Michigan football coach Kyle Whittingham told the Free Press this summer he's never been around a player who was as under the microscope as quarterback Bryce Underwood.
Well, the intensity on that magnifying glass just got turned up 100 fold after an inconsistent (at best) Week 1 performance. Underwood completed 12 of 22 passes for 170 yards, one touchdown and one interception. He also ran nine times for 47 yards, but fumbled the ball deep in U-M territory which nearly cost the Wolverines the game.
Instead, he got a chance to be part of the heroic final play, where when given a second-chance at a Hail Mary (after throwing the first out of the back of the end zone) he converted, connecting with JJ Buchanan on a 47-yard game-winning heave as time
expired to survive Western Michigan, 13-12.
Still, the discourse around him has taken off.
"I’m just telling you right now that Bryce Underwood regressed from Year 1 to Year 2," Fox analyst Joel Klatt said. "He’s throwing curl routes into sitting safeties. He’s throwing spot routes and leading those players into Cover 2 corners. This is Day 1 quarterback stuff. These are things that you can’t do as a quarterback.
"This is going to be film that is going to be incredibly hard to watch.”
The numbers backed up as much. Pro Football Focus graded Underwood (35.8) as the worst player in U-M's offense in the opener. His passing grade (31.4) was the second worst in the FBS among 110 qualified quarterbacks with at least 20 dropbacks last week.
It's why on Monday, Whittingham said Underwood's hold on the starting job was not "infinite" before he added "at some point, we've got to turn a corner, we've got to see improvement." Speaking on Tuesday night following Michigan's "blood Tuesday" practice, running back Jordan Marshall said that he and his teammates had not lost any faith in their quarterback.
“Bryce doesn’t feed into that,” he said about the recent criticism. “He comes in here and just works. … Bryce wants to be great. I hope everyone knows that he wants to be great for this program. He’s a Michigan kid. He’s born and raised.
“He loves this program and would do anything for it. There’s no trust lost in him. He’s our guy.”
Underwood spoke with media at Schembechler Hall on Wednesday, Sept. 9, and said he will always be confident in himself. The second-year starter implied he hadn't heard what Whittingham said about his uncertain status moving forward as he clarified with a reporter who asked him, saying, "There was comments about that? ... I didn't see that. It's cool."
Underwood did, however, acknowledge that Week 1 wasn't his best. He said he got a little "back to last year" in terms of his sloppy mechanics, despite an offseason where improvement in that area was the crux of his focus.
He said he's been focused on himself and his craft, saying he hasn't been on social media since fall camp, but after watching film he and the staff determined there were "six major plays that changed the game," and this week he's been working as hard as he can to fix those mistakes.
"My performance wasn't the best," he said. "I've got a lot of stuff to work on coming up this week."
College football voice Josh Pate recently went on "The Rich Eisen Show" and agreed with the assessment that Michigan "has a problem" at quarterback. U-M is in a bit of a conundrum with Underwood not only being paid in the neighborhood of $3 million annually but being voted a captain by his teammates.
If the Wolverines move on from him, it feels like toothpaste that can't be put back in the tube. If they don't, if feels like riding with a guy who hasn't proven he can be successful in 14 games at the highest level. The test only gets tougher this week, when No. 24 Michigan hosts No. 10 Oklahoma on Fox's "Big Noon Kickoff."
"This may be the best defense coming into town this week," Pate said of Oklahoma. "I don't know what the move is if he struggles mightily again this week, and this is a defense that will make a lot of good quarterbacks look bad."
There's reason to be concerned. Underwood has had just two games in his career where he's had multiple touchdowns and no turnovers, and one of them was against Central Michigan. In three games against ranked teams, he's thrown two touchdowns against four interceptions and is 0-3 in his career.
All eyes, as they often are, will be on Underwood this weekend. Still, he says the outside noise won't affect him.
"I believe in myself and I'm confident in myself no matter what it is," Underwood said. "Just go in there, any game, with that mindset."
Tony Garcia is the Michigan beat writer for the Detroit Free Press. Email him at apgarcia@freepress.com and follow him on X at @RealTonyGarcia.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Bryce Underwood brushes off outside pressure. But Michigan will need him to step up
