Kyle Whittingham Cheers for Bryce Underwood’s Electric Performance!
Ann Arbor — The strength of Kyle Whittingham’s Michigan football team will be its physical nature, but the strengths of the team will be revealed during spring practice, which opens Tuesday. What Whittingham, in his first season as Michigan head coach after 21 seasons at Utah, does know is that rising sophomore Bryce Underwood is the clear-cut leader at quarterback. “He's QB1 without a doubt,” Whittingham said Tuesday in his first news conference since being formally introduced in late December.
Underwood started every game last season as a freshman, and it’s no surprise he’s the starter heading into spring practice. After all, Whittingham, at the introductory news conference, said locking down Underwood , the nation’s top recruit in the 2025 class, in terms of roster retention was his top priority. “He has performed very well in the in the workouts, and not only with his athleticism, but leadership-wise,” Whittingham said, adding Underwood is one of four spring practice captains voted by the players.
“So he's a guy that everyone looks to and the top 10% of your football team is critical, because if they're hard workers and doing things right, everyone else seems to follow along. They set the pace. And so Bryce has done a nice job of setting the pace.
” Underwood is now working with quarterbacks coach Koy Detmer Jr. , w ho wants to fine tune Underwood’s footwork and fundamentals . Whittingham made clear Tuesday there is no plan to dampen Underwood’s ability to do things off-script in games.
“I mean, that's part of his game,” Whittingham said. “You don't want to take that away from him. And last year, I thought he got a pretty good start relative to the circumstances in college football.