field every time against Iowa. He seemingly hugged everyone at the end of the game.

The problem is that winning isn’t everything in scouting.

“Good but not elite traits across the board,” a scout said. “He’s athletic and can make all the throws. He has made some bad decisions this year, which we didn’t see much last year. But he plays in a pro-style offense, which NFL offensive coordinators and QB coaches will love. He can call a huddle and spit out plays.

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“He might not have the upside of Williams or Maye, but he probably has a higher floor. It wouldn’t be a complete shock if he ends up being the best of the bunch.”

Again, with all quarterbacks, some projection is needed. With McCarthy, you can argue that more is needed than Williams, Maye and LSU’s Jayden Daniels. McCarthy has played in enough games. But has he thrown enough passes to evaluate him?

Williams has 1,099 attempts in his three-year career at Oklahoma and USC. Daniels totaled 1,432 playing at Arizona State and LSU. Maye has 952 at North Carolina. McCarthy has only 668 pass attempts over his three seasons at Michigan. He threw eight passes in Michigan’s victory against Penn State on Nov. 11.

Harbaugh has described him as the best quarterback in Michigan history and he has compared him to Andrew Luck, whom Harbaugh coached at Stanford. But Luck threw 1,064 passes over three seasons in college.

This feels like nitpicking, though. Williams is likely first in the draft class; Maye is second. But McCarthy remains in the first-round mix if he declares for the draft. The Athletic’s Dane Brugler had him as a first-rounder and the fourth quarterback selected in his first mock draft.

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Teams talk themselves out of good players as much as they talk themselves into over-drafting mediocre ones. It happens every year, especially with quarterbacks. Another knock on McCarthy is his slim build, though he’s listed at 6-3 and 202 pounds.

In the Big Ten championship game, McCarthy didn’t need to make the high-end, highlight-reel throws that he did in the Wolverines’ win the previous week against Ohio State. He simply played good enough for another win for a great team.

TOUCHDOWN MICHIGAN

After review, the TD stands for @Umichfootball 🔥 pic.twitter.com/AnRHE6F0wt

— FOX College Football (@CFBONFOX) November 25, 2023

Against Iowa, you saw some of the stuff that makes McCarthy appealing. He looked comfortable playing in the pocket and completed passes with accuracy. He played on time. His throws have more zip on them when you see them made in person. He got the ball out quickly. He made throws on the run and improvised at times. He’s definitely athletic. He also kept his eyes downfield when he scrambled.

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What you didn’t see was a continuation of his success on third downs for the reasons Harbaugh mentioned. Michigan was 3-for-15 against Iowa. However, McCarthy’s success on third downs might separate him from other quarterbacks when teams are finalizing their draft boards. His numbers are outstanding. Here’s a stat shared by Michigan last week when it announced that McCarthy was a finalist for the Manning Award, along with Williams, Maye, Daniels and others:

“McCarthy has been particularly effective on third down, completing 42 of 57 pass attempts (73.5 percent) for 615 yards with a 193.26 passer rating. In situations of third-and-7 yards or more, McCarthy is 27 of 35 (75.8 percent) for 447 yards with 24 first downs or touchdowns (five).”

J.J. McCarthy is so good on 4th down. 🎯

📺: FOX/@CFBONFOX pic.twitter.com/N58SXQujEg

— Big Ten Network (@BigTenNetwork) December 3, 2023

Some scouts might call that being clutch. McCarthy did hit receiver Cornelius Johnson for a 10-yard gain on fourth-and-7 from Iowa’s 36 on Michigan’s first possession.

McCarthy appears to be part game manager, part gunslinger. He’s whatever the game calls for — and he doesn’t complain about it. It clearly has endeared him to his head coach.

Harbaugh, McCarthy, running back Blake Corum and nickelback Mike Sainristil met the media for nearly 30 minutes together after defeating Iowa. And sometimes they just talked to each other.

Corum: “First of all, Iowa has a good defense. Let’s not act like Iowa … ”

Harbaugh: “Fourth in defense and seventh in scoring or seventh …”

Corum: “They’re up there.”

Harbaugh: “Yeah. Or vice versa, right? Fourth in defense, seventh in scoring or fourth in scoring and seventh in defense? That’s a dang good defense.”

That’s right. It’s important context when looking at McCarthy’s recent production. They still play defense in the Big Ten. Dang good defense. Michigan, Iowa, Ohio State and Penn State have some of the best units in college football.

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Entering Saturday, the Hawkeyes’ defense ranked fourth in scoring and seventh in total yards. Michigan never got its run game going against them. They won because Sainristil, who was voted the player of the game, and their defense forced turnovers.

McCarthy’s best throws didn’t count and linebacker Nick Jackson should have intercepted in him in the third quarter.

In the final minutes of the first half, McCarthy hit tight end Colston Loveland in stride over the middle for a big gain on third-and-6 from the Michigan 38, but Loveland dropped the pass. Earlier in the second quarter, McCarthy scrambled and threw a rope to tight end AJ Barner along the sideline, but it was negated by a holding penalty. Barner also dropped a pass for a potential first down on third-and-13 over the middle from Iowa’s 18.

“I just need to do better at staying in the pocket, not moving too early, and trusting my receivers downfield all the time,” McCarthy said. “Just back to the drawing board. Like Blake said, that was a great defense, and (I) can’t wait to learn from a great defense. We’ll get better from it and continue to tighten things down to make us the most dominant offense we can be.”

That’s when Harbaugh interrupted him.

It’s the moment that Harbaugh told his quarterback in front of everyone that he played a near-perfect game against Iowa. If you believe Harbaugh would be a good coach in the NFL again — and many do — you might have to trust what he’s saying about McCarthy.

They clearly trust each other. In November, Harbaugh described him as “like a beloved son.”

Together, they’re Big Ten champions — again.

“It’s been beautiful,” McCarthy said. “(It’s) just a tremendous blessing to be able to be a part of it. Through all the ups and downs, through all the peaks and valleys, there’s nobody I would rather go to war with every single day than these guys right here and be led by anybody else but Coach Harbaugh. It’s just been so much fun.”

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(Top photo: Justin Casterline / Getty Images)

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