Bryce Underwood is still Michigan’s starting quarterback, but don’t get it twisted, that QB1 spot isn’t etched in stone. Following the Wolverines’ nail-biting 13-12 escape against Western Michigan in their season opener, head coach Kyle Whittingham made it crystal clear: Underwood’s current status is “not something that’s infinite.” Yeah, you read that right. Even a game-saving, 47-yard Hail Mary touchdown toss on the final play couldn’t make his job bulletproof.
Look, that win against Western Michigan was a squeaker, practically a heist. Michigan needed replay officials to add one single second back to the game clock, setting up Underwood’s heroic bomb to wide receiver JJ Buchanan to avoid what would have been the biggest upset of Week 1. But even with that highlight reel play, Underwood’s overall stat line tells a different story. He completed just 12 of 22 passes for 170 yards, with one touchdown, one interception, and a lost fumble in the fourth quarter. Whittingham, speaking ahead of No. 16 Michigan’s Week 2 showdown against No. 10 Oklahoma, backed his guy but didn’t mince words about the need for major improvement. “He’s our QB right now,” Whittingham stated, “and it’s not something that’s infinite. At some point, we’ve got to turn a corner and we’ve got to see improvement as we do with a bunch of stuff. We got to see improvement out of the coaches, and so it’s not just on Bryce.”
Underwood himself seems to get it, at least in part, urging his teammates to avoid getting comfortable after the close call. He said, “I feel like we just got to come out and dominate and be aggressive like we were in the first drive on every single play. We can’t come down, energy can’t come down, can’t get comfortable.” Whittingham echoed that sentiment, emphasizing that job security is fleeting for everyone on the roster, not just the quarterback. “It’s not just Bryce’s job that is not absolutely set in concrete,” Whittingham pointed out. “Nobody’s is. You got to perform week in and week out and become somebody that we feel like is playing at a level that we can win with, and that goes far beyond Bryce. It goes throughout the whole team, and what you’ve done lately is very important in football.”
Now, with No. 10 Oklahoma rolling into town for a home game, the stakes are through the roof. Whittingham knows the offense has to clean up its act, and fast. He flat-out admitted, “We have a ton of work to do. The degree of difficulty next week goes way up. And if we don’t play a lot better, it’s not going to be pretty.” So, can Underwood and the Wolverines turn that corner against a top-10 opponent, or will that QB1 job truly become “infinite” no more? We’ll find out when the whistle blows.
This article was created with AI assistance and published under Seattle On Tap’s editorial standards. See our Editorial Policy.
Originally reported by Fox Sports.
Leave a Reply