Adam Biggers used to work with me at a college sports site which got shuttered a few years ago. He has covered Michigan and Michigan State sports for multiple outlets over the past several years as a beat reporter. He has been in the room for much of the past decade, when Michigan struggled to regain a foothold in the Big Ten Conference and create a new Ten-Year War with Ohio State.
If anyone wants to know what’s really going on inside the walls of the Michigan program, I turn to Adam Biggers. I asked him for perspective on some of the biggest questions facing Michigan Wolverines football in the new decade.
This is what Adam Biggers said:
The biggest storyline: Jim Harbaugh was once known as a QB whisperer… when will one of his own be a star, the kind of player for which Michigan desperately searches?
All his QBs have been transfers or NOT his own recruits.
Wilton Speight was the closest one, given that he came up within the Michigan program, but he was still a Brady Hoke kid.
Jake Rudock was from Iowa. Shea Patterson was from Ole Miss.
Brandon Peters, the one who was supposed to be the successful home-grown Michigan quarterback, transferred to Illinois.
John O’Korn was from Houston. That fell flat.
Joe Milton is part of a pile of upcoming talent. Will he get washed aside? Dylan McCaffrey is injury-prone.
When will Harbaugh complete the homegrown QB process?
From recruiting the kid, to the kid being star, to the three-year starter, etc.
Or is that QB no longer in style, given the transfer portal and the new normal in player movement?
Point back to Andrew Luck at Stanford. Everyone said Harbaugh was genius.
In the NFL, he developed Colin Kaepernick with the San Francisco 49ers.
Now what? Rent-a-QB?
Wilton Speight was THE closest to a home-grown Harbaugh QB at Michigan. Three years, two as a starter. It never quite panned out. Harbaugh is still looking for the Michigan man who can lead Michigan to greatness at quarterback.
– Adam Biggers