The Case for Speight
I realize that the anti-Speight movement isn't as strong here as in other venues, but I still thought that this column was worth a read. He isn't perfect but last year was pretty good, and he was a big part of wins against Colorado, Penn State and Wisconsin.
https://www.michigandaily.com/section/football/kevin-santo-case-wilton-…
September 14th, 2017 at 11:05 PM ^
We don't need him to be great. We just need him to do enough to not fuck up. Good defenses have won Trent Dilfer and Brad Johnson a Superbowl.
September 14th, 2017 at 11:21 PM ^
September 14th, 2017 at 11:27 PM ^
"It's the defenses fault the offense only scored 13 points in the Iowa game." - The Oracle.
Read that out loud. Yeah. You sound ridiculous. I said we just need Speight to not fuck up. He fucked up a lot that game.
September 14th, 2017 at 11:30 PM ^
And by the way. I am by no means a Speight defender. I've been ant-Speight since the Minnesota halloween game in '15. Go back and rewatch his first drive. Total disaster and it's carried on through all the way until now. But that's not the point. The point is that Harbaugh has made his choice and we all have to deal with it.
September 14th, 2017 at 11:50 PM ^
September 14th, 2017 at 11:51 PM ^
....and how come you can start a thread???
September 15th, 2017 at 12:04 AM ^
September 15th, 2017 at 8:02 AM ^
or fewer?
September 15th, 2017 at 10:26 AM ^
Wow, it's a metaphysical grammar challenge.
I usually go by the rule that if you can count them, it's "fewer," and if you can't count them it's "less."
Can negative mgopoints be counted?
September 15th, 2017 at 2:21 PM ^
I didn't start this thread lol.
As for the points. I said that Harbaugh is a very good coach, but I'm not sure if he's going to take us all the way. And a bunch of guys on here got butthurt.
September 15th, 2017 at 2:58 PM ^
yup, that'll do it!
Ps - you're wrong about Harbaugh, he will take us all the way!
September 16th, 2017 at 4:56 AM ^
September 16th, 2017 at 3:35 PM ^
I hope so! I hope I'm wrong on that one. There's nothing more I'd love to see than an undisupted national championship. '97 still bothers me.
September 15th, 2017 at 3:11 PM ^
OMG, is stephenrjking your doppleganger or something? You better not go looking him up now, because if you were to get into a BANGWAR with him it would be like a supernova meeting a black hole. I think the servers would explode!
September 15th, 2017 at 9:59 PM ^
Looks like about 10000000 guys got butthurt. Kind of like the entire city of London negged you.
(I'm aware that is a mod pounding before anyone corrects me. I just kind like to think about 100000000 Londoners saying, "What a wanker!")
September 15th, 2017 at 10:00 PM ^
Looks like about 10000000 guys got butthurt. Kind of like the entire city of London negged you.
(I'm aware that is a mod pounding before anyone corrects me. I just kind like to think about 100000000 Londoners saying, "What a wanker!")
September 17th, 2017 at 12:47 AM ^
September 18th, 2017 at 1:43 PM ^
I'm always hungry for diabeetus after seeing his posts
September 16th, 2017 at 12:25 AM ^
good news is that you probably have +10000000 points on an Ohio State blog.
September 15th, 2017 at 12:55 AM ^
September 15th, 2017 at 8:17 AM ^
September 15th, 2017 at 1:34 AM ^
because he gifted them 14 points. Are we blaming that on the o line?
September 15th, 2017 at 12:17 PM ^
On the first pick 6, the OL or lack of blitz pickup would be responsible for at least one.
September 15th, 2017 at 5:33 PM ^
by Deveon was responsible for, at most, two of those points (a safety), but it's up to Wilton not to give the them a pick six. That's how game management works. You don't have to force it.
The LB was coming straight at him so it wasn't a blindside play that he couldn't see. Plenty of the blame is on him for throwing that with the guy that close and bearing down on him. Should have easily seen that guy coming up the gut and dorfed it into the turf where Deveon was standing (not blocking). It was a terrible decision to try to make that throw.
There's only 4 min left in the second quarter and your defense has given up zero points, totally dominating the opposing offense. Take the safety or throw it way away instead of risking the pick six in your own endzone.
September 15th, 2017 at 10:56 PM ^
would be true if the game was played in super slow motion. He was already in his throwing motion. The chances of him doing what you are suggesting are approximately zero.
September 15th, 2017 at 11:50 AM ^
The first INT was really not on him. He was about to get hit in our own endzone due to a failed blitz pick-up.
Speight also was pretty much all the offense we had, as our run game went nowhere. That's worth keeping in mind.
September 15th, 2017 at 1:41 PM ^
September 15th, 2017 at 2:52 PM ^
September 14th, 2017 at 11:26 PM ^
Trent Dilfer didn't have a good defense. He had one of the greatest defenses in the history of the game. The 02 Bucks were great as well.
September 15th, 2017 at 1:44 AM ^
We had a historically good defense last year too.
One of the best this century. We allowed 3 pts to OSU's offense...and lost. We only allowed 12 to Iowa...and lost.
Obviously you need a great defense to win with a mediocre QB, but we did have a historically good D last year.
September 15th, 2017 at 4:18 AM ^
September 15th, 2017 at 7:56 AM ^
September 15th, 2017 at 10:12 AM ^
September 15th, 2017 at 12:01 PM ^
September 15th, 2017 at 12:55 PM ^
September 15th, 2017 at 5:55 PM ^
....but the run game wasn't stopped? I'm confused, or did I hallucinate when I saw Isaac getting 100+ yards rushing on the day.
In fact, it was working well enough that many openly wondered why we weren't running MORE during that game.
September 15th, 2017 at 12:22 PM ^
teams really stack the box against us, because they don't fear our passing game and most of that falls on the QB. Teams will challenge us to beat them passing rather then with our running game.
Speight is the QB and will be all year, unless he gets hurt. I think everyone needs to just hope he improves and we keep winning. I think we have some young talent at QB, that is just not ready yet and hopefully in the future they will be and we will see a huge uptick in our QB play, which will benefit the entire offense.
September 15th, 2017 at 2:56 PM ^
September 15th, 2017 at 12:22 PM ^
teams really stack the box against us, because they don't fear our passing game and most of that falls on the QB. Teams will challenge us to beat them passing rather then with our running game.
Speight is the QB and will be all year, unless he gets hurt. I think everyone needs to just hope he improves and we keep winning. I think we have some young talent at QB, that is just not ready yet and hopefully in the future they will be and we will see a huge uptick in our QB play, which will benefit the entire offense.
September 15th, 2017 at 12:47 PM ^
September 15th, 2017 at 2:21 PM ^
In that OSU game, I'm not sure Speight's shoulder would have been strong enough to throw the ball more than 25 yards downfield anyway.
September 15th, 2017 at 3:00 PM ^
September 15th, 2017 at 5:44 PM ^
I was merely responding to the comment about Dilfer's defense and argued that ours was on that uber-elite level too.
Totally agree that if our run game was better, Wilton wouldn't have had to do much of anything last year. He did have to do something against OSU, and he led a couple scoring drives. Unfortunately he offset them the other way. So net-net, I'm not sure where that sits between bad and mediocre, but we do know it wasn't enough given the running game struggles, poor officiating, etc.
One thing is for sure, the defense was incredible and could not have been expected to be any better.
September 15th, 2017 at 8:08 AM ^
That's the thing about a mediocre QB - sometimes they win, sometimes they lose. With a great defense, like Michigan's, sometimes that mediocre QB will win a tough game, sometimes he'll lose one.
Buts its never just on one player alone. If the OL holds up a little better, or a WR gets a little more open...
Speight is a mediocre QB. He's going to win some big games, and lose some. Tom Brady loses big games, too - not as many, perhaps. But he still loses them on occasion. The best QB on the team is mediocre, right now. Why is it so hard to deal with that?
September 15th, 2017 at 8:31 AM ^
I think the expectation is that a RS Jr. QB would have pretty good mechanics by now. That's what makes those overthrows so frustrating, and that's also what doesn't inspire confidence for better performance later. If mechanical problems either didn't get ironed out previously, or they were corrected but cropped back up during the season, then it doesn't seem realistic to think he'll be consistent with them later. Of course, I'd love it if he did consistently display good mechanical command of his throws.
September 15th, 2017 at 10:36 AM ^
"...I'd love it if he did consistently display good mechanical command of his throws."
We'd all love that! But if he could do that, he'd be a GREAT QB, not just a mediocre one...
September 15th, 2017 at 11:52 AM ^
throws with bad mechanics/footwork? It's hard to erase lifelong bad habits within a couple years.
September 15th, 2017 at 8:33 AM ^
We should just run the ball and play for field position
September 15th, 2017 at 12:34 AM ^
This is sort of true and sort of not.
The game has changed since Dilfer and Johnson won Super Bowls, both in the NFL and in college.
Transcendent QBs can win titles. It's true in the NFL and it's true in college.
It is also true that teams have won in college without transendent QBs. Alabama is an example.
But there's a problem with this conventional wisdom: Bama's QBs aren't as bad as we think. Just spare parts? Not so fast.
Bama's last two national title winning QBs:
2012 AJ McCarron: 211-314 67.2% 2933 yards 9.3 Y/A 30 TD 3 INT
2015 Jake Coker: 263-393 66.9% 3110 yards 7.9 Y/A 21 TD 8 INT
That's... pretty good, actually.
And:
2016 Wilton Speight: 204-331 61.6% 2538 yards 7.7 Y/A 18 TD 7 INT
I don't think it's an outrageous idea that Speight could improve modestly to a level similar to those two Bama QBs. But it will take improvement.
BTW, Jalen Hurts posted a 240-382 62.8% 2780 yards 7.3 Y/A 23 TD 9 INT season, similar but slightly better than Speight, and almost won the title. But he also ran for 954 yards.
September 15th, 2017 at 12:55 AM ^
I don't think anyone expects Wilton to be a heisman finalist. Thats not needed, hell with this defense michigan could win a national championship just by minimizing errors and following the #1 rule of game-managing QBs . . . don't give the other team free points.
I love Speights command of the offense, but man, that footwork/late/high pass issue keeps creeping up like a linebacker about to blitz.