The Big Ten may end up dealing with a discipline question after a hard shot on Bryce Underwood in Saturday’s Minnesota-Michigan game, a hit that drew no flag and never triggered the normal targeting review.
The play came with 3:32 left in the first quarter at Huntington Bank Stadium. Michigan had the ball at midfield in a no-huddle shotgun look on 1st-and-10 at the 50-yard line when Underwood fired incomplete toward Andrew Marsh. Minnesota edge rusher Anthony Smith closed in as the throw left Underwood’s hand, and the play-by-play credited Smith with a quarterback hurry while listing no penalty.
FOX posted the clip on its college football account and captioned it, "Bryce Underwood was just LAID OUT."
A frame from the video shows Smith coming at the Michigan quarterback as Underwood starts his throwing motion. The ball ended up incomplete near the Minnesota 42.
Smith is a 6-foot-6, 280-pound fifth-year player from Shippensburg, Pa. He entered 2026 as the Big Ten’s preseason Defensive Player of the Year after leading the conference with 12.5 sacks in 2025.
Because no flag came out on the field, the play did not get the replay review that normally accompanies targeting calls during a game. That leaves the Big Ten office and Minnesota as the two possible avenues for any punishment.
This season’s college football rule changes added a postgame video review option. Under an experimental rule in place this year, a first targeting foul leads to an ejection but does not carry over to the next game. If a player is hit with a second or later targeting foul, a conference can ask the national coordinator of football officials to conduct a video review.
The Big Ten has also used its Sportsmanship Policy to hand down suspensions on its own. The league previously suspended Northwestern defensive lineman C.J. Robbins for one game and publicly reprimanded him for punching a player during a loss to Northern Illinois.
The league has already dealt with another recent hit involving a quarterback slide. Last week, USC linebacker Desman Stephens II hit Oregon quarterback Dante Moore as Moore slid at the end of an 11-yard run during Oregon’s 41-27 win at USC. Moore suffered a concussion, Stephens was flagged for targeting and ejected, and USC suspended him for one game the next day.
Michigan and Minnesota both entered Saturday at 3-1, and the 100th Little Brown Jug game kicked off at noon ET.
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