Michigan Football: 3 takeaways from the Wolverines 2017 season

Another frustrating year at quarterback

As frustrating as the year was for Michigan, I don’t think anything was more frustrating then watching John O’Korn leading the offense as the quarterback. O’Korn might be the single worst quarterback I ever remember watch play Division 1 football.

This might seem harsh but I honestly don’t know how he’s kept a spot on the roster. It is very clear after watching him play all year why he lost his starting job in Houston. Then being beat out by Wilton Speight for the starting spot in consecutive seasons, before then losing the starting job to Brandon Peters after Speight went down for the year. O’Korn single-handedly lost games for Michigan against MSU, and against Ohio State. He would consistently turn the ball over, miss wide open receivers, and misread defenses.

Against Michigan State O’Korn turned the ball over three consecutive times in the second half, throwing the ball to the Spartans each time. He would end that game with a QB rating of 19.9. O’Korn had an even worse QBR against the Buckeyes with a rating of 15.1. He also missed open receivers in that game time and time again. And whenever Michigan had an opportunity to take the lead back, O’Korn would be the one to let the opportunity slip away.

With 7:37 left to play in the fourth quarter and the Buckeyes up 24-20, Michigan was able to move the ball to the Buckeyes 36 yard line. On 2nd and 1, O’Korn would fall down after taking the snap, losing three yards. On the following down John O’Korn had an easy completion to Grant Perry that would have gotten a first down. But O’Korn would under throw the ball allowing it to be deflected and fall incomplete. Michigan went for it on 4th down. O’Korn had Chris Evans out of the back field unguarded, wide open right away, but held on to the ball for way to long and then over threw Evans resulting in a turnover on downs.

I haven’t even mentioned yet that O’Korn was getting outplayed by a freshman in Dwayne Haskins who took over for the injured J.T Barrett. That’s because the worse was yet to come.

Michigan football would get the ball back withe 2:47 remaining in the game still down by four and a chance to put together a scoring drive to beat the Buckeyes. On the first play of the drive O’Korn would over throw every Michigan receiver on the field by 20 yards, and that’s not an exaggeration. There wasn’t a player wearing maize and blue within 20 yards of O’Korn’s pass, which was intercepted. Inexcusable. What a fitting ending to yet another loss to Ohio State.