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8A — Wednesday, March 30, 2016
Sports
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

O’Korn ready for action after sitting out 2015

Now eligible, 

Houston transfer 

hopes to make 
on-field impact

By JACOB GASE 

Daily Sports Editor

John O’Korn hasn’t played 

in a football game since Nov. 
28, 2014, but his year away may 
have been the most important 
one of his career.

The 
redshirt 
junior 

quarterback arrived at Michigan 
last fall after a tumultuous 
career 
at 
Houston 
that 

ultimately led to his transfer. 
O’Korn won the starting job as 

a freshman and threw for 3,117 
yards and 28 touchdowns, but 
he lost his spot to converted 
receiver Greg Ward Jr. after just 
five games the next year.

“It was just a (comfort) 

thing,” O’Korn said. “I kind of 
felt out of place there at times. 
Part of that’s my fault, and 
part of that is just the nature of 
playing in a spread offense as a 
pro-style quarterback. I think 
that’s the number-one thing, 
just (comfort) — I think this 
system fits me a lot better and 
allows me to be the best player 
I can be.”

Of course, O’Korn wasn’t 

able to get back on the field 
right away. Per NCAA transfer 
eligibility rules, he had to sit out 
the 2015 season. But now, with 

the Wolverines in the heat of 
spring camp, O’Korn is finally 
a factor again as he competes 
with redshirt sophomore Wilton 
Speight and redshirt junior 
Shane Morris for the starting 
job.

He didn’t just sit idly on the 

sidelines for a year, though. 
Working as a member of the 
scout team all season, O’Korn 
was an extremely active practice 
player, and he was present in 
just as many meetings and drills 
as a starter would have been. 
After six months of inactivity 
since he lost the job at Houston, 
O’Korn’s role in the fall was a 
welcome return to normalcy.

“Any time you spend time 

away 
from 
the 
game, 
you 

appreciate it more,” O’Korn 
said. “I started to miss the little 
things that I didn’t really realize 
I would miss — chalk talk, 
drawing up plays, watching film 
hours on end in a dark room by 
yourself.”

It wasn’t long before O’Korn 

started to feel settled in at 
Michigan. And even though he 
found himself surrounded by 
a decorated coaching staff — 
including a quarterback guru 
of a head coach in Harbaugh 
— O’Korn’s biggest resource 
ended up being his roommate: 
2015 starting quarterback Jake 
Rudock.

In many ways, Rudock and 

O’Korn have parallel stories. 
Rudock was also a starter at 
his former school, Iowa, before 
unceremoniously losing his job 
and departing as a transfer. 
Rudock, too, began his career 
with the Wolverines embroiled 
in 
a 
preseason 
quarterback 

competition, 
which 
he 

ultimately won before going on 
to throw for 3,017 yards — the 
second-highest 
single-season 

total in Michigan history. 

The two quarterbacks even 

went to the same high school, 
St. Thomas Aquinas in Fort 
Lauderdale, Fla.

In his time as the starter, 

Rudock gained a reputation as 
a quiet leader who rarely made 
crucial mistakes. As O’Korn 
tried 
to 

acclimate 
to 

his new team, 
he 
quickly 

realized 
that 

his roommate 
was setting the 
perfect model 
to follow.

“With Jake, 

he’s not really 
the type that’s 
gonna 
say 
a 

whole lot,” O’Korn said. “But just 
watching him, how he operates, 
how he prepares for games, how 
seriously he takes everything — 
the minute details, everything 

is so important — just watching 
him was really good. I could 
sit here and talk all day about 
things I learned from watching 

Jake.”

A 
few 

months 
later, 

Rudock — who 
flew 
under 

the radar for 
much of his 
collegiate 
career 
— 
is 

preparing for 
a 
potential 

career in the 
NFL. 
And 

O’Korn, no longer relegated 
to 
the 
sidelines, 
might 
be 

on his way to becoming his 
roommate’s successor. A pro-
style 
quarterback 
with 
the 

ability to use his feet to get out 
of trouble, he brings a unique 
skill set that will certainly have 
him in the mix.

To win the job, though, he’ll 

have to beat out two other 
quarterbacks who have already 
played meaningful snaps for the 
Wolverines. 
O’Korn, 
Speight 

and Morris are very different 
players, 
and 
Harbaugh 
has 

said the player who separates 
himself from the others will 
have done so by limiting his big 
mistakes.

O’Korn has had a year of 

preparation to figure out how to 
do that. And if he continues to 
follow the Rudock model, he’ll 
be taking the field on Sept. 3 
for the first time in nearly two 
years. 

AMANDA ALLEN/Daily

John O’Korn sat out last season after transferring from Houston and is now in a three-way quarterback competition.

“This system 

allows me to be 
the best player I 

can be. ”

Speight determined to stay 
in starting QB conversation

By JAKE LOURIM 

Managing Sports Editor

Throughout last summer — 

and, really, well into last fall — 
Wilton Speight felt overlooked. 
Then a redshirt freshman for the 
Michigan football team, he was a 
solid third on the depth chart at 
quarterback.

There was Jake Rudock, a 

graduate transfer brought in from 
Iowa to be an immediate solution. 
And there was Shane Morris, 
a former four-star recruit who 
had been touted as the starter-
in-waiting for his whole career. 
Morris seized the job coming out 
of spring camp, and Rudock took 
hold of it during fall camp. That 
left little attention for Speight.

He would talk to his parents 

about feeling left out. They told 
him not to worry about it, so he 
didn’t. He came into the season 
knowing what he was capable of.

Slowly, he began to edge his 

way into the conversation. Morris 
planned on redshirting if he 
wasn’t starting, so Speight took 
the “mop-up duty” at the end of 
blowout wins. He used that to 
gain the trust of the coaching 
staff.

But on Halloween, Speight was 

no longer an afterthought — he 
couldn’t be. With Rudock injured, 
he came in and led a game-
winning touchdown drive to help 
the Wolverines to a 29-26 victory 
at Minnesota. He then returned to 
his No. 2 spot on the depth chart 
and waited for his opportunity, 
newly confident and no longer 
overlooked.

“It 
would 
give 
anybody 

confidence, to be able to go into a 
game like that and make an impact 
and eventually win the game,” 
Speight said. “To carry that with 
you, not that you’re living in the 
past, but you know you can do it 
going forward.”

Now it’s a new season, with 

Rudock 
gone 
and 
Houston 

transfer John O’Korn into the 
mix. But Speight denies that 
he’s back to square one in the 
competition this time around.

“With all respect, I was going 

to approach it with the mindset 
of, ‘I’ve got to build off of the 
spot I left off in the Minnesota 
game or the bowl practices,’ ” 
Speight said. “I wasn’t going to go 
down to wherever (the coaches) 
expected us to, because I just 
wanted to stay up there and keep 
working.”

Speight may not be overlooked 

anymore, 
but 
he 
is 
still 

unheralded. He acknowledges 
Morris has the strongest arm, 
O’Korn the quickest feet. But 
he knew after he finished the 
season last year and went through 
bowl practices that he’d be in the 
mix. The team treated the bowl 
practices as an audition for spring 
camp, reiterating that at every 
turn.

For the first two weeks of spring 

practice, all the quarterbacks took 
equal reps. Then, they began to 
separate themselves.

Speight said that throughout 

spring camp, the coaches tracked 
how each quarterback did moving 
the ball down the field in drills.

“Just looking at the stats, 

I guess that’s where I kind of 
distance myself,” he said.

Saturday at Ford Field in 

Detroit, Speight was the first 
quarterback to take snaps with 
the first team at open practice. 
Tuesday, he said that has been the 
case in other recent practices, too.

“Coach follows a pattern, and 

unless you mess it up, it pretty 
much stays the same,” Speight 
said. “The practice before that, 
I did what I needed to do, and 
before that, and before that. I 
pretty much knew that was going 
to happen.”

But he also knows what being 

first — especially by the slimmest 
of margins — means. He has, after 
all, been on the other end.

“It means there’s people at my 

feet and they’re wanting to take 
the spot I’m in,” Speight said. “If I 
don’t keep doing what I have to do 
and keep working my ass off, then 
they’re going to fill me in.

“Because you’re replaceable 

at anything you do in life. That’s 
all it really means — I’m getting 
the job done, but someone else is 
trying to do it better.”

AMANDA ALLEN/Daily

Wilton Speight took the first QB reps at the team’s open practice on Saturday.

