SAM MCKEWON Omaha World-Herald
Bryce Underwood will likely get used to Nike and Jordan brand gear Michigan supplies to its football players, but for his first national interview with NFL Network’s Rich Eisen — a Michigan graduate — the five-star quarterback rocked a pair of New Balance shoes.
Eisen didn’t hesitate to ask the 6-foot-4, 208-pounder from Detroit — who flipped from LSU to UM late in the 2025 recruiting cycle — if he felt any pressure as Michigan’s perceived “savior.” He also asked Underwood about his favorite players growing up, including Cam Newton.
Underwood shared a story about the time, as a 14-year-old quarterbacking an 7-on-7 team, he helped beat one of Cam Newton’s sponsored 7-on-7 teams 36-0.
“I honestly didn’t have time to talk to him because, honestly, he was kind of upset he lost that bad,” Underwood quipped on The Rich Eisen Show.
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He said he started getting heavy recruiting attention in eighth grade. He’s not sure if former Michigan quarterback Jim Harbaugh ever saw him play. And yet, he’s landed in Ann Arbor to play for Harbaugh’s successor, Sherrone Moore, who brings the Wolverines to Nebraska on Sept. 20.
“My initials are BU, so my parents kept it in my head to ‘be you’ no matter what,” Underwood told Eisen.
Unlike Dylan Raiola at Nebraska, Underwood, who is rumored to have an eight-figure NIL deal, is not a mortal lock to start this year at Michigan. The team brought in longtime starter Mikey Keene from Fresno State and retained 2024 starter Davis Warren, as well.
Warren, of course, led an 8-5 team that had just about every component necessary for a College Football Playoff squad except a quarterback. (Michigan’s schedule, which included four CFP teams, was rugged, too.) That UM rallied late in the year to stun rival Ohio State, and later Alabama in the ReliaQuest Bowl, was a testament to Michigan’s culture — not its playmaking at QB.
Michigan threw for fewer yards per game — 129 — than any Division I team not representing a service academy. And UM’s yards per attempt ranked 133rd out of 134 teams. The Wolverines loaded up with power sets — tight ends and backs — to make three straight College Football Playoff appearances in 2021, 2022 and 2023, but that style, paired with overmatched quarterbacks, produced 22 points and 286 yards per game in 2024.
Hence, the push to get Underwood, and the need to hire a new offensive coordinator, since Kirk Campbell, the last guy, was a Harbaugh disciple who’s now with his mentor at the Chargers.
Moore hired Chip Lindsey, the former Auburn and North Carolina offensive coordinator, to infuse a spread-style attack for the Wolverines.
More shotgun formations. More tempo. He’s a Gus Malzahn and Todd Monken disciple. Monken currently runs the Ravens’ NFL offense with Lamar Jackson. If you’re looking for an ideal comparison for what Michigan hopes to do with Underwood, start there.
“He’s very advanced physically,” Lindsey said at a March press conference of Underwood, who threw for 11,488 career yards at Belleville (Michigan) High School. Lindsey noted he loved Underwood’s “approach,” to the game, too.
“He’s all business,” Lindsey said. “He loves football.”
The attention surrounding Underwood won’t be unique in the Big Ten this season, where he, Raiola, Penn State’s Drew Allar, Ohio State’s Julian Sayin and Oregon’s Dante Moore all could be five-star starters. Moore spurned the Wolverines twice — first, out of Detroit’s Martin Luther King High School, when he picked UCLA, and later, after he left the Bruins, he picked the Ducks. In picking Oregon, Moore effectively agreed to redshirt behind sixth-year senior Dillon Gabriel; he probably could have started at Michigan.
So it was with Harbaugh and every blue-chip quarterback not named JJ McCarthy, who flourished at Michigan, won a national title, and parlayed his college career into a first-round NFL Draft slot.
McCarthy was coldly efficient in his two years as a full-time starter — 44 touchdowns, just nine interceptions — but not statistically spectacular the way Jayden Daniels was at LSU. Daniels threw for 57 touchdowns and ran for another 21 across the 2022 and 2023 seasons. It’s why Daniels won the Heisman Trophy, while never making the CFP, and McCarthy did not even sniff an invite to New York for the Heisman telecast.
Michigan instead was a consummate sum of its parts in those CFP years. Quick, cagey linemen — both sides of the ball. So many tight ends that Harbaugh could dial up a play with four of them. Run-you-over backs. Long, lean, aggressive corners. Michigan had 27 total players selected across the 2022, 2023 and 2024 NFL Drafts.
That level of success led Associated Press voters to tab Michigan as the preseason No. 9 team before the 2024 season.
Quickly, things went awry. Moore played coy with the Wolverines’ beat media about how he’d manage the quarterback rotation headed into the season opener vs. Fresno State. Warren got the start, tossed six interceptions in the first three games, and found the bench for the next month while Alex Orji and 25-year-old seventh-year senior Jack Tuttle played.
Tuttle retired from the sport in mid-October, citing a surgically-repaired elbow tendon that hadn’t fully healed. Warren returned to start the final six games, winning four. In the wins over OSU and Bama, he threw 28 total passes for 135 total yards.
Michigan’s defense, smacked around a bit early last season, bowed up late, allowing 246, 127, 252 and 260 yards to Indiana, Northwestern, Ohio State and Alabama. UM’s interior tackle tandem of Kenneth Grant and Mason Graham, first/second round-level draft picks, controlled opposing offenses. They’re gone for 2025, but reinforcements are in the wings.
“We have more depth than we had last year at this time,” defensive coordinator Wink Martindale said.
Michigan added 12 transfers — Clemson’s Tre Williams and Alabama’s Damon Payne could replace Graham and Grant — and, thanks to Underwood, a top-10 recruiting class.
If the freshman does win the job, he’ll spend half the season playing away from him. UM has six road games in 2025, starting with Oklahoma in Week 2. Two weeks later, Moore brings Michigan to Memorial Stadium.
The Wolverines’ last trip to Lincoln, played in scorching heat, was a picture of discipline. UM held on to the ball for 38 minutes, didn’t commit a penalty or a turnover, and converted 10 of its 16 third and fourth downs. Michigan with a five-star QB running the show lost just one game over two seasons.
Michigan might have a five-star QB running things again.
“Who handles things when it’s a third-down pressure day — when it’s a red zone day, who does what we’re supposed to do?” Lindsey said of how he’ll pick Michigan’s starter. “Who can manage the huddle? Who can connect with the team? At the end of the day, it’s about who can affect the other 10 guys the best.”
Even if he wears New Balance shoes.
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