Michigan head coach Kyle Whittingham held his weekly press conference Monday morning after the Wolverines were off the field last week.
Whittingham reassured the media that Bryce Underwood was the Wolverines’ starting quarterback. When asked if offensive coordinator Jason Beck was still calling plays and if Underwood was still the QB, Whittingham said, “Jason [Beck] will call plays, and Bryce is our guy, and we move forward.”
The Michigan head coach then immediately discussed the off week and added an interesting wrinkle.
“Tommy [Carr] did get a lot of good reps last week. Which you would typically in a bye week anyways, you give the second teamers a lot of work, so he got a lot of work, not because of anything, but it was a great opportunity to get the second team guys work across the board.”
Tommy Carr is Michigan’s true freshman quarterback who earned the backup job behind Underwood.
These comments come after Michigan’s loss to Minnesota two weeks ago. After the loss, Whittingham said before the week off, “We might have to make some tough decisions here. We’ll see.”
This was the second time the head coach has made ominous comments about the team’s state. The first came after Michigan’s Week 1 win, when it narrowly avoided an upset by Western Michigan in the now-infamous extra last-second final play.
Whittingham told reporters then that Underwood was the team’s quarterback “right now,” that the spot isn’t “infinite,” and that “at some point, you’ve got to turn the corner and we’ve got to see improvement, as we do with a bunch of stuff.”
The head coach later walked back those comments and committed to moving forward with Underwood. That led to a Wolverines win over then-No. 11 Oklahoma.
Entering this week’s matchup against Penn State, though, Underwood has remained inconsistent, and Michigan has dropped back-to-back games to then-No. 17 Iowa and unranked Minnesota.
From the experts at Yahoo Sports
Underwood has been under the microscope since before he even got to Ann Arbor. He famously signed a $12 million NIL deal as he committed to the school, flipping from LSU.
The quarterback played in 13 games last season. Michigan went 9-4 last season, and Underwood threw for 2,428 yards, with 11 touchdowns and nine interceptions. Through five games this year, the quarterback has thrown for 881 yards, 5 touchdowns, and 4 interceptions.
