Insider Reveals Why Bryce Underwood Has Not Lived Up to the Hype

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Michigan Wolverines quarterback Bryce Underwood has not lived up to what came with being a five-star recruit. Through five games of his sophomore season he has completed 59.3% of his passes for 881 yards, five touchdowns and four interceptions, and he has carried 57 times for 212 yards and two touchdowns at 3.7 yards a carry. Michigan is 3-2 after losing at Minnesota on Saturday.

Brandon Marcello of CBS Sports put the blame squarely on the quarterback. Asked on CBS Sports’ College Football Insiders what has gone wrong in Ann Arbor, Marcello said, “To me, Bryce Underwood is the biggest problem that Michigan has right now.” What he said next ran deeper than the box score.

What People Around Michigan Told Marcello About Bryce Underwood

Marcello said he has been talking to people around the program who are familiar with the coaching there, and that what they described was not a slump. It was processing.

“Well, I just think that they’ve got a lot of issues along that offense and primarily at quarterback. Bryce Underwood just hasn’t been very good his first two years there and those struggles continue. … And his issue right now on the field is that he just doesn’t process things well. He does not read defenses very well. And that’s always been an issue with him. And whenever that ball is snapped, he’s just not reading things properly.”

That is the part that should worry Michigan. A slow read is a coachable thing in September of a freshman year. Marcello’s point is that it is still here. “When I hear things from people who would know that he just does not process things very well in live action, that should not be something he’s dealing with in year two in the middle of a season,” he said.

The Commitment Question Michigan Cannot Shake

Marcello went further than the film. He said he was told Underwood probably does not have a healthy ecosystem around him, and he pointed to the cars and the payday Underwood landed from Michigan after flirting with LSU during his recruitment. Then he asked the question that is going to follow Underwood all season.

“There’s some question there among those about whether he’s actually fully committed to football. Does he love football? Is he obsessed with football? Is he the type of player that is going to just absolutely envelop himself with that playbook and focus on the things he has to correct to get better?”

That is a hard thing for an insider to say out loud about a 19-year-old, and Marcello framed it as what he is hearing rather than what he knows. But it is being said by people close enough to the program to be worth hearing, and it is the one explanation that the stat line cannot give you.

Two Weeks to Answer It Before Penn State

Kyle Whittingham’s first Michigan team does not play again until it hosts Penn State on Oct. 17, which gives Underwood two full weeks of practice before the next snap that counts. The conversation about the quarterback position has been running for days outside the building.

None of what Marcello described gets fixed by a depth chart. If the issue is that Underwood does not see the field fast enough, the open date is the best chance Michigan has had to work on it. If the issue is the one Marcello’s sources raised, the open date will not touch it at all.

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