It turns out even a game-saving Hail Mary won’t etch your name on the depth chart in permanent marker.
Michigan head coach Kyle Whittingham said that Bryce Underwood remains the team’s starting quarterback, for now, following the team’s narrow 13-12 victory over Western Michigan in their season opener.
Speaking to reporters ahead of No. 16 Michigan’s Week 2 matchup against No. 10 Oklahoma, Whittingham backed Underwood, but noted there’s room for improvement across the board.
“He’s our QB right now, and it’s not something that’s infinite,” Whittingham said. “At some point, we’ve got to turn a corner and we’ve got to see improvement as we do with a bunch of stuff. We got to see improvement out of the coaches, and so it’s not just on Bryce.”
Whittingham’s comments come just days after Michigan needed a 47-yard Hail Mary touchdown pass from Underwood to wide receiver JJ Buchanan on the final play to avoid what would’ve been the biggest upset of Week 1.
The play occurred after replay officials reviewed the previous sequence and added one second back to the game clock. Underwood finished the night completing 12 of 22 passes for 170 yards with one touchdown, one interception, and a lost fumble in the fourth quarter.
Following the win against Western Michigan, Underwood encouraged his team to not get complacent.
“I feel like we just got to come out and dominate and be aggressive like we were in the first drive on every single play,” Underwood said. “We can’t come down, energy can’t come down, can’t get comfortable.”
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Whittingham noted that the entire team, not just the quarterback position, could see movement within the depth chart.
“It’s not just Bryce’s job that is not absolutely set in concrete,” Whittingham said. “Nobody’s is. You got to perform week in and week out and become somebody that we feel like is playing at a level that we can win with, and that goes far beyond Bryce. It goes throughout the whole team, and what you’ve done lately is very important in football.”
With a home game against Oklahoma looming, Whittingham knows the offense must resolve its issues quickly.
“We have a ton of work to do,” Whittingham said. “The degree of difficulty next week goes way up. And if we don’t play a lot better, it’s not going to be pretty.”
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