With the excitement of landing the best player in the country settling in and the reality of how hard it is to land a transfer portal quarterback becoming more apparent, there is a question on many Michigan fan's minds: 'Is Bryce Underwood going to be a day one starter at Michigan?'
It's human nature to be enamored by the new, the unknown. It's why highly touted recruits and high draft picks will always be more exciting than a steady, consistent veteran. It's easy to forget the JaMarcus Russels and Ryan Leafs of the world in the hope of Peyton Mannings. In other words -- even though you may know better, it's always more exciting to take the mystery box.
But the reality is every high school player coming to your program is a lottery ticket. You can evaluate their talent and character all you want, but eighteen-year-old kids change and grow a lot -- not always for the better in terms of football aptitude. Even if you could evaluate a player's talent flawlessly every time, there's no accounting for the myriad of different factors that could derail that talent. Injuries, coaching changes, personal circumstances, and other player's success can all easily derail what seemed like a promising career.
We tend to think of players especially the top players, as guarantees of success. But in reality, their future success is a crystal vase balanced on a ledge just waiting for the draft of the air conditioning to knock it over.
With that said, Bryce Underwood is about as high percentage of a lottery ticket as you're going to find. He's about as complete of a quarterback prospect as there's ever been out of high school. On3 compares him to Josh Allen (who along with a monsoon in the bay area ended my fantasy football season this past weekend) and gives him praise for his extremely high upside and very few, if any, flaws. He has everything you'd want to see in a future elite quarterback- his athleticism, pocket awareness, abilty to read coverage, both drive and layer the football, and extend plays when he needs to.
So can he start for Michigan football next year? Here's what history tells about true freshmen quarterbacks.
What history tells us about how Bryce Underwood could perform for Michigan football
Last year there was only one true freshman starting quarterback at the power four level -- Nebraska's Dylan Raiola. The year before that just one of the top 10 quarterback recruits nationally was a day-one starter -- Arizona State's Jaden Rashada.
But Underwood is the number one overall player in the nation and deserves some distinction amongst just any dime-a-dozen five-star recruit. Since 2000 there have only been five other number one overall quarterback recruits- Vince Young, Matt Barkley, Trevor Lawrence, Quinn Ewers, and Arch Manning.
Two of them (Barkley and Lawrence) started as true freshmen and only Barkley was a day one starter. Underwood is the first among this group to recieve the number one overall ranking on three of the four major sites (24/7, ESPN, and On3). Although to be fair On3 has only existed since 2021 and 24/7 since 2010. (And the number one overall ranking is more an indication of other players in the class and the quarterback's relative talent rather than absolute talent).
Regardless, Bryce Underwood is really good. But historically it has been hard for true freshmen quarterbacks to start right away, and even more rare for them to have a lot of success early on- regardless of talent. It's the hardest position in sports and the jump from the complexities of high school to college football, especially in a pro-style offense like Michigan football, can be overwhelming.
While it's almost a certainty that Bryce will play at some point next season, historically it doesn't look promising for him to be the team's starter against New Mexico on August 30th. It still very much seems like Michigan football is in a rebuilding mode with key departures like Mason Graham, Will Johnson, Colston Loveland, and likely Kenneth Grant.
The 2025 recruiting class is a start and expect some more transfer portal additions over the next few days, but Michigan football still isn't set up to make the playoffs in 2025. Maybe Sherrone Moore decides to let Bryce play straight away and live with the results (he may be really good).
But if Michigan footbal wants certainty in establishing a team capable of competing next year, getting someone from the portal who can take the pressure off of Underwood, in addition to holding on to Davis Warren (maybe he's even that guy), is a must. We'll see what happens over the next few days with the portal, but I wouldn't expect Underwood to be in New York receiving the Heisman this time next year. We'll save that for 2026.