If there’s any one thing that Michigan Football true freshman quarterback Joe Milton can rely on as an advantage in the battle for the starting quarterback spot in Ann Arbor this year, it’s his arm strength.
“The furthest I’ve thrown one is 85 (yards),” Milton told Mlive.com “But on good days, probably like 85. On a regular basis, like 75-80.”
Milton enrolled for classes early at the University of Michigan in order to get a jump start on winter conditioning. He just turned 18 years old in March, but likes to think of himself as older than he actually is. Confidence isn’t an issue for him, either. The fact that his success will hinge in part on how others perform as well is something that he accepts as well.
“I’m just a team person,” he said. “It’s not all about me (or) how I did. It’s about how the team feels together. How they stay through it and fought to the end.”
Shea Patterson, who recently found out that he will be eligible to play this season, had a tremendous compliment for the freshman.
“Joe Milton has one of the strongest arms I’ve ever seen,” he said. “We’re all making each other better, day in and day out. So that’s a good group of guys.”
http://gty.im/866714450
While still getting familiar with the playbook, Milton views the quarterback competition as a “four way tie” at this point. Brandon Peters, Dylan McCaffrey, and Patterson are also included in the competition, but Milton appears to be the only one of the four who possesses true dual threat capabilities. He threw for 1,317 yards during his senior year in high school, with 10 touchdowns and six interceptions. Milton also ran for 262 yards and five touchdowns in that same senior season.
Head coach Jim Harbaugh gave Milton a great compliment as well, saying that he has been “better than expected” since arriving in Ann Arbor.
“You’d have to be there to see it,” Harbaugh said. “You may have heard. But to see it in person — you’ve got to be there. It’s pretty good. It’s really good.”
Although we won’t know for quite some time who is going to win the starting job, it’s a safe bet that Milton is going to do everything in his power to make sure that he is high on the list of considerations.
