4 Important Things Michigan HC Kyle Whittingham Said Pre-Oklahoma — A Lot of Bryce Underwood

Kyle Whittingham spoke a lot about Bryce Underwood, along with other items from the WMU game.

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Michigan might be 1-0, but the Wolverines looked less than stellar in Kyle Whittingham's debut as Michigan's head coach. As everyone knows, it took a second to be placed back on the clock, as well as Bryce Underwood finding JJ Buchanan in the end zone, to beat Western Michigan, 13-12.

On Monday, Whittingham met with the media to recap the WMU game, along with previewing Oklahoma. Here are four things he said during his press conference.

Bryce Underwood is the QB — for now

"He's our QB right now, and it's not something that's infinite. At some point, we've got to turn a corner, and we've got to see improvement. As we do with a bunch of stuff, we've got to see improvement out of the coaches. And so it's not just on Bryce, and it's not just Bryce's job that he's not absolutely set and conquering.

"Nobody says that. We've got to perform week in and week out, and become somebody that we feel like is playing at a level that we can win with. And that goes far beyond Bryce. It goes throughout the whole team. And so it's what you've done lately has been very important in football."

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Bryce Underwood had a flawless start to the game against WMU, but that was it. He looked like his old self following the first drive, throwing off his back foot and trying to do too much with the football.

There are already talks about how the Wolverines need to bench the former five-star QB in favor of freshman Tommy Carr. And while Whittingham isn't close to doing that, he made sure to use the words "right now" and "not something that's infinite".

Underwood, despite being paid a lot of money to play QB at Michigan, has to perform. Whittingham didn't back down from seeing the progress he made during fall camp, but now it needs to translate to live action. If Underwood is going to play the way he did in Week 1, the Wolverines won't win many games, and the head coach knows that.

Timeline for other options

"Well, I don't wanna put a timeline on it, but we've gotta see progress, and we've gotta see a level of play that is conducive to winning games. And Bryce is still just what used to be a true sophomore. He's a sophomore if you get to now, but so he is still early in his development. There's no two ways around that.

"And he's got a new offense, and he's assimilating this year. So in a way, it's a brand new start there. So don't wanna panic, don't wanna get ahead of ourselves. And like I said, he's a big time talent, his arm talent and his ability to run. And we're just gonna stay the course for right now. But again, there does come a time for everybody at some point where you gotta look at maybe an alternative if you're not getting what you need."

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Freshman Tommy Carr was named QB2 ahead of the WMU game and he's next in line if things don't pan out with Bryce Underwood. Whittingham said Carr gets about 20% of the reps with the '1s', while Underwood sees 80% — which is standard, per Whittingham.

The long-time head coach won't give the media a timetable for what he needs to see out of Underwood, but it apparent that if things don't change, Carr would get a look. With that being said, Whittingham acknowledged there is a lot of new for Underwood, who is still a young signal-caller.

We do also have to remember that Underwood was poorly coached last season and there are still a lot of teaching moments for him. But he has to win games.

Ramping up physicality

"We do, we're not blocking up the run game yet, we weren't as violent. I said the offensive line wasn't poor, but we need to be more violent overall. The running backs starts there, but more finishing blocks. We gotta finish the block better. And we will be ramping up the intensity in certain drills and practice.

"But as far as our tackling, we only missed five tackles, which is outstanding. There was five missed tackles in the game, and I've said before, if we can be in single digits, that's where we want to be. And you'll be amongst the leaders in the country. And we only had five misses, so another bright spot there."

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Shockingly, Whittingham started off his presser by saying he didn't think the offensive line played as bad as he originally thought after watching the game three times. But even then, he said the running backs have to run the football harder and the Wolverines are going to ramp up the physicality.

He said the Wolverines need to be stronger and more physical at the point of attack, and he also praised his defense. Only five missed tackles were pleasing to Whittingham and he thought, overall, the defense played well, holding WMU to 3.3 yards per play.

While WMU sustained a 20-play drive, the Wolverines' defense did enough to win that game for Michigan. He needs to see more from Michigan's offense.

Was using 6-or-7 offensive linemen as much as they did in the gameplan?

"Yeah, it was.It was, and maybe we missed the mark with that.. Yeah, well, you get better protection, better pass protection. You get your other four guys out with an extra alignment protecting more physicality in the run game, theoretically, even with that sixth alignment.

"And so that's something we utilized a lot last year. That's something that Jason Beck utilized a lot in his career. We call it the rhino position, that six line and so. Yeah, that was part of the plan going in, and was the plan right on the money? No, it wasn't, but neither was our execution and some other things."

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On Saturday, Manuel Beigel was the 'Rhino' and he was in the game for 26 snaps. Avery Gach also played as an extra lineman, seeing then field for four snaps.

Michigan's skill players like Salesi Moa (nine snaps), Travis Johnson (two snaps), and Jaime Ffrench (one snap) were rarely seen.

Whittingham said the rhino package is something Jason Beck has always used, but he admitted that they might've misjudged how much they used it. Heading into Oklahoma, we wouldn't be shocked to see the Wolverines spread things out a little more and work to Bryce Underwood's strengths like getting him out of the pocket and using his legs.

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