Detroit — Michigan quarterback coach Koy Detmer said he feels good about the growth starting quarterback Bryce Underwood made during spring practice and is bullish on the position group that will add Colorado State transfer Brayden Fowler-Nicolosi in June.
Detmer, who came to Michigan from Utah with head coach Kyle Whittingham, was in Detroit last week, along with most of the UM staff at the Horatio Williams Foundation for a function to get to know the Detroit high school coaches.
Whittingham has said Underwood, Michigan’s starter last season as a freshman, is “QB1.” Underwood completed 60.3% of his passes last season for 2,428 yards and had 11 touchdowns and nine interceptions. He also rushed for 392 yards on 88 carries and scored six times. Underwood played only the first quarter of the spring game, and his performance could be described as uneven.
But one quarter doesn’t tell the story of spring practice, Detmer said.
“I thought he was great,” Detmer told The Detroit News. “He made big strides from Day 1 to the spring game, and I thought he got better every single day. He came to us with an open mind, and there was that trust that was being built on both sides. Each day, he just found a way to get better.
“I’ve really enjoyed working with Bryce. It’s been a lot of fun. He’s a hard worker and a great kid and just wanting to get better every day. And so that was kind of our emphasis, just trying to get 1% better every single day and find something to focus on every day. And I thought that he attacked that with the right mindset and got that accomplished.”
After the spring game, Whittingham said Underwood had improved his footwork and pocket presence during the spring.
“He still has work to do, he knows that, we know that, but I think he’s ahead of where he was certainly prior to or from last season and we think he’s got a big upside,” Whittingham said. “We’ve still got a lot of confidence in him. There’s no real different sentiment than what we had when we first got in here.”
Freshman Tommy Carr had a chance to shine in the spring game, and Chase Herbstreit also got in for some reps. Carr was 21 of 30 for 143 yards passing and had 67 rushing yards.
“Tommy, he’s sneaky, man,” Detmer said. “He’s another talented athlete. Comes from obviously a football background, and so I think just growing up with him and his brother (CJ, Notre Dame’s starting quarterback) in the background, like they’ve probably just grown up kind of running around playing ball. He has that natural athleticism in him, and he was a lot of fun to work with this spring as well.”
Fowler-Nicolosi, the transfer from Colorado State, is an important addition to the Michigan quarterback room because he brings considerable starting experience. He also adds to a room that became thinner when LSU transfer Colin Hurley decided to leave the program during spring practice.
While at Colorado State for four seasons, Fowler-Nicolosi appeared in 31 games with 28 starts. He completed 583-of-969 passes for 6,938 yards, 38 touchdowns and 29 interceptions during his career, and rushed for six touchdowns and caught a touchdown pass.
“BFN is what we call him,” Detmer said. “He’ll get here in June, and he’s hungry. He’s ready to work, and he brings a veteran presence to the room, which is awesome with it being kind of a younger room. Excited for him to get here and get to work.”
But the focus is on the starter, Underwood, who was the top-ranked recruit in the 2025 class. New Michigan offensive coordinator Jason Beck has said the plan is to utilize Underwood’s ability to run as a weapon this fall.
“Totally. We want to utilize our quarterback skill set and put him in positions to be the most successful he can be, and with Bryce, there is an element of running that he does really well,” Detmer said. “And so for us, it’s just managing, OK, how much we can and the right situations to do that, because naturally, being a kind of a dual-threat kind of guy that he is with it with his legs, you’re going to have three to four scrambles that are going to turn into runs in the game. So now just finding a way to necessarily limit but manage his runs when they’re not off scramble that way. We would like to preserve his body.”
Detmer is noted for his distinguished mustache he said he started to grow during the 2024 season while he was at New Mexico. He was inspired by actor Sam Elliott’s mustache from his portrayal of Virgil Earp in the movie, “Tombstone.” The Michigan quarterbacks have made joked about the mustache, much to Detmer’s enjoyment.
“Bryce was making fun of it the other day too, and he was making fun of it on social media,” Detmer said, laughing. “He was like, rate my mustache, blah, blah, blah. You know what? That’s, I think, another kind of cool thing about Bryce is he’s been in the spotlight for so long, and at the end of the day, he is a kid. He is a kid at heart. He has a great aura and persona about him, and he’s so fun to be around. And then when it comes to football and working hard and stuff like that, he’s second to none.”
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This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Bryce Underwood has made ‘big strides,’ Michigan QB coach says
Reporting by Angelique S. Chengelis, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
