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Thursday, July 27, 2017
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com SPORTS
Peters, O’Korn pushing Speight
for starting quarterback job
CHICAGO — Wilton Speight
began and ended last season as
the starting quarterback of the
Michigan football team. And,
objectively speaking, it was a
pretty damn good debut.
Speight,
now
a
redshirt
junior, threw for 2,538 yards
and completed 62 percent of his
passes, with 18 touchdowns and
7 interceptions. Jim Harbaugh
said at Big Ten Media Days that
he wants a quarterback who can
move the ball down the field,
score touchdowns and avoid
turnovers — which Speight was
able to do much of the time he
was on the field.
None
of
that,
however,
guarantees that Speight will be
this year’s starting quarterback,
especially with a coach who
constantly preaches the virtue of
meritocracy.
“Yes, so Wilton’s in a good
spot,” Harbaugh said Tuesday.
“He comes in really tied for first
with John O’Korn and Brandon
Peters,
legitimately,
through
competition,
throughout
all
the spring, went through 15
practices and was in a dead
heat. But the good news is
they all did some things that
really -- Brandon really shot
up. John O’Korn really played
consistently good. And Wilton
really
had
some
impressive
moments as well.
“We’ll go through training
camp starting on Monday, just
throw the balls out there and
let the fellows compete. There’s
a lot a quarterback can do over
the summer to get better at
playing quarterback. It’s one of
those positions, like a kicker. A
quarterback can just go out there
and throw balls on the net, can
work on their drops. There’s a lot
of ways that they don’t even need
other players to be out there to
improve some part of their skill
game.”
While
Speight
is
the
incumbent and has an entire
season as the starter to work
off of, both Peters and O’Korn
have flashed their potential
plenty of times. O’Korn is more
experienced, having served as
the starting quarterback for a
high-powered Houston offense
before transferring to Michigan
in 2015. With an injured Speight
on the sidelines, O’Korn started
against
Indiana,
competing
7-of-16 passes for 59 yards and
adding a crucial 30-yard run
that helped the Wolverines pull
away.
Peters, meanwhile, redshirted
his
freshman
season
before
emerging in the competition
in spring. He had the best
performance
among
all
quarterbacks
in
Michigan’s
spring game, completing 9-of-
17 passes for 160 yards with one
touchdown
and
interception
each. He displayed his mobility,
as well, as he got out of the
pocket at times and added a
12-yard rushing touchdown.
The biggest area for Peters to
improve? His vocality, according
to Harbaugh.
“He’s got a personality that’s
very quiet. … He’s kind of real
quiet,” Harbaugh said. “There’s
one thing that’s easy to do as a
quarterback, just take charge.
Be loud, and that doesn’t come
natural to him. Just take charge,
you know? Be loud. It’s really
easy. Huhhhhhhhh! Be loud. Blue
80! Blue 80! That’s the easiest
thing about being a quarterback
to me. Just be louder, Brandon.
Please.
“But he’s coming out of it.
Those stadiums are very loud,
and there’s a lot of people in
them. But he elevated his game
over the spring.”
Fall camp begins next Monday,
and
Harbaugh
anticipates
it’ll take one to two weeks to
resolve the competition between
Speight, Peters and O’Korn.
“(It’ll) probably take about
anywhere
from
eight
to
15
practices to figure that out,”
Harbaugh
said.
“Historically
that’s what it usually takes. But
we’re looking forward to it.
Mostly in a good spot.”
GRANT HARDY/Daily
Wilton Speight will have to battle John O’Korn and Brandon Peters to be Michigan’s starting quarterback in 2017.
ORION SANG
Senior Sports Editor
Bitter ending to last year
lingers for Wolverines
FOOTBALL
CHICAGO — To say the end
of last season was bitter for Jim
Harbaugh and the Michigan
football
team
would
be
an
understatement.
Through
the
first
nine
games, the Wolverines were
undefeated
and
ranked
second
in
the
nation,
poised to make
an
appearance
in the playoffs in
just
Harbaugh’s
second year. That,
after all, was the
expectation
for
a
senior-laden
team that ended
the previous year
with a 41-7 thrashing of Florida.
Everything, it seemed, was
going according to plan. And
then it all fell apart.
Michigan lost three of its
last four games, most painful of
which was against their biggest
rival.
A playoff bid that had once
been in plain sight quickly
disappeared as the Wolverines
coughed up a late lead on the
road against Ohio State.
That final, devastating stretch
has lingered throughout the
offseason. A trip to Rome —
which Harbaugh
said was the best
thing
he’s
ever
done as part of a
football team —
didn’t mask the
stink of last year’s
finish, either.
“I
hope
(it’s
driven this team)
a lot,” Harbaugh
said Tuesday at
Big
Ten
Media
Day. “I know it has a lot of us.
Myself included. Lost three out
of the last four games. Okay,
good. Maybe that will motivate
us to put more into it. Coach
better. Play better. Train harder.
Put more of our heart into each
and every one of those ball
games.”
Michigan breaks for camp
next Monday with a drastically
different team in place. Gone are
the All-Americans and award
winners of yesteryear. Their
replacements will be youthful
and inexperienced.
Rome wasn’t built in a day
and neither is a championship-
winning football team. But that’s
the expectation and goal that
Michigan has entering this year,
and it doesn’t have to look far
to find a team to
emulate.
Ohio
State
began last season
as the youngest
team
in
all
of
college
football.
Michigan
will
follow suit this
fall, and if the
Wolverines
hope to have the
same
success
the Buckeyes did last year,
they’ll need their younger guys
to step up. The talent is there,
considering Michigan signed two
consecutive top-five recruiting
classes. It’ll be up to the staff to
coax it out and avoid too many
growing pains along the way.
“I feel good about the team,”
Harbaugh said. “To start with,
our second-newest guys, which
is our freshmen that came at the
mid-year, the ten that have really
flourished and did exceedingly
good in spring practice, and
which makes me think that
the newest guys
that
arrived
on
campus,
19
true
incoming
freshmen,
because the ten
did so well I think
these 19 are going
to do just as well
because they were
the same type of
good players in
high school that
the 10 were.”
But Harbaugh’s considerable
excitement about his freshman
class may even be trumped by his
hopes for his sophomores, many
of whom saw the field last year.
“And then the third newest,
the freshmen that are going to be
sophomores this year, I’m very
excited for them,” Harbaugh
said. “... All the youngsters in
ORION SANG
Senior Sports Editor
Everything was
going according
to plan. And
then it fell apart.
“Put more of
our heart into
every one of
those games.”
See FOOTBALL, Page 12