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It’s the most lauded, vilified, scrutinized and lionized position within Michigan football — or anywhere else, for that matter.

The quarterback stands at the heart of every football team. He touches the ball on nearly every play, and if he’s not good, the team generally faces the same outcome as a snowball on equatorial asphalt.

It’s a meltdown.

So any little disruption in the preparation process for quarterbacks tends to represent a big deal. Michigan’s effort to replace two-year starter Shea Patterson encountered a huge disruption in the spring.

The COVID-19-induced cancellation of spring practice wiped away 15 practices worth of intense scrutiny of the quarterbacks, diligent charting of every throw, their own growth in working with the offensive unit, etc. That’s not good, acknowledged Michigan offensive coordinator Josh Gattis, who stands ever eager to flip the switches and light it up.

Staying in the dark a little longer wasn’t his preferred option, but he has also seen encouragements — through Zoom meetings, interacting with the young men ready to battle it out.

“We missed that significant chunk of time, with spring football practice being canceled,” Gattis said. “I’ve really been encouraged in the steps we can control, the mental reps, the engagement in the meeting rooms, at how our guys have done — especially our quarterbacks.

“They’ve been really engaged. We’ve challenged all three of those guys to take on bigger leadership roles on the team.”

Those three at the heart of the fight for the No. 1 job are redshirt junior Dylan McCaffrey, the 6-5, 220-pound veteran with the most time on the field; redshirt sophomore Joe Milton, the 6-5, 245-pounder featuring the strongest arm; and Cade McNamara, a 6-1, 205-pound redshirt freshman who generated a buzz with his late-season and offseason efforts.

All would have benefited from spring football, in various ways. That’s all water under the bridge now, Gattis offered.

“It’s challenging,” he said. “You look at the quarterback position, sometimes people want to know who’s going to be the starter, who is going to be the captain. We’ve encouraged all of those guys, they’re all leaders.

“We missed the timing, we missed the competitive reps, we missed the good on good. But we’ll pick back up. We’re going through something that everybody else is going through.”

Gattis might not have drawn a distinction between the top three quarterbacks even if Michigan had conducted spring practice as usual. There is always a sensitivity when that particular job changes hands.

The lack of spring football made it easy, even logical, to not separate the contestants. Gattis, in a Zoom meeting with reporters, declined to say even what he likes about each of them.

He made sure to underscore this, though — nobody leads anybody.

“We’re excited about the guys we’ve got on our roster,” the second-year Michigan offensive coordinator said. “We’ve got to solve that question later on down the road, when we get an opportunity to. No one has a leg up. It’s not based on depth chart last year, it’s not based on skill set this year.”

The last two years, McCaffrey demonstrated both his strengths and his vulnerability. Both years, he has been the first man off the bench to replace Patterson, sometimes with no appreciable decline in the offense.

Both years, McCaffrey sustained a significant injury.

In 2018, he opened the season and the eyes of onlookers by demonstrating a polished calm when coming in at Notre Dame. He completed 4 of 6 passes for 22 yards, ran the ball three times for 10 yards and seemed to stamp himself as the heir apparent.

He fired an 18-yard touchdown pass against Western Michigan, found Ronnie Bell for a 56-yard TD toss and broke off a 44-yard run against Wisconsin. He broke something else on a 14-yard scramble against Penn State — his collarbone.

That ended McCaffrey’s season, but he worked his way back into action last year, in the same role. He rushed for 42 yards, including a touchdown, in the season opener against Middle Tennessee State. He threw for 40 yards and rushed for 21 in relief at Wisconsin’s Camp Randall Stadium.

The absence of a key baseball skill — on-time sliding — and a vicious, head-hunting hit by a Wisconsin defensive back cost him the next four games with a mild concussion. He returned for Michigan’s home rout of Notre Dame, firing a 26-yard touchdown strike to then-freshman wideout Mike Sainristil.

McCaffrey competed the rest of the season, raising his two-year totals to 13 game appearances, 18-of-35 passing (51.4 percent) for 242 yards with three touchdowns, and 13 rushing attempts for 166 yards and two scores.

Those who lean toward McCaffrey in any McCaffrey-Milton discussion cite his undeniable experience edge. Those who opt for the latter point out that Milton’s size, strength and arm could make him a more durable and daunting difference maker for the Wolverines.

Milton certainly captures the imagination in some respects, given his ability to throw a football 85 yards downfield, along with his Cardale Jones-like dimensions. New NCAA rules allowed Milton four games as a freshman in 2018 without losing his redshirt, and he used those and his practice time well.

Milton shared Michigan’s Scout Team Player of the Year Award for the offense. He ran twice against Wisconsin for 22 yards in his debut. He later completed 2 of 3 passes against Ohio State, including a 43-yard touchdown bomb to Nico Collins.

He played in four games last year, highlighted by his two touchdowns against Rutgers, including a TD pass to then-freshman wideout Giles Jackson and a one-yard scoring plunge.

Milton has rushed for 47 yards in 12 tries during his two years at Michigan, while connecting on 6 of 11 passes for 117 yards with one touchdown and a pair of interceptions. His biggest question mark remains accuracy and touch on his passes.

McNamara, meanwhile, has yet to see the field for the Wolverines, redshirting with no appearances last season. That automatically makes him a long shot in any QB race for this year, but Michigan All-American and radio broadcast member Jon Jansen has been adamant about not ruling him out.

McNamara certainly rang up jaw-dropping numbers at the prep level, throwing for a Nevada-record 12,804 passing yards and 146 touchdowns in his career at Damonte Ranch High.

Jansen understands why — given all the upside, along with the attendant question marks — Gattis keeps his QB commentary at a minimum leading into the fall.

“In his mind, it may be a battle all the way up to game time,” Jansen said. “What do we see Joe Milton do at the quarterback position? What do we see Dylan McCaffrey do? What do we see Cade McNamara do? His name had come up before all this shutdown happened, as a guy that was really coming along and showing some potential.”

There’s a logical choice, prior to fall camp, Jansen noted. But that logic can be overcome by performance.

“Right now, common sense tells you that Dylan McCaffrey would have a leg up, because he has game time experience, a little bit more meaningful experience than Joe Milton does,” Jansen observed. “The question is, can Dylan stay healthy? How is his decision making when he tucks it and runs it, because he’s been very effective at running the football, and has a great ability to do that, but obviously last year took a huge hit at Wisconsin and was knocked out for several games.

“Where is he at in regards to his responsibility to take care of himself and yet still be able to be out there and use the tools that God gave him to be able to play the game of football?”

Former Michigan offensive lineman Doug Skene, a five-time Big Ten champion, concurs that McCaffrey possesses a logical edge, but that doesn’t earn him a single start.

“Absolutely, I believe that,” Skene said. “They can have the throwing sessions, and you can work with your wide receivers, you can run seven-on-seven drills and all that jazz, but the only thing that matter is how you perform when the bullets are live.

“McCaffrey has the experience and has shown some success in doing that. Unfortunately, Mr. Milton hasn’t had that. That is a disadvantage, but it does not mean Milton won’t be the starter.

“The lack of spring football and the lack of all those reps just puts an absolute, over-the-top emphasis on every rep these guys get this fall. If Joe shows up and lights it on fire this fall, in theory, he would be the starter. I don’t think that’s out of the question. That could happen, but going in, before they even put the helmet on, the advantage is with McCaffrey.”

Skene also likes McCaffrey’s on-field swagger and bravado in his eagerness to make plays.

“I think he’s gutsy,” Skene said. “He’s got a willingness to stick his nose in, with the football on the read-option stuff. He’s a risk taker, to a degree — an appropriate amount of risk.

“I go back to the Wisconsin game last year, before he had his head taken off. That kid’s not afraid to tuck that ball and go make a play. A lot of times, quarterbacks are not comfortable doing that. They’d rather get rid of the football and maybe not be the one who is going to take the big blow.

“This kid has shown that he’s willing to do that. There are a lot of great quarterbacks over the last 10 years of football, with all the read-option stuff, with so much ball carrying by the quarterback, and we’ve seen some really good ones over the years that do this. They’ve had tons of success.

“I’ve seen flashes of this with McCaffrey, where maybe he just tucks it and goes. His running ability is, to me, an indicator of his toughness and his grit to go make a play. He’s got some deceptive speed. He’s done that in football games, in reps that matter, in big games against big opponents.”

Skene wouldn’t put the brakes on McCaffrey’s scrambling, but might have him get on the ground a little quicker.

“I would, to a degree, but part of me says if it’s in this guy’s DNA to go out there and make plays, you don’t want to take that away,” Skene argued. “You don’t want to take an aggressive-minded player who is out there to make stuff happen and turn him into a cautious-minded player to avoid things.

“If I were his coach, I would encourage it. I would maybe encourage it a little smarter — when you take off and you see things, go ahead and get down. But I’d be careful about over-coaching him to take that aggressiveness away. I wouldn’t do it.”

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To read the rest of the story, which includes Jansen and Skene breaking down Joe Milton, the impact the loss of spring football could have on the QB competition, how the 2020 race to start under center could resemble 1997 and much more, buy your football preview magazine here!

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