WTKA Roundtable 8/17/2017: The Harbaugh Version of Speight

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[Eric Upchurch]

Things discussed:

  • Wilton Speight: most lethal downfield threat in the league? Pro Football Focus says so but we dive into what those numbers mean.
  • O’Korn is #2 to the coaches. Is that an O’Korn package or O’Korn for real or O’Korn to motivate guys or…? I mean we watched the Indiana game.
  • Sam eats some Tarik Black crow. Brian remains on Team Oliver Martin. Tarik Black is a dude. OH RIGHT THE FIVE STAR
  • Checking in with that SEC speed: Florida can lose players faster than Michigan State. It’s really 1-1/2 but remember they also lost their best player in the secondary to injury so this compounds an issue. Their corners < our corners.
  • Zaire isn’t locking down the Florida QB job, which means…?
  • Around the league: Craig makes a Mike DeBord bet. Can Wisconsin run out of linebackers? They had a ton of injuries last year. Iowa has a lot of talent if they can find a quarterback. Could Brian have made the money for the Big Ten that Delany did without adding Maryland and Rutgers.
  • Hoops: no idea what team these guys are gonna be. Might be a good year to only play Michigan State once. They’re in that next year conversation, but so are 5 other schools.
  • The Julia Louise-Dreyfuss Effect.

You can catch the entire episode on Michigan Insider's podcast stream on Audioboom.

Segment two is here. Segment three is here.

THE USUAL LINKS

Comments

Logan88

August 18th, 2017 at 7:45 AM ^

I've seen the Julia Louis-Dreyfus effect (it's Louis not Louise and Dreyfus not Dreyfuss, btw) referenced here before and have no idea what it refers to. 

Little help?

Hold This L

August 18th, 2017 at 1:26 PM ^

give you a milton reasons why we won't be dylan with any moores of that talk. and we need a qb to get the ball to the malzone

 

 

 

I'll leave

Hugh White

August 18th, 2017 at 9:03 AM ^

Interesting thoughts on the QB situation. I think the true QB Battle now will continue to be between O'Korn and Peters. Back behind Rudock, everyone assumed Shane was No. 2, but eventually Speight beat him out as the season developed. By the end of October, Speight comes in when Rudock goes down at the end of the Minnesota game. That was not a situation where they were trying to preserve Shane's redshirt. Speight competed and won Q2. There's still every possibility that Peters beats O'Korn this season.

DualThreat

August 18th, 2017 at 9:13 AM ^

It was a bad game.  Yes.

I also seem to remember Speight having some poor games.  So, sample size and all that.

If the chatter from fall camp is that Speight and O'Korn are neck and neck, I have high hopes for O'Korn.  He is the QB with the greater upside (i.e. mobility) and if a full year of Harbaugh tutilage has made him even close to on par with Speight, I'd roll with O'Korn.

Of course, if Speight wins convincingly then so be it.  But, if he and Speight are close, go with the leg factor.

Ron Utah

August 18th, 2017 at 11:51 AM ^

Not sure why Brian doesn't believe the coaches on the QB battle.  Harbaugh never lies.  He doesn't always offer information, but if Peters was really QB2, Harbaugh would have said so or at least said it's a 3-horse race.

Also, the JOK interview shows a completely different person, who is clearly confident in his current position on the depth chart and his performance.

It's so interesting that everyone who believed JOK was going to be the QB--Brian included--now are saying he doesn't even have the tools to be the QB at Michigan.  His talent was proven his freshman year--for JOK, it's always been about whether or not he could get his head straight.  Is it so hard to believe that he's finally got his poop in a group?

dragonchild

August 18th, 2017 at 12:08 PM ^

They said it was a tight race last year and it turned out to be very much Speight's job, and that's hardly the only time they've been deceptive.  Harbaugh is fiercely honest for anything he believes matters, but he clearly doesn't think summer rosters matter (which, well, they don't) so he doesn't hesitate to go all Sun Tzu on the media and tell them blatant falsehoods about the state of the roster.

If Harbaugh says something like the Big House is on fire, I'm gonna believe him.  But for roster tidbits in August. . . shucks, you might as well ask a snake oil salesman because Harabaugh ain't giving you shit.

Detroit Dan

August 18th, 2017 at 2:38 PM ^

Remember 2 years ago how the official line was that it was an incredibly close competition between Rudock and Morris?  Then we were told that Morris was being held out as a redshirt.  Only when Rudock got hurt did we learn that Speight was the real #2.

Hold This L

August 18th, 2017 at 1:22 PM ^

peters will practice with the cheerleaders so he can become the starter....gotta have that cadence