Michigan Football: Jim Harbaugh Keeps Usual Tone About QB Battle

Jim Harbaugh has had to oversee a quarterback battle now all three offseasons with Michigan football, and his tone isn’t changing anytime soon.

Jim Harbaugh made an appearance on The Michigan Insider (WTKA-AM 1050) with host Sam Webb and spoke briefly about Michigan football‘s current quarterback competition.

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The buzz this offseason has been that the competition has three competitors right now: returning starter Wilton Speight, redshirt freshman Brandon Peters and redshirt senior John O’Korn. This is very reminiscent of last season, when the battle was between Speight, O’Korn and Shane Morris.

“Personally, I want Wilton Speight to be the starting quarterback,” Harbaugh said. “Personally, I want John O’Korn to be the starting quarterback. Personally, I want Brandon Peters to be the starting quarterback. I’m rooting for all those three guys to be the starter on Day 1.”

Harbaugh added that it usually takes the first 10-14 days of practice for the quarterbacks to sort themselves.

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Perhaps you refuse to view the spring game as a good look into where things are, but if you do, there was a strong indication that Peters is going to at least give Speight a good challenge in the summer. Peters was objectively the better of the two.

O’Korn seems like the most likely candidate to fall off eventually, much like what Morris did last offseason. O’Korn was the No. 2 quarterback last season and even made a start against Indiana with Speight injured. He wasn’t very effective then, however, and in the spring game looked clearly to be the No. 3 quarterback.

There is plenty of time for things to change, of course, but Harbaugh himself seemed to acknowledge that it’s a race between these three.

Harbaugh has consistently taken this approach with his quarterbacks. This is what he sounded like last offseason:

"We’re going to throw the balls out there on Aug.  8 and let them compete for it. No tricks, no politics, no games. We’ll say the quarterback that can move our team down the field and get our team into the end zone…"

In 2015, Harbaugh went as far to say Morris was the leader of the competition (this was before Jake Rudock’s arrival). But in true Harbaugh fashion, he said the competition would “rage on” into the remaining spring and summer months.

This is very typical coach talk. No one really expects a head coach, especially one like Harbaugh, to come out and say something much different from, We’re excited to see this competition play out.

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For Harbaugh, though, it’s become part of his shtick.