Best player in college football'? Maybe ... but there's no question Jabrill Peppers is the most versatile

ANN ARBOR, Mich. – Jabrill Peppers came off the sideline with the Michigan offensive unit last Saturday against Penn State and asked quarterback Wilton Speight a question:

“OK, what I got?”

Speight pulled out the oldest playbook in football – the palm of his hand. On that, he diagrammed Peppers’ role on the play: line up as a slot receiver, come in motion right to left, and we will fake a jet sweep to you.

This is how simple an increasingly complex game can be with the most versatile man in football. Turn the Big House into the world’s largest sandlot field, draw it up with an index finger and just watch him play.

Peppers did his job on that particular play – one of his many Michigan moonlighting jobs. His day job is outside linebacker, but in reality the redshirt sophomore has performed a dizzying 13 different positional tasks this season. There are more to come.

Since he set up Michigan’s first touchdown of the day with a 53-yard punt return, the Nittany Lions were highly attuned to Peppers’ sudden presence on offense. Thus when Speight faked the jet sweep to No. 5, much of the Penn State defense pursued the highly explosive decoy.

That left a lane up the middle for running back De’Veon Smith to gain 39 yards, jump-starting yet another scoring drive in a 49-10 Michigan rout.

By merely going in motion, Jabrill Peppers can change a game. Just put him on the field – anywhere – and big things tend to happen.

“Those eye-popping plays happen every day,” coach Jim Harbaugh said. “You give him something new, for example, whether it’s an offensive snap and know he hasn’t done it before, and then he goes out to practice and everybody is just looking like, ‘Nobody’s done it that well. Guys that play that position don’t do it that well.’

“Jabrill is really good at football. That’s kind of become what we say.”

Jabrill Peppers is really good at football – perhaps as good at it as anyone in the nation. And football has been good to him – as a release, as an escape, as a vehicle that has carried an angry boy to a happy place.