[Fuller/MGoBlog]
If you listened to The Michigan Insider yesterday morning you heard interviews with some of Michigan’s assistant coaches, including Jedd Fisch. We thought you, our beloved readers, might like to read a transcript of what coach Fisch had to say. When you finish reading you should head to The Michigan Insider’s channel on Audioboom and listen to the rest of what Sam and Ira discussed. After all, the cool people like it.
How much difference is there as opposed to last year at this time trying to install everything with the quarterbacks now that you have Wilton [Speight] and John [O’Korn] and they’ve been around, and Wilton with the game experience there?
“Yeah, it’s a huge difference. Going into having this conversation last year we’d had one spring and we didn’t even have Jake [Rudock] that spring, so really the first practice we were going to have with Jake was tomorrow last year, right? So we were having these discussions and really a lot of it was just guessing.
“Now we’ve got film on what Wilton in the games he played for us last year. We had meetings with those guys all last year, all spring. Their preparation has been excellent leading up to it and now it’s really exciting because you can build off of last year without taking on this whole approach of too much newness. It really can be how much better can we get now that you can show them film of Michigan people doing it rather than other people doing it.”
What goes into making that decision of who ends up being the starter?
“Oh, I think it’s multi—there’s a ton of things we have to look at, but the number one thing is can you lead the team to score? Can you lead the team in practice, can you move the football, can you not just have flashes but can you have consistent good days, one after another after another? Can you have a move-the-ball period that’s unscripted and can you go from the 20 to the 20 or the 50 to the goal line, wherever we start? Can you get first downs? The guy that does the most of that will really give us a great chance.
“And then how they lead the team, how they break the huddle, how they act in meeting rooms, do they have a moxie about them, and then what’s the end result.”
Do both those guys have that?
“Yeah, I think that a lot of guys—I think we have two guys that are doing real well and another two guys or three guys that are right there continuing to compete for it. I don’t think it’s a slam dunk that it’s just in between two guys. We’re not going in thinking that way. There’s an opportunity to go out there and take this job. It’s not being given to anyone, so if you’re…I guess April 1 or 2, whenever the spring game was, they’ve had from that day until tomorrow on their own—I mean, with the strength coaches but on their own—to figure out a way to become the starting quarterback at Michigan. That’s pretty cool.”
When you guys start tomorrow is Brandon [Peters] going to get as many reps as John? Is it going to be even all the way or are you going to tier that in some way?
“You know, I haven’t talked to coach Drevno or coach Harbaugh about that yet. We’ll have a plan for them, but we haven’t discussed exactly how we’re going to work the reps but I would guess it’s going to be pretty fair very early on.”
Is there a chance the competition could go into the season [where] the first few games a couple of quarterbacks play, perhaps?
“You know, I guess. There’s always a chance. I don’t know that. I don’t know what it’s going to look like. I would be surprised if it looked like that, if it would go into the season. You’d like to have a starting quarterback before that, but again, we don’t know. It’s going to be…we’ll talk about it, and as we talk about it we’ll figure out what’s the best way to name a starting quarterback, when’s the best time to name the starting quarterback, and what are we going to do with that.”
What have you seen out of O’Korn in particular that you’ve liked since he’s been here?
“Out of John? Well, he’s experienced so he’s played so he has--when he breaks the huddle, when he runs the offense, he knows what he’s doing. He’s done it before. He’s done it in games. He’s done it in environments and he does everything right off the field. He’s somebody that…he wants to lead. He wants to be the guy. He wants to find a way to really take this team and run with it, and I think you can see that every day that you’re around him.”
What about Wilton?
“Wilton’s somebody that has really matured over a year. I think that going into last year’s camp, he’s a much different person than he is going into this year’s camp. He’s taken on the maturity, he’s taken on a lot of responsibility. The obvious game against Minnesota gave him a kind of confidence, you know. He’s excited about it. He’s excited that that’s not going to be the only touchdown he ever throws for Michigan, and I think that’s his mindset, that that’s not going to be my last touchdown.”
Did you tell him that? Not to let that be his only--
“Oh yeah. Oh yeah.”
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[Inaudible]
“Often. And you have to remind these guys about that, remind them that, ‘Hey, that was just one. Hopefully that’s one of many. Hopefully that’s one game-winning score of many.’ Just like with John O’Korn, ‘Hey John, you want to be the guy that throws the next batch of touchdowns.’ You know, he’s played in games but he hasn’t thrown a touchdown pass yet [at Michigan]. I know he wants to throw one and I know Brandon Peters, he wants to be a part of that battle as well.”
How close is Shane in that battle?
“Oh, they’re all close. They really are. They’re all close right now. All we know is guys coming out of spring. Now we’re in fall. They just have to…I don’t know, I’m not a big NASCAR guy but there’s something like the pole position and that’s from the day before, right? So there’s just a pole position right now. There’s just guys in certain spots, but once the race begins tomorrow it’s going to be wide open again.”
How did O’Korn handle that year of sitting and watching and listening and observing? Obviously he’d rather be playing, but was that beneficial to him?
“Yeah, he handled it very well. I’m sure that he would tell you, like everything, that when you look back on it, ‘Oh, maybe I could have done more. Was there more I could have done? I don’t know.’ But I know that he worked really hard and he treated it like he was on this football team and ready to play on Saturday, not ‘I can’t play for a year.’ He prepared, he took every test, he did everything like he was lining up and ready to play.”
For you personally, as opposed to coming in and installing everything, do you feel like you can, instead of keeping it more simple, maybe broaden it a little bit more?
“Yeah, it could be almost like a cardinal sin when you do that, when you say, ‘Well, we’ve had a year, now let’s get complicated. Now let’s get crazy.’ You start doing that and now all of a sudden you’re not as good, right? We want to get better than we were last year, so we want to take what we did last year, see what we did well, do more of that, and do less of the extraneous stuff and actually go the other direction with it. Say what are the best things we’re going to do now that we have a feel for our receivers and tight ends, running backs in the passing game and protection, let’s do that.”
How comfortable are you with the fact that you have a quarterback in the mix somewhere?
“We have a quarterback. We have a quarterback for sure. Don’t know exactly who it’s going to be, but I feel really comfortable. So does coach Drev, so does coach Harbaugh that there’s going to be somebody that’s going to step up and be our quarterback against Hawaii. We feel really comfortable about that.”