Comparing the quarterbacks in the Purdue vs. Michigan game

At quarterback for the Purdue Boilermakers, it will be Redshirt Sophomore Ryan Browne, who's a former 3-star recruit. He has an interesting history already, because he originally enrolled at Purdue as a Freshman, transferred to North Carolina for a year, and then transferred back to Purdue for this current season. Despite not having a ton of hype as a recruit he's found his way to being the starting quarterback for the Boilermakers and has played decent in his time there. In total he's completing 59.5% of his passes for 1,689 yards, with 8 TD's and 7 INT's. He's also added 175 yards and 4 TD's on the ground as well so he's got some mobility to him.

His stat line isn't awful, but it isn't exactly lighting the world on fire either. Completing sub 60% of your passes as a college quarterback is not good, and having the 8 TD's and 7 INT's is also a bad TD/INT ratio. He hasn't had a ton of help however, as Purdue's wide receivers aren't anything to write home about and neither is their offensive line. He's also had to play from behind a lot which makes it tough on the passing game as well because defensive lines can just pin their ears back and get after the quarterback. Overall he hasn't played all that well but when you're getting as little help as he is from his supporting cast, you can't really blame it all on Ryan Browne.

At quarterback for Michigan it will be true Freshman Bryce Underwood once again. He's not coming off a very strong performance against Michigan State but he did play well the previous week against Washington at home. Overall this season he's completing 61.1% of his passes for 1,526 yards with 7 TD's and 2 INT's. He's also added 228 yards and 4 TD's on the ground.

As a true Freshman playing in the Big Ten, Bryce Underwood has been very up and down week to week. That's not totally shocking, nor is it necessarily a bad thing as progress isn't always linear. He's had his moments to play well and he's also had his moments that he can learn from in the future. I'd like to see Michigan's coaching staff get him more comfortable in this game against Purdue and continue to work on that passing game that they'll need if they want to accomplish their team goals later on in the season. Bryce Underwood is one of the most talented players in all of college football and I'd like to see him be treated as such by the coaches. I'd also like to see them get him involved more as a runner down the home stretch of the season as well because it can take some more pressure off of the passing game.

On pure talent, Bryce Underwood is miles ahead of what Ryan Browne is but neither one is near the tops in the Big Ten conference in actual performance. Bryce's stats are already better than Browne's however and he's only an 18-year old true Freshman, so you have to give the Wolverines the edge in the matchup of the quarterbacks in this game.

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