Joel Klatt Shreds Bryce Underwood's Performance, Development

Sophomore quarterback Bryce Underwood was not very good in Michigan's miraculous win over Western Michigan on Saturday. Sure, the final play of the game was a very impressive 60+ yard throw, but needing that to win against WMU is not exactly how the opener was supposed to go.

Over the course of the game Underwood just wasn't very good. Before the 47-yard touchdown on the final play of the game, Underwood was just 11-of-21 for 123 yards and an interception. He also lost a fumble late in the game while scrambling for a first down. Of course, the Hail Mary touchdown toss counts, but everything up to that point was pretty forgettable. 

He was late on throws, threw into crowded zones, led his receivers into trouble and reverted back to some of his bad mechanics that he reportedly worked on all offseason. There were also some reads on running plays that he seemed to get wrong. All in all, he just wasn't very good and it should've cost Michigan the game.

FOX analyst Joel Klatt recently took to his podcast to talk about Underwood's performance and he didn't pull any punches. Klatt, a former quarterback, cited several very specific examples from the film as to why what we're all seeing from Underwood is problematic.

Even though Michigan scored a touchdown on its first drive of the game, Klatt points out several things that are worrisome from Underwood's first 10 or so plays.

"The fifth play of the game, he throws it into double coverage. The Mike linebacker is running right into the read, and he throws it that direction. It's a completion and it's a first down, but it's the exact wrong throw," Klatt explained. "They've got two different concepts going on: one to the field, the wide side; one to the boundary, and the read is the middle linebacker. The reason I know that is because the tailback runs to the field, so if he drags the Mike linebacker to the field, the wide side of the field, you play opposite of that and you bracket that hook curl defender into the short side. That's the concept back there. And what does he do? He throws it directly into the Mike linebacker, who almost tips it."

This is obviously a pretty high level breakdown, but it highlights one of the major issue Underwood has dealt with since last season — reading a defense. That's obviously a huge part of what quarterbacks must do, so that's not a good sign. The read should be a pretty simple one for a starting QB in the Big Ten.

"The seventh play of the game, it's an RPO. He goes the wrong direction. Ninth play of the game, they were targeted wrong on a double team on the offensive line. So this is all part of their first series. So I'm thinking to myself, like, man, is it? Did it get worse? Yeah, it got worse."

Given that Michigan didn't score another point until the final play of the game, it did get worse. Klatt goes on to explain how and why it got worse for Underwood. 

"I'm just telling you right now that Bryce Underwood regressed from year one to year two," Klatt said. "He's throwing curl routes into sitting safeties. He he's throwing spot routes and leading those players into cover two corners. This is day-one quarterback stuff. These are things that you can't do as a quarterback."

Luckily, Michigan's prayers were answered on the final play of the game against Western Michigan. But this week, the mighty Sooners come to town and head coach Brent Venables is a defense wizard. He and his defensive coordinator Todd Bates are some of the best in the business when it comes to disguising things and making life tough for a quarterback. That doesn't bode well for Underwood as he tries to rebound from last week.

"[Western Michigan] is film that is going to be incredibly hard to watch for everyone on that team because it is laid bare for everyone. It was laid bare for all of us watching, and now they're going to go in, and they're going to watch that film, and there's going to be major questions about what his status is this week going into the Oklahoma game," Klatt explained.

Head coach Kyle Whittingham said that Underwood is the quarterback "for now". He said it's not infinite, and that the sophomore needs to do things to keep the offense on the move. But Underwood is the guy at the moment. If things look bad against Oklahoma, that seemingly could change.