There are still more than two months until Michigan’s Bryce Underwood faces Ohio State for the first time, but the freshman quarterback has been familiar with the Wolverines-Buckeyes rivalry for years.
The five-star recruit out of Belleville High grew up less than 30 miles from Michigan Stadium.
“I just knew it was the biggest rivalry in sports history, and it still is to this day,” Underwood said in an interview with On3’s J.D. PicKell on Thursday. “Just knowing my home state is willing to fight, defend and do anything that’s possible to not only beat Ohio State but be the best us we could possibly be. It was life-changing for me growing up, because I played for a little league football team that was the Motor City Wolverines.”
Underwood and his current Wolverines are off to a 2-1 start and open Big Ten play Saturday at Nebraska (3:30 p.m. CBS).
“Just do what I do every single day going into the game,” he said of his mentality entering Saturday. “Be the best me in practice, leading our team, keeping our energy up during practice. That’s our goal – being the most connected team — being a team. Individual stats aren’t really the main thing or the thought process going into games. It’s about being the most connected team, bringing each other together and being the best us we could possibly be.”
Here are the other highlights from Underwood’s interview with On3:
On where he’s grown the most from when he arrived on campus: “I would say being a better leader vocally, because I feel like coming in, who wants to listen to a freshman? That was until I realized the quarterback is the leader of the team, he is the captain of the team, even without the ‘C’ on his chest. So, that being my main thing now going into every single snap, every single play, every single second of the game is the biggest shift and biggest mindset change for me.”
On what it was like rooming with senior fullback and two-time captain Max Bredeson during fall camp: “He’s a great person. He’s an overall leader. He taught me a lot of things about leadership going into fall camp, first day of fall camp. Just be you. Play football. Be you. It’s fun. Play football. Whenever you see Max Bredeson hit somebody, he smiles.”
On what is more meaningful – being compared to Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen or Michigan interim head coach Biff Poggi calling him Batman last week: “I mean, Batman, that was the first time I ever heard somebody compare me to Batman. So it’s like a win-win, honestly. So I’ll take that.”
On if he’s going to break out a backflip celebration soon: “No. The first day I got here, Coach Moore straight up said, ‘No backflips. I have no time for you getting hurt.’ That’s unfortunate, so who knows if it might come or not? It still might be a possibility because sometimes (he’ll) give me a pass here or there.”