Michigan Football: Is it time for a new quarterback?
Wilton Speight has struggled as the starting quarterback for Michigan football and the question is, when will it become time for a change?
Coming into the 2017 season, Michigan football was counting on a lot of new players. But one position, that didn’t seem to be a huge question mark, was quarterback, where the Wolverines had Wilton Speight, the starter from last season returning.
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Yet, after three games, the biggest question on the entire team might now rest with the quarterback position and Speight himself. Is he good enough to lead Michigan football to a Big Ten title or to make the College Football Playoff?
Objectively, it’s hard to say yes.
For one, Speight is completing just more than 54 percent of his passes. He also has just three touchdowns in two games, to go along with two picks and some fumbles. But the numbers that are really striking are the 10 percent touchdown conversion rate in the red zone and the fact that UM is 102nd in the FBS when it comes to converting third downs.
To be blunt, those numbers are just plain bad. Certainly, the offense has other problems, but Speight might be the biggest.
For whatever reason, he just appears to have no sense of timing or confidence right now. Every throw seems mechanical, like he is trying to aim the ball, instead of just slinging it.
Regardless of the reason, Speight is clearly having a crisis on confidence.
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Now, he has been able to push the ball down the field for some big plays. He’s good at that. But he needs to get better at moving the chains and getting touchdowns in the red zone.
Michigan football appears to have one of the best defenses in the nation and if Speight and the offense can just be efficient, this team could be very tough to beat. The ground game could be better, but its averaging 199 per game and Ty Isaac has been a revelation.
But still, at the end of the day, to beat good teams, the quarterback needs to make some plays and through three games, Speight hasn’t been making nearly enough.
Jim Harbaugh is probably hoping that Speight plays himself out of this funk and hopefully, he will. But if not, Michigan may need to look at other options. John O’Korn isn’t anything special, so Brandon Peters would be my choice. He’s accurate, decently athletic and maybe, he could provide some sort of spark.
Ideally, the situation won’t get that bad. In the perfect world, Speight would have a strong game against Purdue and never look back. He doesn’t have to be a superstar after all, but he needs to be better than he has been.
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And if he can’t improve, then at some point, Harbaugh needs to make a change. He owes Speight a chance to right the ship sure, but he owes his football team a capable starting quarterback too.