ANN ARBOR - Bryce Underwood had the kind of opener that leaves plenty to fix, even if the final result went Michigan’s way.
The sophomore quarterback was part of a 13-12 escape over Western Michigan on Saturday, Sept. 5 at Michigan Stadium, but the night never fully settled into rhythm after a strong opening march. Underwood helped Michigan jump out to a 7-0 lead on the first drive, then spent much of the rest of the game chasing consistency before finishing with a last-gasp Hail Mary to JJ Buchanan after one second was added to the clock.
His stat line was uneven: 12 completions on 22 attempts for 170 yards, one touchdown, one interception, nine carries for 47 yards and a rushing score. He also lost a fumble.
“I had a few (missed assignments),” Underwood said. “(They) could have costed us a game, so got to do better on my behalf.”
That’s the standard now for a quarterback who drew a steady stream of praise all preseason. Coaches and teammates had talked up the leap Underwood made since last year, when he started as a freshman, and he carried more responsibility into this season after working in the offseason with private QB coach Jordan Palmer and Michigan quarterbacks coach Koy Detmer. He was also voted one of Michigan’s four team captains.
Still, Michigan head coach Kyle Whittingham made clear the opener was more about the entire offense failing to sustain anything after the first series than it was about pinning the night on Underwood alone.
“We’re going to watch the film,” Whittingham said when asked to evaluate Underwood’s game, “but the first drive, it was certainly there. I mean, we came out right out of the gate and boom, boom, boom, right down the field.
And so, why did that all of a sudden dry up? I got to go to the tape and find out.
“We just didn't hit movement for the rest of the game like we needed to hit it. I don't know if we were a little conservative in our play calling. Maybe we should have taken some more shots down the field, try to open up the pass game a little bit, but I’ll have some better answers after I digest the tape.”
Whittingham went even further in backing the sophomore, saying the preseason buzz around Underwood’s improvement was real.
“I'm going to reserve judgment on that till I dissect the film, but we talked about how he improved dramatically through fall camp, and that's a fact,” Whittingham said. “I mean, there's no one that attended practice that wouldn't tell you anything different. We had former players there, and everybody had the same analysis.
"I'm not saying that Bryce played a bad game. This isn't on Bryce Underwood.
This is on me, and I got to figure out a way to have these guys better prepared and be able to get into a rhythm offensively. It's like we never got into a rhythm after that first drive.
We always found a way to to screw it up. We were 0-5 or 0-6 on third down, and you can't win football games like that.
We're very fortunate to win, obviously.”
The problems went well beyond one quarterback. Michigan’s offense never came close to the clean performance Whittingham wanted in the week leading up to the opener.
The Wolverines turned it over three times, including once on special teams, and never forced a takeaway of their own. They also piled up nine penalties for 80 yards.
“We didn't help ourselves at all in that regard,” Whittingham said. “Far too many, and critical and just sloppy penalties and ignorant penalties.
Wanted to play a clean game, wanted to execute well on offense, and really none of that happened. Again, I got to do a better job coaching.
That’s where the buck stops, and it's up to myself to make sure that we can take a big step forward this week because the degree of difficulty goes way up next Saturday (against Oklahoma).”
Asked whether the performance merited a win, Whittingham didn’t dress it up.
“You know, as long as you hang in there and keep swinging and keep fighting and keep scrapping, if you win I guess you can say you deserved it. But did we play well?
No, we did not play well. Did they play well?
Yeah. I thought they had a better plan than we did, and so we've got to really take a hard look at what we're going to do going forward.”
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