Michigan Football Coaching Spotlight: Koy Detmer Jr.

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Many were shocked to find out that Bryce Underwood didn’t have a designated quarterback coach in his freshman season.

Now entering his second season with the Wolverines, Underwood will have both an offensive coordinator in Jason Beck, who will serve as the Robert McCollum Family Quarterbacks Coach, and a designated position coach in Koy Detmer Jr. Beck has an abundance of experience developing quarterbacks, and Detmer has experience coaching under Beck as the quarterback specialist.

With a potentially promising Year 2 for Underwood, here is a breakdown of Detmer’s career heading into his first season in Ann Arbor:

Resume

Aside from his own resume, Detmer comes from a very skilled football family at the quarterback position. His father — Koy Detmer Sr. — was a quarterback at both the collegiate and pro levels. His uncle — Ty Detmer — won the Heisman Trophy in 1990 at BYU and was a two-time NCAA passing leader and two-time consensus All-American. Their father, Sonny, was a prominent high school coach in the San Antonio area.

All things considered, Detmer may have the shortest coaching resume among Michigan’s new coaches, but he doesn’t lack experience or history. Detmer was a walk-on at BYU, where he stayed for three seasons before playing for Texas A&M-Kingsville. There, he had 3,831 passing yards with 32 touchdowns over two seasons and was an All-Lone Star Conference selection after the 2018 season.

After graduating, Detmer was hired as an assistant at his alma mater; he coached the running backs in 2020 and the wide receivers in 2021. Then, continuing his education, he was a graduate assistant at Syracuse during the 2022 and 2023 seasons where he initially linked up with Beck, who was the quarterbacks coach in 2022 and the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach in 2023.

Jumping to the Division I level, Detmer followed Beck from Syracuse in 2023 to New Mexico in 2024, becoming an offensive analyst and working with the quarterbacks alongside Beck. The two then assumed the same roles at Utah last season before following Whittingham to Michigan this year.

Why Michigan hired him

Similar to how Whittingham brought in Beck and defensive coordinator Jay Hill because of their previous experiences together, he also brought in Detmer to serve in the same role he’s used to. All the coaches making the jump from Utah to Ann Arbor is Whittingham’s best attempt at maintaining the culture they had in Salt Lake City and bringing it over to Ann Arbor.

Recruiting, development and coaching philosophy

Detmer’s experience as a coach is limited, but under Beck, he’s worked with high-caliber quarterbacks.

At Syracuse, Detmer worked with Garrett Shrader for two seasons. In 2022, Shrader went for 2,645 passing yards and 17 touchdowns on a 64.8 percent completion percentage. In 2023, he started just 10 games and had 1,686 passing yards with 13 touchdowns on a 62.6 percent completion percentage.

At New Mexico, Detmer worked with Devon Dampier in his first full season as a starter. Dampier was a first-team All-Mountain West selection after passing for 2,768 yards and 12 touchdowns, as well as rushing for 1,166 yards and 19 touchdowns. Dampier followed Beck and Detmer to Utah, where he was the 2025 Big 12 Offensive Newcomer of the Year and a third-team All-Big 12 selection with 2,490 passing yards and 24 touchdowns, as well as 835 rushing yards and 10 touchdowns.

Much of Dampier’s success is attributed to the collection of Beck, Detmer and the head coaches building the offense around his skillset. Detmer will have the same opportunity this season with Underwood.

Success checklist

Underwood needs to make a jump from Year 1 to Year 2. Here’s Detmer’s checklist to help achieve that and set up Michigan for the future:

• Get Underwood to 3,000+ passing yards and 20+ passing touchdowns: Underwood claimed earlier this offseason that he was the best player to ever come out of Michigan. If he wants to prove that, he’s going to have to make a major jump in production and match some of the best quarterbacks in college football. Getting to these two marks will put him in the top-30 of each category based on last season’s stats.
• Expand Underwood’s running game: Detmer and Beck were really able to harness Dampier’s legs at New Mexico in 2024 before it took a slight step back at Utah last season. With how complementary the offense can be around Underwood, Detmer and company need to find a way to get Underwood better involved in the run game so the playbook can open completely up.
• Develop Tommy Carr: Unrelated to Underwood, freshman Tommy Carr impressed during the spring game in April. Underwood is likely the answer for the next couple seasons, but developing a strong backup in Carr could go a long way toward building Michigan’s future at the position.

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