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Michigan Football: Wilton Speight Proved He Can Be Relied Upon
When UCF dedicated itself to taking the run away from Michigan football on Saturday, it was Wilton Speight who stepped up and showed us what he can do.
The UCF Knights did exactly what they should’ve done on Saturday as major underdogs on the road: they loaded the box and made Michigan football‘s first-year starter beat them through the air.
To say Wilton Speight, in his second career start, beat UCF through the air would be a gross understatement, though—because Speight made the Knights look like they weren’t even trying. And that’s true even if you stopped watching the game after the first quarter, at which point Michigan already had a 21-0 lead.
When UCF didn’t adjust to Speight’s arm, things only got worse. In that game, Speight proved his offense is not going to be one-dimensional. He looked like a quarterback who can put the team on his shoulder pads and throw for 300 yards and four touchdowns when need be. I think of Jake Rudock against Indiana last season.
I’m thankful UCF deployed that game plan and then stuck with it. Without that, who knows how long we would’ve had to go before seeing that Speight is in fact a threat at quarterback, not just someone who can make a decent throw here and there.
One of the most promising throws of the game was a 45-yard touchdown loft to Amara Darboh, a throw Michigan’s offense didn’t have in its arsenal until at least halfway through last season.
Many people walked away from the UCF game and wanted to dog on Michigan’s running game, saying it wasn’t good enough or that the offensive line is still experiencing incredible woes. Again, UCF committed itself to stopping the run in a way you don’t often see for 60 minutes. There were eight, nine guys in the box, clogging up every possible lane. It just wasn’t going to happen.
If you still need convincing of this, I encourage you to read this by MLive’s Nick Baumgardner.
Would it have been nice to see Michigan rush for 200 yards against that? Definitely. But would Speight have gotten a chance to prove he can be the sole bread winner for nearly an entire game? Likely not.
What Speight did on Saturday gives the program—and the fans—many reasons to be optimistic about the remainder of the season, especially if Michigan runs into another team as stubborn as that.
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