Sports The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com Tuesday, November 3, 2015 — 7 After moment in spotlight, Speight no longer unknown Teammates laud quarterback’s poise in leading comeback against Minnesota By MAX COHEN Managing Sports Editor Just a few months ago, Wilton Speight was a relative nobody on the Michigan football team. He had arrived in Ann Arbor in the winter of 2014 as a highly touted quarterback, but one who had to bide his time. Devin Gardner and then- sophomore Shane Morris were firmly entrenched as the team’s top two quarterbacks for the 2014 season under Brady Hoke. But then, after the 2014 season, Hoke’s firing and Jim Harbaugh’s hiring shook things up at the position. Harbaugh declared the quarterback job would be won in an open competition. Speight, like everyone else, had a shot. Things did not go according to plan. Speight, after his redshirt season, was injured during the spring and did not appear in the Wolverines’ Spring Game. Then, when summer rolled around, Jake Rudock arrived as a transfer student. The competition carried on, but Rudock and Morris were the leaders the entire way. Speight noticed and took it as a little bit of a slight. He lived with junior tight end Jake Butt and redshirt freshman wide receiver Drake Harris over the summer, and they sometimes discussed the team’s quarterback competition. Speight, with starting aspirations, was not enthralled by the idea of being an afterthought, but he attempted to use it to his advantage. “Sometimes it’s good not to be talked about,” Butt said. “You can just sneak in behind the scenes and just keep working hard, and that’s what Wilton did. He made it a point that he wanted to get his name out there.” So when Speight received his opportunity Saturday night, with his team trailing in the third quarter at Minnesota and the Little Brown Jug on the line, it was natural that Butt — who considers Speight a close friend — wanted to help his quarterback calm down. He went over to Speight when Rudock went down and gave the backup some encouraging words. He was planning to do the same after Speight’s first three passes fell to the ground, incomplete. But then he realized he didn’t need to. He saw Jim Harbaugh whacking Speight on the sidelines to amp him up and simulate the sensation of being hit. He figured Harbaugh had it under control. The coach was not hitting Speight lightly. “Booom, boom, banging on his pads, smacking him in the chest, smacking him in the helmet,” Butt said, pantomiming smacking motions. “I guess after that, you’ve got to be ready to go.” And Speight was. His first pass on Michigan’s final drive was a completion to Butt. The inexperienced quarterback kept the momentum going, despite the inconvenience of leading his team into Minnesota’s howling student section. He completed two more passes to score the game-winning touchdown, and then another on the ensuing two-point conversion to give Michigan a three-point cushion. ALLISON FARRAND/Daily Redshirt freshman quarterback Wilton Speight drew high praise from his teammates for the comeback he led Saturday. See SPEIGHT, Page 8 For Nieves, a lonely road back to practice Senior returns to practice after sustaining concussion Oct. 24 By JUSTIN MEYER Daily Sports Writer Boo Nieves was in decidedly high spirits on Monday, flashing a smile as he left the ice and unstrapped his helmet. Heading into the final game of the New York trip in October, Nieves was off to one of the hottest starts of his four-year career at Michigan. The senior forward had two points in three games and was tremendous at both ends while centering the Wolverines’ top-scoring line. All that momentum came to a screeching halt with a concussion Nieves sustained in a win against Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute on Oct. 24. Nieves didn’t practice for the rest of the week and was relegated to the bench for a home series against Robert Morris the following weekend. Junior forward Justin Selman and freshman forward Kyle Connor missed the presence of their center against the Colonials; the pair of wings tallied only one point on the weekend. “We were rotating the third guy in, which is always a little bit of a challenge — trying to find the chemistry each shift with a different guy,” Selman said. “Boo brings a ton of speed to the game, he brings a ton of puck possession and he’s a big body out there. It’s going to be good to have him back.” The time away wasn’t easy on Nieves, either. The mental exhaustion that can accompany concussions is well documented. “It’s very frustrating,” Nieves said. “Even in practice, it’s tough sitting there watching them do what you want to do. I think the best way to stay with it is watching practice and being around the guys. I wasn’t around them for the first two days last week, and I started to feel a little out of the loop.” Once his symptoms started to dissipate, Nieves was glad to hang around the team more, saying it made him feel better about being left out of the lineup. He returned to practice Monday, confirming that he didn’t have any symptoms on or off the ice. Now appearing outgoing with a disarming smile, the lonely center doing homework at practice last week seems like a distant memory. Nieves is just happy to be talking hockey, giving his take on Saturday’s loss. “The second game was tough,” Nieves said. “We did look a little sluggish out of the gate, but it’s going to happen. We just couldn’t find a way back. “It’s also easy to sit out and watch from above and critique everything.” There is still progress to be made before Nieves can start taking contact in practice, and concussions have a nasty habit of recurring in hockey. With a two-week break, though, both Nieves and Michigan coach Red Berenson seem confident that the center will make it back for a home game against Niagara on Nov. 13. For now, Nieves is content just to be back on the ice. “Practice was the best part of my day, easily,” Nieves said. ICE HOCKEY Jabrill Peppers, standout and tiger By MAX BULTMAN Daily Sports Editor Jabrill Peppers is many things. For starters, he’s a triple threat, a player who changes the game in all phases. He’s also the Big Ten Freshman of the Week, an honor he earned for the second time this season Monday after totaling 100 all-purpose yards and breaking up two passes against Minnesota. Monday, Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh talked about the ways Peppers is special — a term that’s nearly impossible to measure — and no one batted an eye. But the redshirt freshman didn’t need Harbaugh to say he was special. His play has spoken for itself all season long. Peppers is a safety, a cornerback, a nickelback, a punt returner, a kick returner, a running back, a wide receiver and, on occasion, a quarterback. Sometimes, he’s all of those in one game. But redshirt junior Erik Magnuson has another way to think of him. “Have you ever seen the Netflix documentary, ‘The Tiger and the Monk?’ ” Magnuson asked a group of reporters Monday. “It’s about this monk who lives in the jungle in Thailand that has 16 tigers. I think Jabrill would be a tiger.” Strictly speaking, you don’t need to see the documentary to get the comparison. “It just gives you a better idea of how cool tigers are,” Magnuson said. “They’re very, very, very peaceful. Accept their inner peace. But when it’s time to attack, they strike.” For Peppers, that fits quite well. His normal position, safety, requires a great deal of flexibility. Sometimes he lines up over the top, sometimes in man coverage. But like Magnuson’s tiger analogy, he also knows when to attack, whether it’s blitzing or going back to return a punt or kick. Against Minnesota, he flipped the field twice, returning a punt for 41 yards and a kickoff for 43, setting up a pair of touchdown drives for the Michigan offense. On one of the drives, Peppers scored his first touchdown of the season, a six-yard run on which he lined up as a quarterback in the wildcat formation. It was part of a recent swing that has seen him taking more offensive reps. Working Peppers into the offense was hardly a surprise development — fans and media alike wondered how long it would be until they saw Peppers on offense, and even junior tight end Jake Butt admitted to wondering when the Wolverines would use him there. But as far as getting him acclimated, Peppers has had to make use of limited practice reps with the offense. “Since we only have him for a little bit, we’ll run through all of the plays that we have with him like, back-to-back-to-back-to- back,” Butt said. “And some of the plays he’ll be coming back like, hands on the hips, and coach will just tell him, ‘All right, you only need to go like five yards on this play,’ you know? Try to save his energy a little bit.” Still, having him run those plays while worn out is good practice. Peppers was on the field for more than 90 plays against the Golden Gophers, which makes his numbers even more impressive. “He’s just a … man, it’s hard to describe,” Butt said. “He’s got something that you can’t coach.” But for as large an impact as he makes on the game, and the larger-than-life personality he portrays, Peppers’ teammates say it’s not an around-the-clock energy. Jabrill Peppers might, in fact, have an off switch. “He’s kind of a quiet guy around the locker room sometimes,” Butt said. “But when he’s on the field, that juice is flowing, for sure.” Quiet until it’s time to attack? Maybe Magnuson was on to something, after all. AMANDA ALLEN/Daily Redshirt freshman safety Jabrill Peppers has played eight different positions this year, making an impact on offense, defense and special teams. “He’s got something you can’t coach.” MEN’S BASKETBALL ‘M’ opens practice to fans for an hour By SIMON KAUFMAN Daily Sports Editor Usually, before the season starts, the curtain is closed at Crisler Arena. Michigan men’s basketball coach John Beilein doesn’t like to allow too many looks at his team before it starts facing other competition. But on Monday night, the Wolverines made an exception: The team hosted an open practice for fans followed by a chance to take selfies with players and Beilein. The open session ran for only an hour, but it provided a sneak peek at the Wolverines before they tip off against Le Moyne in an exhibition contest on Friday. With the regular season less than two weeks away, the Daily offers a few takeaways from the open practice. MO WEEZY, MO STREAKY: Moritz Wagner, or “Mo Weezy” as some teammates like to call him, is six feet, 10 inches of potential. The squad’s only scholarship freshman showed flashes of greatness Monday night amid moments of raw play. In a 5-on-5 scrimmage at the end of practice, the Berlin product stole the ball, drove, spun and finished over D.J. Wilson’s outstretched arm. “He’s 6-feet-10 and a half, and he’s only 18,” Beilein told the crowd after. “He still could be in high school.” A few minutes later, Wagner picked up another steal and finished with a big dunk followed by a fist pump, and he followed it with a 3-pointer a few possessions later. But his moments of “wow” were mixed in with freshman moments, too, and it’s easy to see why Beilein says he’s still a work in progress. Early in the practice, he missed an assignment on defense. On the offensive side, he still doesn’t always look comfortable with the ball in his hands, sometimes picking up his dribble before he knows what he’s going to do with the ball. In his best moments, Wagner looks like a poor man’s Dirk Nowitzki — a comparison his former coach in Berlin made — but as of now, there are still more times when he looks like a lost freshman just trying to get the fundamentals down. GO D.J., THAT’S MY D.J.: A year after D.J. Wilson took a medical redshirt due to a knee injury, the redshirt freshman looks a lot stronger and more comfortable on the court. On Monday night, he showed why he’ll be a key piece for Beilein this season. Wilson looked at ease with the ball in his hands at the top of the key and used quick passes to help facilitate his team’s offense. He was stronger down low, confidently posting up on offense and boxing his man out on defense. He also didn’t shy away from shooting from the perimeter, knocking down a handful of 3s over the course of the night. At 6-foot-10 and up to 240 pounds after weighing just 215 a year ago, Wilson could be opponents’ biggest challenge with his dual inside-outside ability. DAWKINS LEAVES: In a full court 3-on-3 drill, sophomore Aubrey Dawkins landed on sophomore forward Kameron Chatman’s foot after coming down from an alley-oop dunk. Dawkins immediately hit the ground and reached for his right ankle, grimacing in pain. He limped to the sideline, where he walked around for a few minutes, still appearing to be hurt. He returned to drills soon after, but eventually left the practice early to go to the locker room. Dawkins did come out to take pictures with fans afterwards, indicating that he was OK and had just landed on his foot awkwardly. He was still favoring his left leg more than an hour after practice. “He made it a point that he wanted to get his name out there.” NOTEBOOK