QB Commit Wilton Speight: Accepts Invitation to ESPN Under Armour All-American Game
According to the twitteresphere, Speight is going to be part of the under armour game this year.
This should calm some of the anxiety regarding him as a prospect, as an invite this early bodes pretty well for his skills and rankings (all of the participants were top 10 qbs last year). Congrats to him!
February 19th, 2013 at 1:26 PM ^
I am not doubting his skills at all...but being a Michigan commit probably helps with the invite doesn't it?
February 19th, 2013 at 1:31 PM ^
I'd say this has a 0% chance of happening had he committed to Toledo a few weeks ago.
February 19th, 2013 at 1:41 PM ^
Yes, but I think there are two types of reasons for this:
1) ESPN knows that there are a lot of Michigan fans out there, so it won't hurt ratings to have a Michigan QB.
2) Speight hadn't been scouted by the services much before his Michigan offer and commitment. The Michigan offer suggests that the college staff that probably knows him best - and could have picked up many other elite QB recruits - thinks really highly of him, so he's probably pretty damn good. I expect Speight to perform very well at these kinds of all-star games and camps, since his off-the-radar status is probably more due to Michigan finding him early than him not being a high-level prospect. We are still a year away from signing day, after all.
February 19th, 2013 at 1:45 PM ^
1) Absolutely
2) This doesn't hold much weight. You'd be surprised how much coaches in football and especially basketball rely on the services like Scout/Rivals to discover and keep track of kids. It's kind of startling. Not saying that the Michigan staff is one of those, but if some of these rabid recruiting fans could see into the war room of some of these programs...it would not be pretty.
February 19th, 2013 at 1:55 PM ^
I'm not sure I follow how that's relevant in this case. Michigan obviously didn't do that with Speight, since the recruiting services had hardly evaluated him when Michigan offered.
I think the recruiting services, in general, try to get information from wherever they can about how good these prospects are. If Channing Stribling spends a long time in front of Michigan's coaches, who decide he's deserving of an offer, then the services update their views of Stribling's quality as a prospect. The offer provides a lot of information about Stribling, and information might have been limited before then.
Parallel: If I believe that State Street is a lousy guy based on the posts I've read on MGoBlog but then I learn that the people you've worked with and gone to school with think you're incredible, I'd be wise to incorporate those perspectives into my impression. There's real information there even if I wasn't around to see you be an incredible guy.
February 19th, 2013 at 3:25 PM ^
His posts are stupid, and yet he IS an incredible guy
February 19th, 2013 at 2:01 PM ^
Why doesn't Michigan hire people to simply know Coach Hoke's needs/wants and look at prospects? That way we can get offers out early and be on target. They could also look into recruits backgrounds so we get fewer bad apples. Or is this some sort of donkey shit NCAA violation like cream cheese?
~Herm
February 19th, 2013 at 3:09 PM ^
2) Enlighten us. How much do coaches in football and basketball rely on services like Scout/Rivals to discover and keep track of kids? You sound like you know from first hand experience. What is your background? How many college football and basketball coaching staffs have you been on?
February 19th, 2013 at 4:59 PM ^
February 19th, 2013 at 3:18 PM ^
"his off-the-radar status is probably more due to Michigan finding him early than him not being a high-level prospect."
I don't really buy this aspect. Speight missed a year due to a shoulder injury, but he's older than most 2014 recruits; he should be graduating high school this year. Michigan isn't really "finding him early." They offered him at the beginning of February of his senior year. Prior injury aside, Speight had a long time to get noticed and receive offers, but nobody came calling except Michigan.
February 19th, 2013 at 3:32 PM ^
Do you hope you pulled a "Frank Clark" on Wilton's evaluation?
February 19th, 2013 at 3:52 PM ^
I hope that all Michigan football players find success.
February 19th, 2013 at 4:08 PM ^
Speight was not who you wanted Michigan to get. I hope he works out similar to how Frank Clark did against your evaluation. Somewhere along the lines of "a 2 star with not much athletic ability and undersized" I know you can't get them all right and was merely joking. No need to defend your fondness of Michigan.
February 19th, 2013 at 4:27 PM ^
February 19th, 2013 at 1:41 PM ^
February 19th, 2013 at 1:55 PM ^
Well toledo is kind of an extreme example, don't ya think? What about a school like wisconsin, penn state, or an sec school like south carolina? Also, I think that's kind of a pessimistic view. I mean sure espn would like having a michigan QB commit invited, but I doubt they'd avoid doing any evaluation themselves. I also feel like being a year away from signing day isn't exactly the time for them to start pandering and hyping up their game to the point where they would invite him just to satisfy big fanbases like michigan. In other words, if it really was just a case of them equating a michigan qb with an invite and he wasn't a threat to get invited elsewhere (main reason you invite early) then they could have waited to invite other QB prospects first, right?
February 19th, 2013 at 4:20 PM ^
February 19th, 2013 at 1:26 PM ^
This is also being reported on other recruiting sites. Congratulations. This can only help his recruiting efforts.
February 19th, 2013 at 1:29 PM ^
Yay Wilton! way to go kid
February 19th, 2013 at 1:34 PM ^
Congratulations to him! The more spotlight Michigan recruits can get the better.. It can only increase the interest of other high profile players.
February 19th, 2013 at 1:38 PM ^
I posted this last week, but I'm not sure people were paying attention since it was in a drinking thread. This seems like a better post to put it in.
It's a quote from Wilton Speights quarterback coach about his arm strength. I saw it on Rivals front page.
"His arm is every bit as strong as [Pittsburgh Steelers Pro-Bowler] Ben Roethlisberger, and I've worked with Ben," Clarkson said. "He's not Cam Newton-strong, but he's plenty strong. There's not a throw he can't make, his deep ball can probably go 75-80 yards with just the snap of his wrist. He spins the ball very well."
This is very encouraging since there has been talk about his arm not being very elite in strength
February 19th, 2013 at 1:39 PM ^
I do not believe for a second that he can throw a football 75-80 yards.
February 19th, 2013 at 1:45 PM ^
How much you wanna bet I can throw a football over them mountains?
February 19th, 2013 at 1:53 PM ^
A quarter mile.
February 19th, 2013 at 2:15 PM ^
February 19th, 2013 at 1:48 PM ^
Yeah, now as I think about it that could be a little over exaggerated, but if his QB coach thinks its almost in that range then he must be around the 65 yard mark. Throwing the ball really far doesn't exactly mean you can sling it on a tight rope, but the kid must have a decent to very good arm to get a review like that from someone who worked with Big Ben. right?
February 19th, 2013 at 4:16 PM ^
Why would Clarkson want to play up the arm strength of one kid? He seems to have a fairly big following and has worked with a number of NFL QBs, I am guessing he is more concerned with having his exaluations come out as professional rather than tend toward giving a "Fred Jackson" take on player.
February 19th, 2013 at 4:24 PM ^
February 19th, 2013 at 1:57 PM ^
Agreed, but that coach probably wouldn't say this if Speight has a really weak arm. Even if this is an exaggeration - and I have to believe it is - it can't be a bad sign.
February 19th, 2013 at 2:56 PM ^
Said Wilton has the size of Navarre, the arm of Henson, and the feet of Denard. 80 sounds about right.
February 19th, 2013 at 1:38 PM ^
Hopefully he fares better during Under Armour week than Shane Morris did...
February 19th, 2013 at 2:01 PM ^
February 19th, 2013 at 3:13 PM ^
Too soon.
February 19th, 2013 at 3:13 PM ^
But fortunately, one gets over the effects of mono. Eventually.
February 19th, 2013 at 1:42 PM ^
Speight was also the subject of an MLive article by Meinke today—Michigan QB commit Wilton Speight overcomes major injury to earn scholarship. I liked the part where he talks about how honest the Michigan coaches were with him throughout the recruiting process.
February 19th, 2013 at 1:51 PM ^
It's interesting that while he lost development time due to his injury, he's basically getting another free year to mentally development before (hopefully) redshirting 2014.
He could be a 20 year old redshirt freshman QB in 2015. Not a bad position to be a little older.
February 19th, 2013 at 1:59 PM ^
Wasn't Brandon Weeden considered an "older" player because of the time he spent playing minor league baseball?
February 19th, 2013 at 2:08 PM ^
Yes he was and so was Chris Weinke.
February 19th, 2013 at 2:16 PM ^
This case is a little different from those. I think those guys were in their 50s when they started college.
February 19th, 2013 at 2:22 PM ^
That is definitely true. Weedon spent 5 seasons in the minors and Weinke spent 6 seasons.
February 19th, 2013 at 2:37 PM ^
Weeden was 24 when he started at OSU and Weinke was 25-- so Speight isn't going to be quite as old as those guys.
February 19th, 2013 at 3:06 PM ^
You may want to change that picture.
February 19th, 2013 at 3:36 PM ^
you post with your real name? We won't tell anyone.
February 19th, 2013 at 7:23 PM ^
I'm good, thanks for your concern though.
February 19th, 2013 at 2:03 PM ^
I agree. In fact, I was thinking about the same thing for the kid who was offered a gray shirt a couple of days ago (I'm forgetting his name). He's obviously a big, fit guy, but it can't hurt to have that extra year to mature, grow, and sculpt.
February 19th, 2013 at 1:46 PM ^
It is good to see him getting invited to AA games. I just wish it was the Army AA game instead.
The ESPN game looked like a huge joke compared to the Army game.
February 19th, 2013 at 2:16 PM ^
How many UA All-American game offers have gone out (specifically QB's)? I think that might be an even bigger representation of how his skills are perceived, especially if he is one of the earlier prospects offered a spot.