Is Bryce Underwood the Best Player In Michigan History?

Bryce Underwood says he feels like he is the best player ever to come out of Michigan. Is that confidence, or is that going too far?

Tony Gerdeman and Tom Orr discuss Underwood’s comments, whether he meant the best player from the state of Michigan or the best player from the University of Michigan, and how he compares to names like Charles Woodson, Andre Rison, Tyrone Wheatley, Antonio Gates, Jerome Bettis, Chad Henne, J.J. McCarthy, and others.

They also look at Underwood’s freshman season, his development, Michigan’s quarterback history, and what he still has to prove before claims like that can be taken seriously.

00:31 — Intro
00:40 — Tom’s goal for the show
01:03 — Bryce Underwood’s big quote
03:20 — Did he mean Michigan high school football or the University of Michigan?
05:01 — Comparing Underwood to Michigan legends and freshman quarterbacks
07:37 — Bryce Underwood vs. Chad Henne as freshmen
10:22 — Terrelle Pryor comparison and freshman QB development
11:41 — J.J. McCarthy comparison and Michigan’s offensive outlook
13:19 — Final thoughts and listener question

Is Bryce Underwood on track to become the best player to come out of Michigan? Drop your thoughts in the comments.

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Speaker 1: Hello, everybody, Welcome to the Buckeye Weekly Podcast.

Speaker 2: I'm Tony Gerdaman here as always with time war time.

Speaker 1: How's it going, Tony?

Speaker 3: My goal for today's show is to be the best

co host in the history of the Buckeye Weekly Podcast.

That's I think I am. I think I can make

that happen. I just, frankly, I think it's already true.

I just think that this is an opportunity for everyone

to realize it.

Speaker 2: It would be an opportunity for everyone to realize it,

but they'd have to go against everything they've known and understood.

Speaker 1: For the eight or nine years of this show.

Speaker 2: They would have to change their thinking and their way

of life, basically altering their DNA. Good luck with that.

I mean, you're gonna have to get into some genome

stuff to be able to put to accomplish what you've

sent out to accomplish. Now, you can live in your

own mind. That's fine, A lot of people do. But

while you're doing that, Tom, I want to talk about

something different. I want to talk about something unrelated to

anything you just said. I want to talk about Michigan

quarterback Bryce Underwood coming out recently and saying, well, let

me just start hearing. I'm scrolling on Twitter and I

see somebody tweet out that Bryce Underwood says that he's

the best player to ever come out of Michigan, and

there's some video and it's like this is being taken

away out of context. Let me just calm everybody down.

Let me take a look and see what the actual

words are. And so I basically he says, starts out,

I want to prove to myself that I am what

I think I am. I'm like, see, he's just this

is what he wants, Like this, this is a goal

of people have taken it out of context. I want

to prove to myself that I am what I think

I am. And then he's asked I believe was Angela

Schangalis asked, well, what do you think you are? And

and he answered, I feel like I'm the best player

ever to come out of Michigan. Now it's time for

me to show it. At least he understands he hasn't

shown it yet. So there that is a little bit

of a self awareness. But then when you say that

you feel like you're the best player to ever come

out of Michigan, the self awareness is not or may

be the awareness of everybody else is not there. You're

only aware of self at that point. You've never seen

anything else. And this is just another comment from Bryce

Underwood where he's talking big again. It was back to

before he you know, after he signed, and he was

telling Lebron James that it's over for Ohio State something

like that. So I was expecting this to be taken

completely out of context.

Speaker 1: But I guess he's very confident. We know that. But

your thoughts on this.

Speaker 3: Well, I felt what was interesting is the way it's phrased.

You and I interpreted it differently. Because you interpreted it

as the best player to come out of the University

of Michigan, because you would shorthand that as Michigan. I

interpreted it as the best high school player to ever

come out of high school football in Michigan, because he's

not He's saying he already is the best player to

come out of Michigan, so he hasn't already left the

University of Michigan, So to come out of Michigan, I

assume he means the high school player. So I went

back and looked at who are the best high school

players in the state of Michigan history. I was I

was very amused to see the AI overview list Charles Woodson,

which says, while technically in Ohio Native, it's like, oh no,

that's that's not just technically, that's not just technicality. But

it listed Andre Risen, Tyrone Wheatley, Ron Kramer, Antonio Gates,

Jerome Bettis. I mean, these are great players, Like there's

some you know, Jerome Bettis I think is an NFL

Hall of Famer. Antonio Gates I think is an NFL

Hall of Famer. Tyrone Wheatley was an incredible running back

from Michigan. Andre Risen was an incredible player for Michigan

State and then the Falcons, and had you know, some

questionable dating history, but other.

Speaker 2: Than that, he was really he really had.

Speaker 3: A phenomenal career as well. And so you know, I

think Bryceard would maybe you know, I think he's in

that conversation right now in terms of the most hyped

players ever to come out of the Michigan high school ranks,

if we're talking about it. As for the University of Michigan,

there is still some work to to be sure.

Speaker 2: Well, even I mean, Ohio State won a national championship

in the quarterback out of Michigan and Craig Crenzel.

Speaker 1: So yes they did.

Speaker 3: He didn't whim up in the AI overview of the

best players in the state. But maybe that was an oversight.

Speaker 2: Probably similar passing stats in two thousand and two for

Craig Kremsl and twenty twenty five for Bryce Underwood. Look,

I think he wants your quarterback to be confident. I

think you also want them to be a realistic And

could he be the best player to ever come out

of Michigan.

Speaker 3: No.

Speaker 2: The Athletic just did the top Big Ten players of

the nineties, or maybe the top top college football players

of the nineties, and I was pleased that they had

Orlando Pace in the top five, but they had him

number two to Charles Woodson who was number one, And

we can debate that, you know, but that's another show.

But you've to either way to think you're the best

player to come out of the University of Michigan or

to think you're the best player to come out of

Michigan high school football.

Speaker 1: That's incorrect, That is not remotely close.

Speaker 2: And even if you are the most hyped player to

come out of the state of Michigan. You still have

to prove it on the field, and there have been

better freshman seasons at quarterback all over the place. You go,

Troll Prior out there, probably I don't know the Braxton

Miller and these are not Michigan players, but like just

examples of true freshman quarterbacks like Braxton Miller. I wouldn't

say had a better season than Bryce Underwood. But you know,

Trell Prior took Ohio State to a BCS game in

two thousand and eight, and it's just interesting to see

these continued statements and the difficulties that he ran into

last year and now, yes, now he's got a quarterbacks

coach and everything's going to be fine. That hasn't necessarily

been seen yet. There's been no evidence of that. We

talked after watching the Michigan spring games. This looks like

the same guy. And he looked like the same guy

in November that he looked like in September, And so.

Speaker 1: Where is this development? Where is it now going to show.

Speaker 2: Up like, oh, okay, Yes, that freshman season was a

complete learning experience and now he's ready to go. And

sure everybody grows most from their freshman year to sophomore year.

But it's got to be more than just confidence that grows.

Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know, I was just pulling up his

stats versus Chad Henny's stats as freshmen and Chad Henny

they completed almost a virtually identical completion percentage sixty point

two to sixty point three, and Underwood threw for about

three hundred fewer yards. He threw for fourteen fewer touchdowns

and two fewer inner And yeah, he ran chet Henny,

as you may remember, was not a particularly mobile quarterback.

Underwood ran for three hundred and ninety two yards and

six touchdowns. Chet Henny did not. He had one hundred

and third negative one hundred and thirty seven yards rushing

and two touchdowns. So you know, if you want to

say there, if you want to give him extra credit

for the rushing and say that that overcomes the you know,

more than double the number of touchdowns thrown, sure, okay,

but you know then you're the you know, one of

the best or tied for the best true freshman quarterback

seasons in Michigan history, which there just have not been

very many of. So yeah, I think he could absolutely

get there. The talent is potentially there for him to

get to the point that he becomes one of those

players later in his career. It could happen this year. Well,

we'll see how much growth there is. But right now

there's you know, there's the philosophy that you want to

underpromise and over deliver, and that is like very clearly

not the philosophy that that Bryce Underwood has chosen to embrace.

Which that's fine, Like there are people who will talk

to you and let you know and then deliver on it.

And if you can deliver on it, that's fine and

that's great, but right now you haven't seen it on

the field yet. Like he's had individual moments, but was

he you know, how would you compare Bryce Underwood's freshman

season to Terrell Prior's freshman season. I think they were

similar to me in a lot of ways where you

watch the throwing and it was like, oh, there's going

to be a lot of work that's needed there, and

you could just sort of out athlete people at times,

but it was still that, you know, the Terrell Prior

progress was was that was a three year process where

it got better every year, but it never quite got

to what you thought it might get.

Speaker 1: To.

Speaker 3: You know, he never turned into the top five draft pick.

You wonder what it would have looked like had he

gotten a fourth year there.

Speaker 2: But you know, you come in.

Speaker 3: I'm sure Bryce Underwood came into Michigan thinking I'm going

to be the number one pick in the draft and

it's going to take me three years. Is he on

track for that right now? I mean, he could certainly

get there, but I don't watching a freshman season, I

don't know that I looked at that and thought, yeah,

he's right on track to be that guy.

Speaker 1: No. I mean.

Speaker 2: You look at his passer rating and it's it was

a little bit better than Davis Warren the year before.

It's well below JJ McCarthy. At this point, he's not

playing as well as maybe like he's not playing as

well as Cave McNamara or Jake Crudock. You know, in

terms of the Trail Prior comparison, Price Underwood through twice

as many passes his freshman year as Trell Prior. Trull

Prior through twelve touchdown passes and price Underworth through eleven.

Just Prior was more efficient. Obviously a better runner, but

and you could argue that the quarterback coaching in Treel

Prior's time was not that great either. Then maybe that's

why there was the lack of development. But could he

get there theoretically, yes, not based on anything we've seen

at this point. There's there's the what we've seen, the

decision making. There's nothing pointing at him being any better

than anybody else, Like, is JJ McCarthy the best player

to ever come out of Michigan? Could he be better

than JJ McCarthy at this point? Have you seen anything

that makes you think he's better than JJ McCarthy when

JJ McCarthy's at his luckiest and best.

Speaker 1: No, I don't.

Speaker 3: I don't think he's I don't think he's any any

further ahead of JJ McCarthy than that. You know, he

don't think he's further ahead than of McCarthy than McCarthy

was at this point.

Speaker 1: Of his career.

Speaker 3: And you know, I mean and J. J. McCarthy had

had a solid career at Michigan, wasn't you know? It

was not a and he ended up being a first

round pick. You know, how is that going? Depends on

who you ask? Ask nine he'll tell you. But right now,

Underwood is a lot of you're hearing positive buzz, but

you didn't see it once again. The spring game this

year looked a lot like the end of last year.

And you know, you have heard us tell you a

thousand times don't read too much into the spring game,

and so you know, I'm not saying this means it's

never gonna be good ever again, but it does mean

there were lots of puzzanive puzzle in the spring, and

then it didn't really look any different. So you would

have expected it to look a little bit different now

they have. They have fleshed out their wide receiver corps

a little bit this year. They added Jamie French out

of Texas. You've got Andrew marsh back. You know, he's

gonna have some weapons this year. He's gonna have a

new offensive coordinator this year. You're going to be I

think that might be better suited for what Brice Underwood

is good at. So I am expecting a step forward here,

but I'm not expecting I think he's going to be

better this year. I don't think he's going to be

anywhere close to on track to get to the place

that he keeps talking about wanting to be or already being.

Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean us saying it could happen is also

like it could happen for Aiden childs, it could happen

for this guy, it could.

Speaker 1: Happen for that guy, like.

Speaker 2: The possibilities to exist for a lot of players, but

we haven't seen anything close to what he.

Speaker 1: Thinks or to match his feelings.

Speaker 2: I guess, but I don't know. I'll ask the Ohio

State fans that are watching, what do you think? Do

you think he is the best player on track to

be the best player coming out of Michigan, whether it's

Michigan High School or Michigan football.

Speaker 1: And as I told Tom.

Speaker 2: Before the show, we know all of the best players

come out of Michigan the University of Michigan are from Ohio,

so you know that's be a tough one for him

to be. But anyway, share your thoughts, be interested in

hearing those and seeing those if you're listening.

Speaker 1: A five star rating.

Speaker 2: Interview as always appreciated, And of course you can find

this over at Buckeye Insiders dot com.

Speaker 1: Check it out. Sign up. We'll give you an update

on how things are going.

Speaker 2: Things are really really close to launching, so we're excited

about that.

Speaker 1: That will do it from here. Thank you all for

tuning in, and we will talk to you all later.

Speaker 4: Let it away.

Speaker 1: Don't know him how much devilment.

Speaker 4: Nothing wound where If

Speaker 3: You can tell me that's a moots all right, We

can steal currently tonight