Michigan football's Kyle Whittingham: Bryce Underwood 'one of our best leaders'

New Michigan football coach Kyle Whittingham has been involved in the college game for more than 40 years, including tje past 30 as a coach or coordinator.

Through his time in the sport, there isn’t much he hasn’t seen. However, now in Ann Arbor − a bigger market with perhaps one of the sport’s biggest names − he’s navigating something for the first time

Has he ever had a player monitored nationally as closely as quarterback Bryce Underwood is?

“Probably not,” Whittingham told the Free Press. “I think a lot of it might be unfair. He was thrust into a pretty tough situation last year, barely turned 18 last year and thrust into the starting role at Michigan in the Big Ten.

“Not to be disparaging, but I’ve understood he didn’t have a dedicated quarterback coach last year, was a very challenging situation for him to be in, and given all those circumstances, I thought he handled it pretty well.”

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Underwood, originally committed to LSU, flipped to Michigan in fall 2024 and arrived in Ann Arbor from nearby Belleville as the No. 1 prospect in the nation in the class of 2025 and a reported eight-figure NIL deal. He had a big frame, a big arm and big expectations.

He won the starting job as a true freshman and delivered an inconsistent campaign, completing 60.3% of his passes for 2,428 yards with 11 touchdowns and nine interceptions.

“Numbers last year, like I said, were okay, there was nothing flashy, but they weren’t horrible numbers by any means,” Whittingham said. “I think he’s got a tremendously high ceiling and he wants to be great. Bryce is constantly trying to improve every single day; he’s put in the time this summer, he’s one of our best leaders.”

When Whittingham took the U-M job last December, he said the first order of business was meeting with the current players on the team to get a feel for the roster. The first player he spoke with? Underwood, for more than 45 minutes, while the team was preparing for the Citrus Bowl in Orlando, Florida.

Underwood started strong in the game against Texas, but came up short late with three interceptions in the final 20 minutes, including a pair in the fourth quarter of a 41-27 loss to the Longhorns.

This offseason, Underwood taken his training to another level.

He has spent time in Los Angeles training with QB guru Jordan Palmer (alongside former Heisman Trophy winner Joe Burrow), still works with Donovan Dooley through Quarterback University and now has Koy Detmer Jr. on staff to focus solely on quarterbacks.

The size, the power, the speed, the upside − all of it appears to be there. The next step is putting it all together.

“We just need to continue to work on all the finer points of being a quarterback,” Whittingham said. “The footwork, the pocket presence, going through his decision making process, that type of stuff.”

As could be expected with someone of Underwood’s stature, there will always be headlines, even in the offseason. A recent one came from one of Whittingham’s former players, Eric Weddle, on the “Zero 2 Sixty” podcast (covering Colorado football), in which he questioned Underwood’s acumen.

The former NFL All-Pro safety, among other things, said “Don’t be surprised if the backup [Tommy Carr is] playing early because that Underwood kid, you know, I don’t think he could throw or play quarterback, so we’ll see.”

Whittingham chose not to much to say on the matter beyond “everyone has a right to their opinion.”

Another U-M coach had some thoughts on outside opinions in general, though: Running backs coach Tony Alford, the only U-M coach who was on staff in 2024 when Underwood committed, has watched him grow and said he has the same advice for Underwood as anybody who has to deal with outside noise.

“Bryce has been great,” Alford recently told the Free Press. “I haven’t seen [the comments] affect him one bit. You’d have to talk to him, but listen, everyone’s got an opinion. … People say what they want to say at the end of the day, doesn’t matter. Go do your job and good or bad, maybe say you’re the best thing since sliced bread or the worst thing − it doesn’t matter.

“I don’t mean that as any sign of disrespect to anybody in their opinions. Everyone’s got them and everyone has freedom to voice those opinions, but … we have full autonomy of how we accept those things were being said.”

Underwood, who doesn’t turn 19 until late August, hasn’t spoken on the comments publicly, but if his cryptic social media posts are any indication, he does appear to have seen them. His last Instagram post had a caption that was just an emoji of a snake, with three slides of him throwing a football, then a fourth with of the “Batman” character The Joker holding up a watch.

Make of that what you will.

It’s certainly a big year for Underwood, whose numbers need to improve. Yet again he has to learn a new offensive system − this time under offensive coordinator Jason Beck − but he now has the benefit of a year of experience in the Big Ten.

Everybody in the program knows there’s a lot of noise around him, but the longest-tenured coach in Ann Arbor hasn’t seen it affect him. There’s an internal expectation that Underwood will make a sophomore surge.

“The kid comes to work every day, just like the rest of his teammates, he’s just one of the guys that goes to work every day, trying to be bigger, better than anybody else,” Alford said. “He’s got a big name, but that comes along being the quarterback at the University of Michigan, right?

“[The thing to remember is] if I wouldn’t ask the person next door to me for advice on what I should do in a certain situation, why should I care about what they think otherwise?”

Tony Garcia is the Michigan beat writer for the Detroit Free Press. Email him at apgarcia@freepress.com and follow him on X at @RealTonyGarcia.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan coaches say Bryce Underwood hasn’t been affected by outside noise