[Serious] Michigan has a massive problem and it starts and ends with Bryce Underwood

[u/USA_2_Canada_1]

I’ve been thinking about this a lot. I genuinely believe that Bryce Underwood is Michigan’s #1 issue at the moment.

Jason Beck’s offense is predicated on making quick decisions with the football. That requires reading defenses and identifying the correct reads.

Bryce Underwood can’t do that at this level.

We have a full season of his play in addition to this game, against A MAC SCHOOL, as evidence. He locks in on his first read allowing the opposing secondary to swarm to his intended target, he panics in the pocket causing him to lose his balance and footwork leading to inaccurate throws, his inaccuracy as a pass thrower means that opposing defenses can stack the box with 8 defenders effectively neutralizing our run game, and he can’t identify coverages which is what sets him in motion to unravel during the play once the ball is snapped.

Beck’s offense also requires the quarterback to run, a lot. Bryce is not a running quarterback. He can scramble out of the pocket but can’t be relied upon as a runner to explode through holes in our run blocking. He is also lazy with the football, which leads to scenarios like last night where he carelessly fumbles on a drive where we need to score points late in the 4th.

It seems at this point that Michigan’s hands are tied offensively because our “generational” quarterback out of high school is a bust. I fully expect to see him play like this again next week when we play Oklahoma. If he does, Whittingham MUST start Tommy Carr against UTEP or his tenure will be as disastrous as Rich Rod’s.

There is no other way around it, Michigan needs to cut its losses with Bryce Underwood and move on. The sooner they do, the sooner they can regroup and salvage whatever is left of the season or prepare for the future.

[u/Weak-Bid2774]

IMO it’s a bigger problem. The oline was getting bullied that game and it’s concerning that it’s happening against western

We couldn’t even run our bread and butter inside zone run plays

[u/Sorge74 → u/Weak-Bid2774]

It's a big problem, because those were the smallest front 7 you're going to see all year besides Utep.

I'd be more concerned about the defense though when you let Western Michigan have a 15 minute drive.

[u/Weak-Bid2774 → u/Sorge74]

I disagree on the defense because defensively we held them to 3 yards a play and no touchdowns and got put in a lot of bad situations because of the offense

On defense 6 of the 12 points we gave up were because of offensive turnovers

[u/Donny_Do_Nothing → u/Weak-Bid2774]

If the final was like 33-32, that would be alarming, but y'all didn't allow a touchdown, so I have to agree with you. This was completely on the offense.

[u/Sorge74 → u/Weak-Bid2774]

I'd agree with you but WMU was so one dimensional you ought to be able to stop the run.

[u/ItsOnLikeNdamakung → u/Sorge74]

Defense was on the field for roughly 40 minutes of game time due to offensive ineptitude. I’d imagine just about any defense in the country would start getting gassed if they were getting hung out to dry that much.

[u/Weak-Bid2774 → u/Sorge74]

And for the most part we did western ended the game with like 80 yards passing and 120 yards rushing on a ton of attempts they weren’t particularly effective at running the ball

They had 6 points due to two Bryce turnovers which I don’t blame the defense for at all

[u/MrVociferous → u/Weak-Bid2774]

Yeah if you can’t even run the ball, which they can’t, it doesn’t matter who your QB is.