Loss to Buckeyes still hurts for Speight

But Michigan QB focused on Fla. State

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — It’s been more than a month since Michigan’s last football game, and it’s still difficult for quarterback Wilton Speight to watch the film. And that’s understandable. The last game was the Ohio State game. The one Michigan lost to its biggest rival. The one that kept the Wolverines from the College Football Playoff.

Win or lose, Michigan has a rule — as do many other teams — that the outcome of a game can be fixated upon for only one day, and then it’s on to the next challenge. While it may have taken the sixth-ranked Wolverines more than 24 hours to get over that 30-27 double-overtime and somewhat-debated loss, they insist that the focus is solely now on No. 10 Florida State and the matchup that awaits in the Orange Bowl on Friday night.

“We’re over it,” tight end Khalid Hill said.

“Sure as heck better be,” Wolverines coach Jim Harbaugh said.

Speight has studied his every move from that game more than once, trying to find the things that went right and the things that he needed to do better. Painful as it was, he said it was important and necessary because he sees parallels between the Florida State and Ohio State defenses.

“It was a bummer not making the playoff, but we put ourselves in that position,” Speight said Tuesday. “We put the ball in other people’s court to determine if we were going or not and you never want to do that in anything in life. But we were quickly happy, and moving on to the Orange Bowl and playing an unbelievable opponent.”

That being said, he doesn’t watch the more-dramatic television copy of the game.

He limits himself to the cutups in the Michigan film room, ones that focus only on X’s and O’s — not oohs and aahs.

“There’s a little pit in your stomach when you watch it,” Speight said.

A win would make this only the second 11-victory season for Michigan since 1997.

“We wish we would have beat Ohio State, yes,” Hill said. “But at the end of the day I still think we’re one of the top four teams in the country.”

TEXAS A&M: Today’s Texas Bowl against Kansas State will likely be the final college game for Aggies defensive end Myles Garrett, the junior consensus All-American who is predicted by some to be the top overall pick in 2017 draft.

Garrett struggled with injuries this season but still managed to pile up 8½ sacks and 15 tackles for losses. He needs one sack to pass Von Miller (33)

for fifth on the school’s all-time sacks list.

N.C. STATE: Safety Josh Jones has decided to skip his senior season and enter the NFL draft.

Jones, who had an interception in the Wolfpack’s Independence Bowl win over Vanderbilt on Monday, made the announcement on his Twitter account Tuesday.

OKLA. STATE: Quarterback Mason Rudolph and running back James Washington say they will return for their senior seasons.

The two juniors made their announcement on Twitter and then discussed it Tuesday while OSU continued preparations for this week’s Alamo Bowl against Colorado on Friday.

Rudolph says the two of them want to put an “exclamation point” on their college careers and Washington added that the two are looking forward to getting their degrees.

PITT: James Conner called his shot before he digs in today at Yankee Stadium.

Conner, Pitt’s star running back, announced he would skip his senior season and declare for the NFL draft and also play for the Panthers against Northwestern in the Pinstripe Bowl.

He bucked the 2016 trend of draft prospects bypassing a bowl game to protect their NFL futures for one last game with his teammates. Conner also reversed his decision to wait to announce his fate until after Pitt’s bowl game.