Dan Murphy, ESPN Staff Writer 8y

Spring breakout player: Michigan Wolverines

Another spring season is winding to a close, and it’s time to look back to see who made the most of their 15 offseason practices. This week we’ll be going around the Big Ten to find the biggest breakout player on each roster. Michigan is next on the list.

Spring breakout player: QB Wilton Speight

If not an afterthought, Wilton Speight was at least a dark-horse candidate in Michigan’s quarterback competition when the Wolverines flew to Florida in February to begin their camp. Speight left the team’s April 1 spring game as a slight favorite to win the job over redshirt juniors John O’Korn and Shane Morris.

Head coach Jim Harbaugh hasn’t weighed in on any type of pecking order since Speight completed five of his six throws while passing for one touchdown and running for another to lead his half of the roster to a 14-13 spring game victory. A couple weeks after the scrimmage, Harbaugh said it was too early to make any evaluations of the quarterbacks public. From the outside looking in, Speight has been the most consistent operator of the Wolverine offense throughout the spring.

“As far as moving the ball down the field and two-minute drills and stuff like that, they keep a points system,” Speight said during the final week of Michigan’s practice. “Just looking at the stats, that’s where I kind of distance myself.”

The 6-foot-6  Virginian doesn’t have the arm strength of Morris or the mobility of O’Korn, but he’s more than serviceable in both those departments. Teammates say his command and poise were always solid, but improved as he grew more confident in his chances of running the offense this spring.

That confidence started to build when Speight made his real debut last Halloween. He stepped in for an injured Jake Rudock in the fourth quarter and helped the Wolverines eke out a victory on the road against Minnesota. He completed only three passes in that relief appearance, but one of them was a game-winning touchdown throw. He said that experienced helped him believe he had a shot at winning the job in 2016 despite being largely overlooked (something he certainly noticed) by the outside world.

Michigan’s coaches have said since their arrival that they are most interested in a quarterback who, first and foremost, avoids mistakes. That strategy proved itself last season during Rudock’s risk-averse march toward a 10-win season. Speight appears to share the same even-keel approach to the position and said he has jelled well with passing game coordinator Jedd Fisch’s laid back style.

The competition is far from over, and those outside of the Wolverine locker room aren’t likely to receive a definitive word on a winner until Michigan’s season opener against Hawaii. But Speight was the only quarterback made available for questioning after Michigan’s spring game, and he carried himself like a man who believed he would his team’s leader come September. And unlike in February, most everyone else in the room felt the same way.

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