Joe Milton

Joe Milton

Michael James, a Detroit native, has spent more than 20 years in sports journalism with The Detroit News, New York Daily News and ESPN. He's the editor of The Tribe Sports. This column is republished with permission.


Joe Milton: "The type of player that can be a true difference maker."

By Michael James

After a season of highs with a successful quarterback after what seemed like a decade in the wilderness, many Michigan football fans rejoiced when transfer Shea Patterson announced he would be returning for his senior year.

Strangely, despite the fact that Patterson had led the team as high as the No. 4 ranking nationally and to a 10-win season, not everyone is happy to see Patterson return. On social media and message boards, there seems to – at the least – be squabbling breaking out between Wolverines fans over those quarterbacks in line behind Patterson.

Specifically, Joe Milton.

What’s strange about this is that even with the glut of quarterbacks in Michigan’s pantry after rather paltry pickings the first three years of Jim Harbaugh’s tenure, UM fans are worried about the possible transfer of Milton – who is either third or fourth behind Brandon Peters, depending upon who you ask.

Who cares about a fourth-string quarterback? Aren’t Patterson, Dylan McCaffrey, Peters and walk-ons Mike Cessa and Max Wittwer enough?

You’d certainly think there’d be no legitimate reason for concern about a blank-string quarterback giving up on Michigan after just one season in Ann Arbor, but with Milton, I think I know why Wolverines fans are worried: the kid is special.

Trust Instinct

No, the sample size isn’t great at all, but as a sportswriter who spent one day with a 17-year-old high schooler in the 1990s and came back to the office telling anyone who listened that this Kobe Bryant kid had some Michael Jordan in him, I trust my instincts.

Same with an early New York Daily News assignment where I was tasked to talk to a troubled wide receiver from Marshall who’d had a domestic abuse situation with his girlfriend – after witnessing him play a game against Army. The kid hurdled a defensive end one of the first times he touched the ball. He reminded me of Jerry Rice. His name? Randy Moss.

In Joe Milton, whom Michigan coaches recruited out of Olympia High School in Pahokee, Florida and have high praise for – despite their contention that he needs work and is a project – you don’t have to see a whole lot to notice this kid is an athlete.

Joe Milton is 6-foot-5, nearly 240 pounds, runs an astonishing 4.5 40-yard dash and can throw the ball 85 yards.

Those who want Milton fans to slow their roll retort with the fact that Milton’s numbers weren’t necessarily gaudy in high school, where he only completed 90 of 188 passes for 1,317 yards and 10 touchdowns in his senior season, in addition to running for five touchdowns.

Today, Milton’s detractors – or, more accurately, supporters of Patterson, McCaffrey and the Theory Of Waiting Your Turn – question his inexperience, mechanics and his accuracy – deficiencies that Milton will have spent at least a year on by next season to work his way up the depth chart.

Team Player of 2018

They speak as though there is no chance Milton could possibly improve enough to either challenge Patterson for the starting job or even McCaffrey for the backup role.

Still, they don’t want to lose him.

Obviously, they don’t understand that a college athlete – no matter how many schools he may transfer to – only has one career. And that athlete can’t spend it waiting for a fair chance if he feels it will never come.

Now, being a million miles away from the Michigan program, I don’t know what Jim Harbaugh’s plans are for Joe Milton. I only know that the team definitely wanted to show Milton they value him, which is why he was co-recipient of the Wolverines’ 2018 Scout Team Player of the Year Award. At the very least, the award is to appease Milton, to keep him in the fold.

Not long after Patterson announced he was skipping the NFL draft and coming back to Ann Arbor, Milton made a Twitter post that started fans speculating he might be thinking of bolting. If you follow the feed, many are begging him to stay in Ann Arbor.

Is there a hidden meaning in Milton's tweet?

Personally, I’d love to see the kid stay, but not at the price of having to wait until the 2020 season or beyond. Joe Milton is simply better than that. What I’m not sure of after seeing the likes of Jake Rudock, Wilton Speight and John O’Korn, is that a raw, dynamic talent like Joe Milton would get the nod over the more fundamentally sound and safe choices on Michigan’s roster.

Gunslinger vs. Cautious Coach

To my eye, Joe Milton is the type of player that – sorry, Michigan fans – Urban Meyer seemed to find a way to identify and get on the football field. That is one of the major differences I saw between Meyer and Harbaugh. Meyer was a gunslinger. Harbaugh seems to become a more cautious coach by the season.


Jim Harbaugh "Harbaugh seems to become a more cautious coach by the season."
(Photo: University of Michigan Athletics Dept.)

This much I assure you, Joe Milton is the type of player that can be a true difference-maker in the hunt for a national title. Shea Patterson, as good as he is, will get Michigan to the exact same place he got them this season – a 10-2 finish, or 9-3 and a decent bowl appearance.

To those who want to harp on Milton’s inexperience, mechanics, etc., I say this: Milton’s head coach is a former All-Big Ten legend, a former NFL star QB, a man who took the San Francisco 49ers to the Super Bowl with a “limited” quarterback named Colin Kaepernick.

If Jim Harbaugh – after having Milton for a full year or two can’t fix these problems – who can?

For Michigan’s sake, I hope that Joe Milton gets a real good look at least by the end of next season. If not, he’s almost sure to bolt – and Michigan fans who were so overjoyed at Patterson’s return will rue that day while watching Joe Milton light it up for some other Power 5 program.

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