Bryce Underwood impresses in Michigan football debut, but Sherrone Moore wasn’t surprised

ANN ARBOR – The Michigan Wolverines unleashed freshman quarterback Bryce Underwood on Saturday night, who went 21-of-31 for 251 yards and a touchdown in the 34-17 win over New Mexico.

Underwood, who was the No. 1 overall prospect in the 2025 class and a bit of a quarterback unicorn, won the job out of Michigan’s fall camp. Throughout the night, he looked like a player who had been in his spot for years, with the velocity of this throw standing out. Underwood even threw a block on a touchdown run for good measure.

There were also a handful of touch passes that showed his feel for playing the position. Michigan head coach Sherrone More was not surprised by any of it, though. This was the guy they had seen on film during his 50-4 high school career just down the road at Belleville High School.

They were also the types of throws he has made since arriving on campus.

“I’ve seen those throws live, but to watch him do it in the game was awesome,” Moore said during his Monday press conference. “It was cool to see him do it in the game and to watch his poise throughout the game. It was really just that — it was just the poise that he had throughout the game. Not just on the field, but off the field: watching the iPads, making the adjustments, and talking to the team. The kid is just cerebral, and I just tell him not to throw any more blocks.”

Underwood passed the first test, but the next one will be a massive litmus test. Michigan next heads to Oklahoma for a Saturday night showdown with the Sooners with the entire college football world watching.

It will be the most raucous environment Underwood has experienced, by far. Michigan is taking steps to prep him for that, and has throughout the offseason.

“Just settling in the noise,” Moore said. “At the end of the day, it’s noisy, but those fans aren’t playing. It’s the team that you’re playing across. So they can be as loud as they want. If you’re focused on the 10 guys that are with you, your job, and what you have to do on that play, that’s all that matters. So we can’t worry about, ‘We’re going to create noise.’ We’ve got ways to create loud noises for our players that make it hard for them to communicate. They’ve got to speak really loudly, and they’ve got to do things to make sure they communicate with each other. So we’ll handle that piece.

“But within the moment, it’s about not getting caught up in all the extra stuff. Just execute and do your job.”

Underwood and the Michigan offensive line will have to work in tandem to offset the noise. A veteran group is going to have to be on its A-game to support its young signal-caller.

“First road start. So it’s going to be loud,” Underwood said. “It’s going to be different for him. And we’ve had periods in camp to train him for stuff like this already. And we’ll do that all this week. So obviously, it’s going to be loud. We’ve got to have different cadences ready for it. But for him, we’ve got two veteran guys up front, too. So with Gio [El-Hadi] and [Greg Crippen] that allows us a lot of liberty for them to handle a lot of things that need to be changed up front. But anything that we need him to communicate, we’ll see what he can handle and then go from there.”

One of the biggest positives from Michigan’s opener was hitting on a shot play during a 2-minute drill in last weekend’s win over the Lobos. Underwood hit sophomore wideout Channing Goodwin on a 39-yard post route on 3rd and 14. Having that in their repertoire is a great place to start heading into the Oklahoma game.

“It’s huge,” Moore said. “One: the confidence for Chip to make that call, and Bryce to make the throw, and Channing to make the catch. But that’s something they’ve executed in camp over and over and over. What we like to call “banked reps” — reps that are just put in the bank, that you keep executing, that you keep rolling, that they’ve completed. And it kind of goes along with the question we had earlier about the defensive structures. Wink’s defense isn’t very static. So we see a lot of movement, a lot. That helps us prepare for what we’re going to see throughout the season.”

Underwood leads Michigan into battle on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. ET against Oklahoma on ABC. ESPN’s College GameDay will also be present in Norman for the event.