The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Sports
Thursday, September 12, 2019 — 7

Jess Speight earns scholarship

Just before the start of fall camp,
Jess Speight was at dinner with his
dad when he missed a call from Jim
Harbaugh.
He spent the next hour nervous,
mind scrambling, wondering what
the news could possibly be.
Then, Harbaugh called back.
He wanted the junior to switch
to defensive line. After losing so
many linemen in the offseason,
the Michigan football team was
dangerously
shallow
at
nose
tackle and three-technique, and
Harbaugh thought Speight would
be better utilized there rather than
as the third-string center.
Speight was a little apprehensive
when he first heard the news. He
came in as a preferred walk-on and
dedicated two years to offensive
line, only to suddenly switch — a
week before fall camp, no less.
Speight played both lines in high
school, but preferred offense then
and focused his training there. But
after calling his family, including
his older brother, former Michigan
quarterback Wilton Speight, to tell
them the news, his nerves began to
melt into excitement.

“(I was) confused what to
think,” Speight said. “I didn’t know
if I had just been wasting time
playing offensive line. (Wilton) was
immediately ecstatic, enthusiastic,
saying that this might be one of
the best moves that I’ve ever made
while I played football.”
So Speight decided to embrace
his new position. He changed his
mindset to attack mode, wanting
to run through someone on every
play, trying to develop as fast as he
could to make up for lost time.
At center, Speight had to think
a lot, and it slowed him down
sometimes. Now, at defensive line,
he doesn’t have to think — just
attack. He’s become close with
defensive line coach Shaun Nua,
who pushes him without being
overbearing. And then, he began to
love his new position.
“Everybody knows it was a little
bit of an awkward position just
because I’ve already been here two
years and putting a good bit of time
into offensive line,” Speight said.
“The way Harbaugh presented it
was that they’re just going to try
me at D-line and I was probably a
week in and realized that I really
liked it, really had a passion for it.
So I just tried to develop as quickly

as I could, try to make up for two
years that I lost playing O-line.”
The Monday after the Middle
Tennessee
game,
Harbaugh
gathered
the
team
together
and
announced
that
Speight
and
junior
offensive
lineman
Andrew Vastardis would receive
scholarships. Speight had gotten
into the game on special teams,
making the moment even more
special.
Speight and Vastardis had an
idea scholarships were coming.
Earlier, Harbaugh had made a list
of who he was considering, and
both players were on it. But still, it
was a big moment, a culmination
of the hard work that at first had
seemed so pointless.
Speight estimated that scout
team guys like him could do 500
reps in practice just to get one rep
in a game. But now, with some
playing time and a scholarship,
those reps he’s put in have finally
begun to pay off.
“When he went to defense, it was
sad to see him go,” Vastardis said.
“But we gave him the opportunity
to achieve all this. I think he’s
really taken it and ran, and it’s been
fun to watch. It’s been fun to play
against him too, on different sides.”

Anthony gives depth at linebacker

The complexities of football
don’t become easier defending
against a triple-option.
Against Army last Saturday,
Don
Brown
said
Michigan
called a blitz “every snap of
the game.” Of course, it’s more
complex than that — they only
actually ran a blitz 18-20 times.
Bridging the space between
the initial call and what the
Wolverines
actually
ended
up doing falls to the middle
linebacker.
Brown gave the example of
Army coming out in a double
slot formation. The middle
linebacker’s job was to use the
‘Horns up’ signal — Longhorn,
in
Michigan’s
parlance
—
indicating
the
triple
option,
which
starts
with the same
letter
T
as
Texas.
The
alternative
is
just
yelling
“Blitz!”
the
result
of
which is self-
explanatory.
The example
was small and understandable
enough
that
Brown
could
explain
it
to
a
group
of
reporters — most of whom
aren’t qualified to step onto a
football field — in minutes. So
imagine a whole book of them,
then imagine a player getting
that responsibility thrust on
him midgame, and then you
might
understand
Jordan
Anthony’s predicament.
Anthony,
a
redshirt
sophomore, had played in eight
games at Michigan before last
Saturday. In three of them, he
played only special teams, and
in the other five, he contributed
in bite-sized increments, often
at the end of blowouts. He’s
never totaled a sack or a tackle
for loss in college. Certainly,
he had never played a half of

football for the Wolverines in
which he was on the field as
much as Saturday. As soon as
starting linebacker Josh Ross
went out with a stinger, it was
almost inevitable that Anthony
would
notch
career highs in
every
category
in which he put
up a stat.
“He’s played
about this much
time
for
us
since he’s been
here,”
Brown
said, gesturing
to indicate just
how little time
it was. “Now he’s going to take
over.”
For Michigan’s defense, a
unit that faced questions all
offseason about losing Devin
Bush in the middle, this was
quietly as big a test as Ross
taking over the
position. In the
past, it had the
requisite depth
to
withstand
injuries. Now?
Let
Lavert
Hill explain.
“Jordan
Anthony came
in,
he
just
stepped up big
time for Josh
Ross,” the senior cornerback
said. “He just came in, did what
he had to do, just helped us get

to win.”
The Black Knights scored
14 points in the first half; they
wouldn’t
score
again
until
overtime. Anthony made four
tackles — as many as he did
all of last season — and kept
up with those calls. Michigan
won, and the consternation this
week is not about a defense that
lost its best three players to the
NFL, but an offense that came
into this season as a presumed
upgrade.
This is the kind of depth that
Brown dreams of at any position.
Ross is a year ahead of Anthony,
having played his freshman
year instead of redshirting.
Through two games (with the
obvious disclaimer for level
of competition), he’s provided
adequate replacement of Bush.
When he went down, Anthony
did the same for him, and did
it against a team for which
complication
is
inherent.
“And in the
half of football
— ‘How did he
play?’ ” Brown
said, incredulous
at his own fake
question. “Well
all I know is the
half of football
he played, they
scored
zero
points, so how do you think he
played?
“It’s amazing to me.”

A
slight
smell
of
sweat
permeated the nearby offices of
Yost Ice Arena.
A group of defensive players,
straight from practice, had been
ushered into a room. But no one
cared about the discomfort of
their noses. Their eyes and ears
laid focused on a single person,
breaking down a cip from the
day’s practice.
Newly hired assistant coach
Kris Mayotte was giving a
lesson.
It did not take
a discerning eye
to
tell
where
the
Michigan
hockey
team
needed help.
Out
of
the
60
teams
in
the nation, the
Wolverines
ranked
46th
in
penalty
kills.
And
for
goaltending
save
percentage,
they ranked second-to-last in
the nation. It was very clear
what they needed to change to
fix their struggles.
The original intent was to
keep everything similar, amid
concerns
that
overreacting
would be detrimental to the
team’s
progress
in
buying
into the current system. But
former assistant coach Brian
Wiseman’s abrupt move to the
Edmonton Oilers
forced Michigan
coach
Mel
Pearson’s hand,
and
he
made
the
necessary
adjustments.
“Goaltending,
save percentage
59th out of 60
teams
in
the
country.
That’s
not
gonna
cut
it. Penalty killing. We have to
get better,” Pearson said. “So
we’ve added Kris Mayotte from
Providence who’s brought in
some new ideas and given us a
different perspective.”
Mayotte
left
the
Friars,

where he helped the team tie
for sixth in the nation in penalty
kill percentage and 14th in
goaltender
save
percentage.
His expertise lays in the two
areas Michigan struggled with
most, and when the Wolverines
narrowed the search, his name
headlined the shortlist.
“A tremendous amount of
people interested in the job,”
Pearson said. “We just broke it
down and looked at strengths
and weaknesses of the program,
on the ice, the coaching end of
it, also the recruiting part of
it. He just sort of came at the
top of the list as
far as adding a
defensive
guy
and a goalie guy
and a guy to run
the PK and some
areas where we
really
needed
some help.”
A
phone
call
later,
and
Mayotte
let
it
sink in. He would
be coaching for Michigan, where
he was the de facto penalty kill
coach, as well as assisting with
goaltending
coaching
duties
with
volunteer
coach
Steve
Shields. Upon accepting the job,
he picked up the phone again in
the proceeding days, this time to
make calls to introduce himself
to the players and his new
system.
Mayotte’s belief about penalty
killing systems are that they are,
for the most part,
all the same.
To him, what
differentiates
systems are the
things
people
choose
to
emphasize.
“If you talk
to 10 different
coaches,
what
they emphasize
when they teach
this specific system is the subtle
difference,” Mayotte said. “Some
talk about pressure, first and
foremost, some talk about stick
positioning, first and foremost,
some talk about, reading.
“There’s a couple different

systems,
there’s
high
opt
pressure, there’s a little bit more
passive, where you can block
low, a few more shots, and just
sit and shot lanes and try and be
inside. And then what you see
in the NHL is what they call, a
track down or triangle and one.”
The system Mayotte likes to
teach, however, is none of those.
What he prefers is a straight
line,
go
press
style. He believes
the
aggressive
attitude
on
the
penalty
kill
forces
the
opponents
to
have
to
make
the
plays
and
subsequently,
the errors.
Evaluating his
roster, he found
the Wolverine players had two
strengths:
they
were
quick,
and they were smart. And so
his emphasis was on those two
things. Make the read. Call the
press. Be aggressive.
“One-go-all-go type things

so that the pressure isn’t for
naught,” Mayotte said. “(The
team’s)
taken
advantage
of

(the speed and smartness), and
hopefully forcing the power play
to play a little faster than they’re
comfortable playing. And then
force mistakes that way.”
As for goaltenders, Mayotte
believes in the exact opposite.
There was no forcing anything
with
the
netminder.
He
simply waits and
listens.
“Even
just
from
practices,
I’ll start clicking
video for them,”
Mayotte
said.
“So
that
we
can
sit
down
and watch and
kind of go over
a couple of things, and have
conversations and the big thing
with the goalies, is you know,
I’m not going to ask them to
play my game, or they have to be
comfortable.”
His focus with goaltenders

is to hear them out. In his
eyes, there are things to do,
but overall, Hayden Lavigne
and Strauss Mann are not bad
goalies.
“Hayden backs up this team
— they’re Frozen Four the
year
before,”
Mayotte
said.
“And Strauss, you know, won a
championship, and he really had
a good junior career.”
So Mayotte’s
approach with
them
was
simply
to
let
them
hit
the
reset
button
and talk them
through
the
bad times. Stop
a puck and shut
out a game, and
they get a lot of
confidence. Let
in a breakaway or a backdoor
goal, and suddenly that affects
them and the game slips away.
“You go out and you have a bad
game and you give up five, it’s
how do you respond,” Mayotte
said. “And I think that’s our goal

is just, be consistent.”
And one of the methods to
consistency is talk through the
tough streaks.
“You talk only all the time.
And
sometimes
that’s
just
what goalies like to do is talk
goalie. They just want someone
that they can talk to about
their situation and have an
understanding because it is
ultimately better
or worse, it is a
different position.
The
other
five
guys
are
doing
something playing
a
completely
different
game
than the goalie
is
playing.
And
sometimes
they
just need to vent
and
sometimes
they just need someone to
understand
what
the
heck
they’re talking about.”
Waving the players in to
talk, Mayotte opens the door
to his office, ushering in a new
approach with his tenure.

ETHAN SEARS
Managing Sports Editor

FILE PHOTO/Daily
Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh gave Jess Speight a scholarship after he switched positions from center to defensive line.

ARIA GERSON
Daily Sports Editor

NATALIE STEPHENS/Daily
Jordan Anthony backed up Josh Ross at middle linebacker on Saturday.

(Anthony) just
stepped up big
time for Josh
Ross

The half of
football he
played, they
scored zero.

Wolverines hire Kris Mayotte as assistant coach to help in goal, on PK

TIEN LE
Daily Sports Editor

ALEXIS RANKIN/Daily
Sophomore goaltender Strauss Mann will work with newly hired assistant coach Kris Mayotte, who comes to the Wolverines from a job at Providence.

Goaltending,
save
percentage,
59th out of 60.

Even just from
practices, I’ll
start clicking
video for them.

And I think
that’s our
goal is just, be
consistent.

We ... looked at
strengths and
weaknesses of
the program.