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Ann Arbor — The strength of Kyle Whittingham’s Michigan football team will be its physical nature, but the strengths of the team will be revealed during spring practice, which opens Tuesday.
What Whittingham, in his first season as Michigan head coach after 21 seasons at Utah, does know is that rising sophomore Bryce Underwood is the clear-cut leader at quarterback.
“He's QB1 without a doubt,” Whittingham said Tuesday in his first news conference since being formally introduced in late December.
Underwood started every game last season as a freshman, and it’s no surprise he’s the starter heading into spring practice. After all, Whittingham, at the introductory news conference, said locking down Underwood, the nation’s top recruit in the 2025 class, in terms of roster retention was his top priority.
“He has performed very well in the in the workouts, and not only with his athleticism, but leadership-wise,” Whittingham said, adding Underwood is one of four spring practice captains voted by the players. “So he's a guy that everyone looks to and the top 10% of your football team is critical, because if they're hard workers and doing things right, everyone else seems to follow along. They set the pace. And so Bryce has done a nice job of setting the pace.”
Underwood is now working with quarterbacks coach Koy Detmer Jr., who wants to fine tune Underwood’s footwork and fundamentals. Whittingham made clear Tuesday there is no plan to dampen Underwood’s ability to do things off-script in games.
“I mean, that's part of his game,” Whittingham said. “You don't want to take that away from him. And last year, I thought he got a pretty good start relative to the circumstances in college football. He just barely turned 18 when he's a starting quarterback at a major Power 4 football team, and so I think he handled it fairly well.
“A lot of room for improvement. He knows that. We know that, and he now has some dedicated guys, quarterback-wise that are that are working directly with him, and we'll see what kind of progress we can make in these next.”
More: Top story lines as Michigan football begins spring practice
Establishing a strong backup also is a priority and some of that will have to await preseason camp when all the personnel is in place. Whittingham said he freshman Tommy Carr has been doing a “nice” job in winter conditioning and workouts.
“I can tell you that he's probably the one that stands out so far,” Whittingham said. “Nothing's been set in stone, obviously, but based on what we've seen to this point, Tommy has looked like he's got a good skillset.”
And that’s the point of spring practice — not everything is meant to be set in stone by the conclusion of practices on April 18 with the public scrimmage at Michigan Stadium, but the new staff should have a better feel for which players will be the starters this fall.
“What the strengths are, we're going to find that out this spring,” Whittingham said. “We have a decent idea, but we won't really get a lot of feedback the first couple days no pads. You can't get into pads until the third day, so that will be a work in progress.
“But we think we're going to be a physical football team. We want that to be our trademark. We want to be mentally and physically tough and when you come to play us, you know you’re in for a physical contest. But we're just looking forward to seeing how these things develop over the next 15 practices. We’ve got a lot ahead of us as far as what we got to get accomplished. We got to figure out, you know, the talent level, the players, the scheme. They have to learn the scheme and be able to assimilate that. So there's a lot of things we're going to find out this spring that are going to be key moving forward."
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This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Kyle Whittingham: Michigan's Bryce Underwood 'QB1 without a doubt'
Continue reading...
What Whittingham, in his first season as Michigan head coach after 21 seasons at Utah, does know is that rising sophomore Bryce Underwood is the clear-cut leader at quarterback.
“He's QB1 without a doubt,” Whittingham said Tuesday in his first news conference since being formally introduced in late December.
Underwood started every game last season as a freshman, and it’s no surprise he’s the starter heading into spring practice. After all, Whittingham, at the introductory news conference, said locking down Underwood, the nation’s top recruit in the 2025 class, in terms of roster retention was his top priority.
“He has performed very well in the in the workouts, and not only with his athleticism, but leadership-wise,” Whittingham said, adding Underwood is one of four spring practice captains voted by the players. “So he's a guy that everyone looks to and the top 10% of your football team is critical, because if they're hard workers and doing things right, everyone else seems to follow along. They set the pace. And so Bryce has done a nice job of setting the pace.”
Underwood is now working with quarterbacks coach Koy Detmer Jr., who wants to fine tune Underwood’s footwork and fundamentals. Whittingham made clear Tuesday there is no plan to dampen Underwood’s ability to do things off-script in games.
“I mean, that's part of his game,” Whittingham said. “You don't want to take that away from him. And last year, I thought he got a pretty good start relative to the circumstances in college football. He just barely turned 18 when he's a starting quarterback at a major Power 4 football team, and so I think he handled it fairly well.
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“A lot of room for improvement. He knows that. We know that, and he now has some dedicated guys, quarterback-wise that are that are working directly with him, and we'll see what kind of progress we can make in these next.”
More: Top story lines as Michigan football begins spring practice
Establishing a strong backup also is a priority and some of that will have to await preseason camp when all the personnel is in place. Whittingham said he freshman Tommy Carr has been doing a “nice” job in winter conditioning and workouts.
“I can tell you that he's probably the one that stands out so far,” Whittingham said. “Nothing's been set in stone, obviously, but based on what we've seen to this point, Tommy has looked like he's got a good skillset.”
And that’s the point of spring practice — not everything is meant to be set in stone by the conclusion of practices on April 18 with the public scrimmage at Michigan Stadium, but the new staff should have a better feel for which players will be the starters this fall.
“What the strengths are, we're going to find that out this spring,” Whittingham said. “We have a decent idea, but we won't really get a lot of feedback the first couple days no pads. You can't get into pads until the third day, so that will be a work in progress.
“But we think we're going to be a physical football team. We want that to be our trademark. We want to be mentally and physically tough and when you come to play us, you know you’re in for a physical contest. But we're just looking forward to seeing how these things develop over the next 15 practices. We’ve got a lot ahead of us as far as what we got to get accomplished. We got to figure out, you know, the talent level, the players, the scheme. They have to learn the scheme and be able to assimilate that. So there's a lot of things we're going to find out this spring that are going to be key moving forward."
[email protected]
@chengelis
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Want to comment on this story? Become a subscriber today. Click here.This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Kyle Whittingham: Michigan's Bryce Underwood 'QB1 without a doubt'
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