Dusty May is leaving Michigan basketball, and one former Wolverines quarterback is making sure athletic director Warde Manuel hears about it. May accepted the head coaching job with the Dallas Mavericks on Monday, a move that caught plenty of people off guard — but maybe not the ones who were paying close attention.
Wilton Speight, who started under center for Michigan from 2015 to 2017, fired off a blunt take on an Instagram post from ESPN’s Adam Schefter, who also went to Michigan. Speight didn’t hold back.
“Anyone close enough to the program knew Dusty was out if they kept Warde. Mind blowing how this is how it unfolded. What a disaster,” Speight wrote.
Speight is 31 now and played in Ann Arbor during the Jim Harbaugh era. His best season came in 2016 when he threw for 2,538 yards with 18 touchdowns and just seven interceptions. He transferred to UCLA in 2018 to play for Chip Kelly after Shea Patterson took over the starting job at Michigan.
Some Michigan fans were quick to push back on Speight’s criticism. They pointed out that he also left the program — and not under the best circumstances. One fan wrote, “Wilton Speight also left the program by the way. So who cares about what he thinks.” Another said, “Speight ran away to UCLA after Shea Patterson took the QB role. Maybe consider a more reliable source instead of sour grapes.”
Others brought up Speight’s role in one of Michigan’s more painful losses: the 14-13 defeat at Iowa in 2016 that ended the Wolverines’ 9-0 start and effectively killed their national title hopes. Michigan went 1-3 the rest of that season.
May leaves Michigan after one season, where he led the Wolverines to a 14-17 record before they made a run in the Big Ten tournament and reached the Sweet 16. The guy can coach, and the Mavericks clearly saw enough to hire him away from a defending national champion program that had just started building something new.
As for what’s next at Michigan, the school isn’t launching a national search right away. Assistant Mike Boynton Jr. was promoted to interim head coach with a chance to earn the full-time job. No timeline has been set for a permanent hire.
Manuel has taken heat before from fans and former players. This is just the latest round.
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