Megabucks freshman Bryce Underwood missed a couple of open receivers in Michigan’s spring scrimmage, but he can really run the ball and may get the nod as the Wolverines’ starting quarterback. | Rachel Leggett, courtesy of MGoBlog
After the Wolverines’ national championship in 2023, Jim Harbaugh returned to the NFL and took much of his staff with him. The league’s draft then selected thirteen Michigan players, including quarterback J.J. McCarthy and eight other starters on offense. Michigan did return three defensive All-Americans, but the weakened offense left a lot on the defense last season. Too much.
For most of the season, the pass game was a debacle: a rotation of QBs averaged 4.83 yards per pass (sack-adjusted), about as bad as it gets. The defense held up its end, but, with the offense stumbling, the Wolverines lost all their early road games (and Texas and Oregon at home) and was 6–5 coming into The Game in Columbus.
OSU had a quarterback, running backs, and wide receivers as good as anyone, and NFL types on both lines. No one thought Michigan stood a chance: the Buckeyes were favored by 19.5 points. How often does a twenty-point underdog win? About 2 percent of the time.
But on that day, defensive coordinator Wink Martindale’s tactics completely stymied the OSU run game and confused its quarterback. The game was tied 10–10 late in the fourth quarter, and Michigan had a 3rd and 6 on the Buckeye 44. Michigan—seemingly playing for overtime—handed the ball off to Kalel Mullings, who was tackled in the backfield. Except he wasn’t: he broke free, stumbled, and then ran the ball inside the Ohio State 20. Michigan couldn’t gain more ground, but kicked a field goal, ran out the clock, and beat the eventual national champions, 13–10.
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The win put the Wolverines in the year-end ReliaQuest Bowl against Alabama, the last-team-out of the new twelve-team playoff. Michigan had beaten Bama in the Rose Bowl the previous January—but this time, most of the Wolverines’ stars chose not to play.
In 2017, Michigan All-American tight end Jake Butt played in a bowl game against Florida State University that many advised him to sit out. He decided that his connection to his teammates and school was more important than the risk of injury, but the worst came to pass and he blew out his ACL. Butt went from a first- to a fifth-round pick, his pro career was truncated, and he lost millions of dollars.
This time, Michigan players decided not to take that risk. Alabama was intact and wanted revenge for its Rose Bowl loss. The line favored Bama by 16.5 points.
Lightning struck twice. Incredibly, the Crimson Tide couldn’t do any more against Martindale’s defense—now more or less the JVs—than had Ohio State. Michigan could barely run or pass, but neither could Alabama. In the first quarter, Michigan totaled just forty-three yards on offense but still managed to score sixteen points on Bama errors. The Wolverines gained only 190 yards in the entire game but still won, 19–13.
The 8–5 season was not exactly celebratory, but there was satisfaction in beating OSU for the fourth time in a row—and the third time free of the shadow cast by the just-concluded NCAA investigation into Michigan’s sign-stealing scandal.
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This year’s NFL draft took the biggest names from Michigan’s defense. But with other players maturing and a couple added through the transfer portal, this year’s defense could be almost as good as 2024’s.
On offense, last year’s best QB, Davis Warren, returns, and transfer Mikey Keene was a solid starter at Fresno State. But both were hurt and out of the spring scrimmage, and their current stage of development is just rumor.
Starting this year, teams may pay their athletes as much as $22 million. Individual players may also negotiate their own deals with private businesses (often through university-connected co-ops) that are willing to pay to use their name, image, and likeness (NIL). Many players now have agents before they leave high school.
Belleville High’s Bryce Underwood was one. The top-rated recruit in the country last year, he’s big, can run, and has a good arm. He is also smart. Though Belleville is just down I-94, so much money was flying around that few expected him to end up in Ann Arbor. But U-M grad Jolin Zhu and her husband, tech billionaire Larry Ellison (Oracle, owner of the Hawaiian island of Lanai), backed a rumored $12 million NIL deal that kept Underwood local and U-M fans hopeful. The question now is whether Underwood is mature enough and can learn fast enough to run the Michigan offense in his first year.
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In the spring scrimmage, he looked raw. Underwood can run and throw, with a remarkably powerful arm and good mechanics, but he missed a couple of open receivers, and the receivers dropped a couple more. With the offensive line overmatched, the receivers, save for reserve tight end Jalen Hoffman, had trouble getting open. The top running backs sat out most of the scrimmage, and the reserves had only rare opportunities to show off.
Probably thirty-five of the last forty spring scrimmages have been disappointing for offenses, so that may not say much about the fall. Underwood, Keene, Warren, transfer Jake Garcia, and redshirt frosh Jadyn Davis all had sufficient opportunities in August to show that they can direct the show.
Offensive line play is synergy, and a spring game, where the line was split into pieces, is not the place to see what a team really has. Michigan has numerous guys who were highly regarded elsewhere, and they may have enough to create something that works.
Underwood can really run the ball, and nothing is more difficult to defend than a QB who keeps the defense honest with his legs. Seth Fisher and Brian Cook at MGoBlog are concerned that Michigan does not have sufficient quality in the wide-receiver position, but if the offensive line helps out with a run game and can give the QB winner (probably Underwood or maybe Keene) some time, they should be good enough.
Michigan will lose a game or two but should make the NCAA playoffs this year.