After Michigan’s 20–14 loss to Minnesota, the pressure surrounding quarterback Bryce Underwood has only intensified. While calls to bench the QB for the remainder of the season are growing louder, former Heisman Trophy winner Robert Griffin III has offered a different approach.
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Rather than putting everything on Underwood, Griffin believes it’s coach Kyle Whittingham’s duty to understand the strengths of his QB and build on that. RG3 speaks on this with unique authority, having revealed that Michigan actually tried to hire him to coach Underwood.
“Michigan doesn’t need a quarterback,” Griffin said on his Outta Pocket podcast on October 7. “It doesn’t need a new quarterback. It needs to figure out the quarterback that it already has. And this is why they reached out to me years ago—two years ago—to be Bryce Underwood’s quarterback coach. That’s right. Michigan offered me a job to be Bryce Underwood’s quarterback coach, and I turned it down because I love what I’m doing here calling games and having a good time.”
While there was no public announcement about this deal, Griffin revealed that he was approached to help HC develop their QB. However, he turned it down to grow his YouTube career more.
There is no doubt that Underwood has failed to meet expectations and the preseason hype that surrounded him. His performance against Minnesota was just the tip of the iceberg. He completed just 10 of 21 of his passes for 101 yards and two interceptions.
This loss dropped Michigan to a 0-2 record in the Big 10. So eventually his position as the starter is under the microscope, but in all fairness, Michigan does not need another QB.
Griffin is not excusing Bryce Underwood’s poor play; rather, he is questioning whether Michigan’s offense is preventing Underwood from playing to his strengths. The Wolverines invested an amount of $12 million over four years on him to lure him from the LSU Tigers. When an amount like that is set to get a QB, he must have some extraordinary skill sets that are not being developed properly, and Griffin believes the same.
“He [Bryce Underwood] needs to be developed, and he’s not being developed right now,” Griffin said on his podcast. “They’re trying to force a round peg into a square hole, and they’ve got to do a better job of supporting him and what he does well. You’ve got a bye-week to figure it out, but benching your quarterback is not the answer.”
Bryce Underwood put together one of the greatest high school careers in football history while leading the Belleville Tigers. As the No. 1 overall recruit in the class of 2025, he had a 50–4 overall record. He had 12,919 yards and 179 total touchdowns.
These stats were something that made everyone believe that he would have an amazing college career. So far, that does not seem to be happening, and the blame also needs to be shifted a bit to the OC Jason Beck and HC Kyle Whittingham.
There is no doubt that Whittingham is a brilliant coach, but he still can’t seem to develop his QB in a way that he should. He still seems a bit stuck on molding him into Devon Dampier. The Utes QB Dampier ran for 1,166 rushing yards and 19 rushing touchdowns in 2024 at New Mexico with offensive coordinator Jason Beck.
When Beck coached in Utah, he had a less talented roster than he has now, but he managed to pull off a great season. However, so far those schemes and the players are not fitting well together, and that might just be the problem. The horizontal play that stretches the defense side-to-side rather than attacking it vertically is the scheme he uses here, which isn’t working well in their favor.
It worked out with Dampier because of his speed, but Underwood’s biggest strength lies in his arm power. So if Michigan wants to succeed, then Beck might have to make changes in his play and use the offense more around Underwood so that he can utilise his strengths.