Fall Camp Notes: QB Battle is Real
Steve Lorenz of 247 is reporting that...
The quarterback battle "is real" and is "far more intense than last year".
He has some other fall camp tidbits, but the article is paywalled, so I won't mention them here. Needless to say, though, I'm very surprised by this development. Hopefully this means that Peters is performing above expectations, rather than that Speight is regressing or plateauing.
Was told Speight had a safe lead after the spring last year.
Haven't heard the same this year, but not sure if that means anything at this point. I feel like I've been one of his biggest defenders and I do expect him to start.
August 2nd, 2017 at 11:54 AM ^
Other writers or sites, perhaps, but Steve would be the last person to do this. One of the best in the biz.
August 2nd, 2017 at 12:06 PM ^
August 2nd, 2017 at 11:26 AM ^
August 2nd, 2017 at 11:28 AM ^
I think if this narrative is still coming up into the final week of practice, then we have something.
August 2nd, 2017 at 11:29 AM ^
get impacted, but just appeared that he was much quicker to make a throw and more prone to throwing off his back foot. Two tell tale signs of a QB getting mentally impacted by the hit and injury.
Even when completely healthy, is he back mentally to play without the nervousness of a hit / injury?
With that being said, I believe that Speight is a very good QB (especially before the shoulder injury) and is another fine example of what Harbaugh can do to talent when a kid is willing to work for it.
I just expect that both will play early in the season and that Speight will have the slight edge going into the season, but the first 3 games will kinda be like a Final Exam. Who wll grade out better in live game action.....
August 2nd, 2017 at 11:30 AM ^
August 2nd, 2017 at 11:36 AM ^
August 2nd, 2017 at 11:50 AM ^
It's a headline that is reused almost every season.
Remember when JOK was neck and neck with Speight or Sugar Shane was battling Rudock? Yeah...
I don't think you remember last year. Almost everybody was saying JOK will be the starter and not too many were giving Speight any chances. Ironically the reasons were he had more experience and more mobility.
You may be correct (I'd have to look it up), but there is no way that battle was as close as "insiders" said it was, because in his limited game time, JOK looked awful and even when Speight was playing porly or injured, the coaches didn't play JOK.
August 2nd, 2017 at 12:19 PM ^
talk was real. Practically no one expected him to win the job.
August 2nd, 2017 at 12:49 PM ^
Exactly.
It was somewhat of a shocker when umbig11 dropped the truth bomb right before the season started last year. This time a year ago the vast majority of us were certain O'Korn would be starting
August 2nd, 2017 at 11:37 AM ^
August 2nd, 2017 at 11:48 AM ^
I'll agree with you that it's not 1974. But it's more bizarre if you think that competent game experience doesn't count against highly ranked SEC opponents with elite defenses.
August 2nd, 2017 at 12:35 PM ^
first year as a starter at UCLA. Very inconsistent. Tons of mistakes.
Like Rosen, Peters probably has a very high ceiling. But if he starts as a RS freshman a LOT of mistakes (bad pre-snaps reads, bad throwing decisions, not seeing a defender, etc.) are part of the package. He would almost certainly make more mistakes than Speight.
Can his better long ball and purported better accuracy outweigh this? Maybe. Time will tell.
August 2nd, 2017 at 12:53 PM ^
I presume Speight's best advantage to be a command of the offense. He knows where the players are supposed to line up and what they're supposed to do. He knows how to read the defense presnap, and which throws to make post-snap. At least, he knows that more than anyone else on the roster.
Getting those throws there is a different issue. And Speight wasn't perfect at this last year. But he seemed to know what the offense needed for the most part, and that's the hardest thing Peters has to overcome.
August 2nd, 2017 at 11:53 AM ^
Raback it?
August 2nd, 2017 at 11:56 AM ^
No, it is not. We heard this same thing last year and it was obvious that there was no competition.
Wilton Speight will be the quarterback. I'm not buying into this drama again. I refuse. No more torture.
We heard the same thing last year about Speight battling with JOK and many (most?) folks assumed there was no real competition and that JOK would start.
The difference between last year and this year is, last year we had two unproven (at Michigan) starters in Speight and O'Korn, except O'Korn actually had a year under his belt at Houston.
This year we have a proven starter who was pretty damn good last year until getting injured and an unproven guy.
I'm sorry but I'm not buying into the hype. If Peters is the starter and better than Speight, than things are looking great for us. For me, I'm not going to waver until I see Peters is the starter.
Until then, Speight is your starter and these rumors are for amusement purposes only.
August 2nd, 2017 at 11:56 AM ^
Rumors are just rumors, of course, but perhaps there's some juice to this. Now, I don't for a second believe that O'Korn is "right there" as Harbaugh would say it. But Peters might be.
And leading up to the spring game I would have said that such sentiments were an unqualified endorsement of the development of Peters. And it still might be--my position was that it's reasonable to expect Speight (who was, again, a redshirt sophomore last season, the same experience John Navarre had in his dreadful 2001 campaign) to develop and improve at least incrementally going into this fall. If Peters is there with him, that means Peters is good.
But Speight was awful in the spring game and that's given me the willies a bit.
But we'll see. People say that there's stuff like this "every year," and that's true, but that doesn't mean that the rumors don't provide readable tea leaves. Two years ago the rumors leaned Rudock and everyone knew it was Rudock by the end of the open practice. Last year O'Korn was the presumed starter, but the rampant Speight talk meant that by the time Umbig11 dropped the news on the board everyone knew it was a real possibility.
So if there continues to be a lot of loud "real competition" talk surrounding Peters, it's worth listening to.
August 2nd, 2017 at 12:43 PM ^
I would say O'Korn is probably this year's Morris. He gets mentioned quite a bit early as a courtesy to the vet, but everyone kind of knows that he isn't involved in the started conversation.
Particularly when this news is coming from Steve. Ive always been on the Speight bandwagon, I liked the idea of having a big ben like player out there but his composure is what really sold me on him. Even playing at his worst it seemed like he was still looking at the next play instead of the last. If the Peters competition is real, and Harbaugh gives him the nod, we are in for a real treat this fall.
It does and the spring game is indeed mostly meaningless. However, Speight looked so bad in it (and word was that the coaches thought so and kept him in for a long time as a result) that I can plausibly see there being a competition, at least from the standpoint of Speight not closing the deal.
Peters looked like he could hit passes, too, though it's hard to know how that will translate into "real life" until it happens.
August 2nd, 2017 at 12:01 PM ^
It is real and it is spectacular
August 2nd, 2017 at 12:02 PM ^
Because of the week 1 opponent, the QB with the most experience has a huge edge in the QB battle.
August 2nd, 2017 at 12:23 PM ^
I don't think that matters very much. Speight's experience and command of the offense is certainly an asset (probably his best one), but the staff will pick the best QB and go forward with him for the rest of the season. Command of the offense, which is where experience actually expresses itself on the field, is of course a key factor. But it is just a factor.
If Peters is the better QB, they're not going to pick Speight because the first game is against Florida instead of Central Michigan. They're going to pick Peters. If they pick Speight, it's because he won the job, not because the opponent is a bit harder.
August 2nd, 2017 at 12:04 PM ^
We're two days into camp and declaring the QB battle "real"? Seems like Lorenz came to this conclusion a bit prematurely.
In any event, I'm with TeamHarbaughKnowsBest. Between him, Pep, and the rest of the staff, I have little doubt that they'll have the player under center who gives Michigan the best chance to win.
August 2nd, 2017 at 12:05 PM ^
I'm not surprised that this camp battle is more real than last year's
August 2nd, 2017 at 12:25 PM ^
August 2nd, 2017 at 12:39 PM ^
'head and shoulders' above Speight? Not 'heads and tails' above Speight? I mean really, how can one guy be both heads AND tails above another guy? What is this, a game of Twister?
August 2nd, 2017 at 12:40 PM ^
August 2nd, 2017 at 12:10 PM ^
I trust Jim to pick the one that gives us the best chance to win.
August 2nd, 2017 at 12:17 PM ^
August 2nd, 2017 at 12:24 PM ^
I like Speight a lot. If the youngster is pushing him, that's awesome for everybody. Play the best dude. If they are equal, go with youth as he should have more upside.
So let it be written...
August 2nd, 2017 at 12:26 PM ^
I'm not sure what to think of this, though I guess the "more intense than last year" part is encouraging.
August 2nd, 2017 at 12:32 PM ^
August 2nd, 2017 at 12:39 PM ^
Only after Alex Smith got hurt and couldn't play. Why do people seem to forget this part? Harbaugh was completely behind Smith until he had to be taken out because of injury.
He wasn't "completely behind Smith". The 49ers tried to sign Peyton Manning in the 2012 offseason, apparently at Harbaugh's urging.
August 2nd, 2017 at 12:42 PM ^