UCLA Football: Wilton Speight brings experience factor to Bruins
Adding a veteran grad transfer quarterback like Wilton Speight to the mix allows UCLA football to explore more options on offense entering Week 1.
UCLA football has a lot to be excited about for the 2018 season, come the fall, but things just got even better for them. Few college football programs had a better off-season, at least so far, than the Bruins. The recent headlines put a spotlight back on UCLA again after they landed a valuable grad transfer in former Michigan Wolverines quarterback Wilton Speight.
The other news the caught the eye of the college football world came when the Bruins landed possibly the best head coaching hire of the off-season in Chip Kelly. Speight would not traditionally fit into a Chip Kelly style offense, but he brings something to the table that the other two quarterbacks that could start do not.
Other quarterback options for Kelly and the UCLA offense includes the rising sophomore Devon Modster and incoming freshman four-star dual-threat recruit Dorian Thompson-Robinson. The future of the offense should lie with Thompson-Robinson.
We’re still likely to see a split workload between Speight and Modster this season. They’re the two most experienced quarterback on the roster, even though Speight has more valuable in-game action than Modster.
It was a very limited body of work for Speight in 2017 with Michigan, tossing just three touchdowns and two interceptions. The real potential that UCLA should try to tap into comes from his 2016 stat line, featuring 18 touchdown passes to just seven picks.
UCLA really needs to find the best solution to the quarterback situation at hand during spring drills. We’ll see how Modster fares in UCLA’s spring game on April 21. If he generates enough momentum to round out spring, he could be the Week 1 starter.
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An easy move for Kelly here is to give Speight the Week 1 nod. He’s a natural bridge to a younger quarterback that could make an impact for the Bruins in Pac-12 play. UCLA has a real chance to make a run at a division title in the Pac-12 South, and the quarterback is the most important factor to their success in that regards.