Michigan has moved to 7-2 on the year, but it was not a pretty game this past week. A week after a huge Michigan win over Michigan State, the Wolverines fell flat against Purdue, winning just 21-16. After the game, Michigan head coach Sherrone Moore spoke about his quarterback, Bryce Underwood.
“We gotta clean up the things to make him and then everybody else around him has to execute at a high level. The spacing has to be there. Spacing plus timing equals completions. So you gotta have the spacing too. So it's not just on Bryce. And when we don't want to put it, we don't put out the excuse of always a freshman or there's freshmen out there. Nobody's a freshman anymore,” Moore said after he game.
While Underwood is a freshman, he has now made nine starts, and he has no excuses at this point. He struggled against Purdue, completing just 13 of 22 passes for 145 yards. He did not have a touchdown, but had an interception. The freshman was sacked twice, but ran for 44 yards overall. Moore did praise Underwood for some of his work prior to discussing his downfalls.
“I mean, I'd say today, right, we don't, you know, you can see he was just taking care of the game. Other than that, I mean, he could make every throw and do everything. He made a key third down throw in the pocket to Zack Marshall. He threw a trip play to Zack Marshall on a deep that was in the pocket. You know, he threw the sprint out play to the right and throw a sprint out to the left. So he's got he's got multiple strengths, but we've got to clean up all the other things,” said the Michigan coach earlier in the conference.
Underwood and the Wolverwines have a week off before hitting the road. They will finish with road games against Northwestern and Maryland before returning home to host Ohio State, the best team in the nation.
