Jim Harbaugh just won a national championship with JJ McCarthy as his quarterback. He obviously believes in the passer.

But Harbaugh, now the head coach of the Los Angeles Chargers, is such a believer in McCarthy that during an appearance on The Herd with Colin Cowherd on Friday, he said the former Michigan man will be the first quarterback to come off the board in the 2024 NFL Draft.

“Arm talent, athleticism, ‘it’ factor, winning with numbing repetition,” Harbaugh said when asked what McCarthy brings. “Don’t be surprised if (and) when he’s the No. 1 quarterback off the board. That’s my prediction right now.

“When people get a load of JJ and how he can throw the ball, how he spins it, his athleticism, his intelligence, you talk about ‘it’ factor, he’s got it, the competitiveness that he has — and they get around him and they really start digging in, and they start talking to him, that’s an early prediction for the 2024 NFL Draft.”

Mel Kiper Jr.’s latest first-round mock draft for ESPN has McCarthy slotted to the Seattle Seahawks at No. 16 in the first round. He has quarterbacks being selected with each of the first three picks of the draft — Caleb Williams to Chicago at No. 1, Jayden Daniels to Washington at No. 2, and Drake Maye to New England at No. 3.

Williams has been the presumptive No. 1 pick for over a year now. The 2022 Heisman winner didn’t have a particularly outstanding season (by his standards) in 2023, but few expect he’ll drop in the draft. Daniels, after his own Heisman campaign, has surged up the board. Maye has been viewed as a likely top-five pick for months as well.

McCarthy supplanting all three of those passers would be a huge development.

But Harbaugh has certainly been no stranger to lofty praise of the Illinois native. In two years as the starting quarterback for Michigan, McCarthy threw for 44 touchdowns against nine interceptions, won two Big Ten championships, made two Playoff appearances, and won the 2023 College Football Playoff National Championship.

“This is the greatest quarterback in University of Michigan college football history,” Harbaugh said after the Rose Bowl. “Got a long way to go to get to get where Tom Brady eventually got to, which is the GOAT. I mean, [Brady] has lapped the field when it comes to that. But in a college career, there’s been nobody at Michigan better than J.J. I know we talk about an amalgamation of quarterbacks. He is that guy.”