The college football offseason is among the longest of any sport in the country, and in that time, there’s a lot of talk — positive and negative — about every team as questions mount about who may reign supreme at the end of the upcoming season. And for Michigan football, there are more questions than answers at the moment.
However, we’ll be getting answers in short order.
While there’s the biggest question: how will Kyle Whittingham fit in in Ann Arbor after 21 years as the head coach at Utah? There are also others — like how will the defense fare? And how good might the running game be?
But for ESPN’s Adam Rittenberg, all those questions pale in comparison to what Bryce Underwood will look like in year two.
“Kyle Whittingham makes his much-anticipated debut as Michigan’s coach on Saturday, but the real story will be quarterback Bryce Underwood and how he looks under this coaching staff after a rocky first season as Michigan’s starter,” Rittenberg said. “Whittingham saying that Underwood was markedly better in fall camp than he was this spring, but in doing my quarterback intel piece for the season there was some real concern around the league, Big Ten, of what coaches saw from Underwood in year one, even internally to a degree, at Michigan. And this Western Michigan team they’re facing Saturday had the nation’s number nine scoring defense last year. It’s a new coordinator, new players, but that could provide a little bit of a test for Underwood. So how he performs under coordinator Jason Beck and Kyle Whittingham will be very much under the microscope on Saturday.”
Last season, Underwood got very little in the way of coaching, with Sherrone Moore, Chip Lindsey, and Josh Sinagoga mostly taking a hands-off approach. Now, not only is Underwood working with Jason Beck and Koy Detmer Jr., but he’s had private workouts with QB guru Jordan Palmer, who has raved about his progress.
The idea that other Big Ten coaches have concerns is misleading. Last year, Underwood was a first-year player thrown to the wolves, and they have no insight as to his progress this offseason. Players get better at college football by playing football, and quarterbacks are almost never even close to scratching their potential in their first year. If that were the case, Dante Moore wouldn’t be a Heisman Trophy favorite, given that he had an abysmal showing in his freshman year while at UCLA.
Fans will get to determine for themselves on Saturday if Underwood has progressed. Michigan opens up the season playing against Western Michigan at The Big House.
This article originally appeared on Wolverines Wire: ESPN says Bryce Underwood is Michigan football’s biggest question
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