Michigan Wolverines passing game completely failed, but was it Bryce Underwood’s fault in crushing loss to Oklahoma Sooners?
Bryce Underwood got zero help as Michigan Wolverines passing game collapses
Bryce Underwood and the Michigan Wolverines completely failed to do much of anything on offense in their 24-13 loss to the Sooners. Sherrone Moore and his staff would have loved to get what would have been a potentially season-defining victory, but absolutely nothing worked.
The lone touchdown of the game for Michigan only happened because Justice Haynes is a beast of a running back–he ran one in from 75 yards out. Outside of that one play there was plenty of blame to pass around for Michigan’s failures. Was it all on Bryce Underwood? Or did Michigan simply completely fail to help him at all?
Bryce Underwood didn’t make things any easier on himself against Oklahoma
Bryce Underwood looked like a freshman facing off against a top ten defense on the road on Saturday. Yes, there were issues all around him–and we’ll get to that–but he was forcing shots he didn’t need to take, creating extra pressures for himself, and panicking any time the blitz came in.
Underwood completed exactly zero passes when blitzed against Oklahoma. He scrambled or moved off his spot too early at times, leaving the few clean pockets useless for himself. Then he made a handful of wrong reads, taking some pretty bad shots into coverage (like on the deep shot to Donaven McCulley in the post below).
The true freshman “phenom” finished the day completing just nine of his 24 pass attempts for 142 yards and ran for negative one yard on the day. That was good for barely five yards per play on his part. Not great in a game where the Sooners needed him to be the difference.
Bryce Underwood didn’t hold back his frustrations at Michigan teammates
As the game progressed, tensions and tempers flared. Bryce Underwood was seen particularly frustrated with running back Justice Haynes on the sideline at one point in the game, as he chased him down and yelled in his face, having to be separated by tight end Marlin Klein.
The consistent struggles on offense were clearly getting to Underwood, which makes sense given that he’s certainly not used to getting stopped on nearly every drive.
Head coach Sherrone Moore said this issue got sorted quickly on the sideline shortly after, but it was not a great look from a struggling true freshman quarterback. He may have been going for “vocal leadership” there, but it definitely didn’t land that way from an outside perception standpoint.
Bryce Underwood really didn’t get any help from Michigan teammates against Sooners
Regardless of Underwood’s individual failures or his temper flaring a bit amid the frustrating loss, it’s unbelievable just how little anyone around the young quarterback did to help him.
Justice Haynes did finish the day with 125 rushing yards and a score, but 75 of those came on one play. His other 18 carries went for a total of 50 yards (less than three yards per carry). Michigan’s other running back, Jordan Marshall, wasn’t any better at all as he took his nine totes for just 28 yards on the game.
The offensive line was leaky, giving up pressures early and often in the pass game, and completely failed to create consistent push in run blocking too.
The wide receivers were a complete and utter let down outside of a few plays made by Donaven McCulley, but even his production was inflated due to a couple busted plays or poor reads. McCulley was the only wide receiver to log more than one reception, and it wasn’t really Underwood’s fault. Yes, he missed some passes but his players weren’t getting separation.
Michigan was without their emergent star tight end Marlin Klein as he missed the game due to an ankle injury. His presence certainly may have helped the offense find some rhythm. However, the absence of just one player cannot be an excuse for what Michigan put together against Oklahoma. Nothing worked. Everything looked disjointed. It was eerily reminiscent of the 2024 Michigan offense that ranked outside the top 100 in almost every meaningful statistic.
It was a great defensive game plan from the Sooners, who constantly mixed up coverages and blitzed creatively, but the truth is that Bryce Underwood got zero help and fell short because he looked like a struggling freshman trying to force things that just weren’t there. Michigan can certainly bounce back from this, but the entire offensive game plan might need to be tossed in the trash if this is how its equipped to handle better defenses.
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