Normal spring game day overreaction. Can always count on those.
Not sure what that means. Speight's fine because he played kinda meh but it was against a quality D?
Sure, our defense figures to be excellent if guys stay healthy, even given the inexperience. But if the long term goal is to win the B1G and contend for national championships then you need a QB who can perform at least fairly well against a very good D. Maybe Speight can do that; but if so he still needs to prove it.
I think Speight will definitely be better, stronger and smarter this year. But you make a good point and it's fair to point out that he had a chance to practice against the nation's best defense last year.
Having high expectations for him, if he is the starter, is warranted.
Yeah, OSU and Wisconsin will have excellent defenses. If we want to win the big games on our schedule we're gonna have to beat good defenses, which Speight hasn't proven that he can do.
Our defense flat out dominated Wisconsin, in fact Speight is the only reason Wisconsin scored any points.
I saw very few plays where he could be comfortable in the pocket and wait for things to develop. He may have that trouble this year anyway, but he will have a better Oline group protecting him, and won't be facing a DL that good very often, if ever.
Agreed. Peters throws a very nice ball and has nice athleticism and mobility. I find it really hard to believe Speight has already earned the starting job.
No guarantees of course that the starter goes 12+ games and never gets dinged, especially given that our OL aren't world-beaters and Speight has been and may yet still be hurting. He wasn't 100% against OSU (and quite possibly any game after Colorado,) and missed the Indiana game. No reason to think something similar couldn't play out in 2017.
So even if Speight starts vs UF, I'm happy to see how good Peters looked, along with O'Korn seeming to have developed. It looked like John's fundamentals have come a long way. It's spring, but I also remember last spring and the Indiana game. Seems like a better player today. We have better options and probably two if not three guys (depending on whether you think O'Korn has improved) that could conceivably take the field this year and win a game for us.
At least we've seen Speight be productive so we know it's possible. If Peters had looked bad, we'd have no idea. Instead, there's reason for optimism now.
There will be no QB controversy. Whoever JH says is staring will start and we won't be calling for anyone's head.
You're going to see our first team DL got worked on at least several plays. Wasn't always the first team LBs and safeties, but our OL got the RB to the second level (unless the DL did their.jobs and the busts were on the LBs). I'm hoping that means the OL was bad most of the game but has some potential to grow. At least in the run game. Pass pro was abysmal. Hopefully Evans has gotten better at that or he's going to be off the field on a lot of passing downs, eliminating his ability to actually catch some passes.
Walker ran well, he never had much of an opening. Really kept his legs churning and picked up something positive.
I like Walker a lot. I think he'll get a bunch of carries this season.
The amount of positive vibes here for Peters are significant. This definitely heightens the competition. Jim Harbaugh says "meritocracy," and I believe it. The best man plays.
I am encouraged because JH is not an idiot. If Peters truly has passed Speight, he will see the field. We will know soon enough. I do think that the quality of Michigan's defense, especially the starting DL, makes a huge difference. I also am very encouraged by the improvement of the LB corps, which has been somewhat meh for years.
I haven't seen any comments on Robo . . . did he play? I also am waiting to see more about DPJ.
The one downer for me is the OL. I still think we need another year or two before that unit is up to snuff. I'd like to be wrong though.
Robo played. He was OK I think, though it's probably not a good sign that Hewlett ran over him on his way to that big gainer late in the game.
That dude.
He made the muppets, what, do you not like the muppets???
April 16th, 2017 at 11:35 AM ^
Close, but that woud be Jim Henson.
We have a lot of good TE's. Eubanks and Gentry looked good.
Shouldn't that last comment be on the Pornhub post from yesterday?
Anywhere to catch a replay?
I'm irrationally excited that Glasgow is pushing and has pushed his way seemingly almost to a starting position. Last year's buzz, the coaches' positive comments, and this game are not enough to make me feel as relatively optimistic about the safety position as I do now, but alas. It is something at least, to go from Kinnel and Metellus and nothing to those two and another guy. If his name were anything other than Glasgow I think I'd be panicking, which means I should probably be doing exactly that. But again alas, this is my primary takeaway from the first viewing: we probably have 3 guys who can play safety, and survive with far enough into the season for them to gain experience enough to face the primary foes.