ANN ARBOR, Mich. — The last regime of Michigan football seemed to have ideas of how it would deploy then-freshman quarterback Bryce Underwood, and it seemed, well — limited. But there’s a new staff overseeing the whole of the team, let alone the offense, and they have some different ideas of how to utilize the second-year QB.
Former head coach Sherrone Moore, in particular, was reticent to run Underwood. That’s not to say he didn’t run at all — he had 88 carries for 392 yards a year ago. But in the first two games, he nearly never ran, but when Biff Poggi took over as interim coach, the plan appeared to have changed dramatically. When Moore came back from his two-game suspension, Underwood appeared to be back in the box as a pure pocket passer, running only when the play broke down. Moore would say, when asked about it that if you’re going to run your quarterback, you’d better have two.
So what does new offensive coordinator Jason Beck — who ran Devon Dampier while at both New Mexico and Utah — think about that as a philosophy?
“(Let them) do what they do best. And so if they can run, then it’s a weapon, and they’ll be fine,” Beck said. “If guys aren’t good runners, then they can get themselves hurt. But if guys are good runners, they’re comfortable doing that, and they excel at it, and you have good success. But that’s just part of playing the position.
“So you do have to be smart about it. You don’t want to run your quarterback 25 times unless you got a bye week or something to get him back. But it does seem to be part of Bryce’s skill set, like doing some of the QB run game. And when he pulls it down and goes, it looks pretty impressive. Now, we’re obviously not live, but we have a whole season of live film of what he did as a runner. And he did a nice job. So we’ll look to build on those, what he does well, and utilize those talents. “
Beyond that, Beck has more ideas of how to deploy Underwood, and it’s not about molding him to his system as much as vice versa.
We’ve seen over the years where Wolverines coaches have come in and changed the nature of either a pocket passer (like Rich Rodriguez with Nick Sheridan and Steven Threet) or a mobile quarterback (like Brady Hoke with Denard Robinson and Devin Gardner). Even Jim Harbaugh was reticent to utilize all of Shea Patterson’s talents, mostly using him as a pocket passer, save for a three-game stretch in 2018, when Patterson’s legs suddenly became a factor.
Beck sees things differently. He doesn’t want Underwood to conform to his system — he wants the system to conform to Underwood. The only things that he’s changing are the things that will help Underwood be more efficient in the pass game. But other than that, it’s game on.
“We do want to work with what he’s comfortable doing,” Beck said. “We don’t need to, like, reinvent the wheel and try to do some whole new mechanics or anything. So we want to work within how he’s comfortable naturally operating, and now just tie that, timing that footwork into his reads and his decision-making.
“But when it comes down to it, if you can have a good base and you can be set towards your target as you deliver the ball, that gives you a great chance to be accurate. And so we just want to build around those real fundamental things to line that footwork up with his reads and his decision-making, and so to allow him to be successful.”
Michigan is a week into spring ball, with eyes on the April 18 spring game at The Big House.
This article originally appeared on Wolverines Wire: Michigan football’s new OC on Bryce Underwood’s role