Michigan’s season has already taken a sharp turn, and Bryce Underwood is right at the center of it.
After Saturday’s loss to Minnesota, the Wolverines fell to 3-2, dropped a game to the Golden Gophers for the first time since 2014, and lost on the road at Minnesota for the first time since 1977. The defeat has sent blame in several directions, but the offense and Underwood’s play have become a major talking point.
Michigan went all in to flip the Detroit native after he spent a long time committed to LSU, and the Wolverines eventually landed him. Two years later, with a four-year NIL deal worth $12 million, the fit looks a lot messier than anyone in Ann Arbor expected.
Underwood arrived with the kind of hype that can swallow a program whole. He was treated like the player who would drag Michigan back to the top of college football. Instead, his performances have left plenty of fans asking how he was ever ranked the No. 1 recruit in his class, and talk of a benching is starting to build.
That creates a problem Michigan can’t easily solve. Four-star true freshman Tommy Carr is waiting behind him, but Underwood is making $3 million a year, about $250,000 per game whether he plays or not. The NCAA does not allow athletic performance contingency clauses in NIL contracts, so the money keeps rolling in even if the quarterback is stuck on the sideline.
There is still the possibility of Underwood entering the transfer portal after the season, but that raises another obvious question: why would he walk away from the kind of money he is making in Ann Arbor?
From a football standpoint, his play has not matched the billing. His footwork has been shaky, he has had trouble working through reads, his decision-making has been questioned, and while the arm strength is there, the accuracy has not been.
Minnesota was hardly the only game where the offense had issues, though Underwood did get little help from his offensive line in that one. He did flash some of the potential that made him such a prized recruit against Iowa, but Michigan still could not finish drives in the red zone. One of those possessions ended with Underwood throwing an interception at the one-yard line.
If Kyle Whittingham decides enough is enough and turns to Carr, Underwood would be a backup quarterback making $3 million a year. And because of the way the NIL deal is structured, Michigan has no performance-based escape hatch.
There is another complication too: the money is coming from the Champions Circle NIL collective, not Michigan itself. That means the deal is being bankrolled by major donors, and those donors cannot simply back out because Underwood’s play has not lived up to the investment.
Michigan also did not include a buyout in the contract, so the Wolverines have no way to get out of the arrangement unless Underwood leaves through the portal. If that happens, Michigan stops paying him and he would have to work out a new deal somewhere else.
For now, though, that seems like a hard outcome to imagine. Underwood would be leaving behind a setup that pays him extremely well, even if the on-field results have not matched the price tag.
With the bye week here, Whittingham has major decisions ahead, especially on offense. And if he does make a change, the choice should be about what helps Michigan most - not about the NIL money attached to the quarterback room.
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