One of the more criticized statistics of now-sophomore quarterback Bryce Underwood’s freshman campaign was his touchdown-to-interception ratio. In his first college season, Underwood threw 11 touchdowns to nine picks, although adding an additional six touchdowns on the ground.
This season, new offensive coordinator Jason Beck wants to minimize the amount of turnovers as a whole and gain a better understanding of Underwood, and vice versa, as quickly as possible. Last season, Michigan finished with
a turnover margin of two, which ranked tied for 60th in the country. When looking at how many turnovers occurred, the Wolverines had 17, which was tied for 69th in the country.
Overall, the numbers are middle of the pack and teams have found success doing worse. But Beck subscribes to the idea of improvement by having a better understanding of the offense, and especially the quarterback.
“We really look hard at everything we’re doing to put the quarterback in the best situations to have them prepared and to avoid anything that could become a problem based off the defense and all the variables,” Beck told the local media on Thursday.
When looking at Year 1 to Year 2 in terms of interceptions for quarterback Devon Dampier at New Mexico in 2024 and Utah in 2025, the difference is drastic. New Mexico finished with the 14th-worst turnover margin at -8. Many of those came at the hands of Dampier, who threw 12 interceptions that year. Then in 2025 at Utah, Dampier threw just five interceptions, and the team as a whole finished with a positive turnover margin of six, tied for 30th in the country.
Beck attributes much of that change to the fact that Dampier became more comfortable in Beck’s offensive system, but also the game itself slowing down and having a better understanding of each other.
“Part of that is you just grow as a player from one year to the next,” Beck said. “The game slows down for you, you’ve had more experience. So some of that’s just the player growing, but it’s also us understanding the player, and we knew Devon a lot better Year 2 than we did that first year, and how to help him.”
The game slowing down is something head coach Kyle Whittingham also noted with how fall camp has been an upward trajectory for Underwood.
“His grasp of the offense overall, I think that’s the thing that has allowed him to play faster, and grasping the offense has allowed him to speed everything up,” Whittingham said on Friday afternoon. “Making really good decisions and taking good care of football, it has just been on an upward trajectory all fall camp, and really started to come into his own.
“Bryce is outstanding as far as being coachable and being a student of the game and just really work ethic.”
This is still just Underwood and Beck’s first season together, so there might be an initial learning curve. But having worked with Dampier for two seasons — another highly touted dual-threat quarterback — the possibilities for Underwood and Beck to have quicker growth is exponentially higher. In terms of dual-threat quarterbacks, Beck actually prefers being able to add that other dimension.
“I prefer it,” Beck said when asked about having a running quarterback. “I’ve had a pretty good running quarterback for quite a while now … I love a guy that can be a weapon with his legs in the run game. Now, he still has to do the other thing at a high level, to throw the football and score points and win. But to have a threat with every that way is definitely preferred.”
So far from the spring to the fall, Beck has already noticed how Underwood is creating more positive results on the field by stacking good practices.
“(Thursday) was practice 13, Bryce has had 13 good practices,” Beck said. “He’s just working hard, consistent. There’s not these big ups and downs. In the spring, there have been some highs and some lows. It was a little more up and down, not in terms of work ethic and effort, he shows up every day with work ethic and effort, but just in terms of the results of the play. This has been 13 good practices. He’s been really steady.”
Now it’s just a matter of time to see if Underwood can take the stacked practices from fall camp into Week 1 against Western Michigan and beyond.
