Tommy Carr or Bryce Underwood? Kyle Whittingham Talks Michigan's QB vs. Rutgers

Kyle Whittingham discusses Michigan's plan at QB against Rutgers.

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After six games and a 4-2 record, Michigan made the move to switch to true freshman Tommy Carr. Bryce Underwood went to the bench and saw two snaps against Indiana this past Saturday. Carr came in against the Nittany Lions and appeared to spark the Wolverines' offense and led three touchdown drives to win the game.

But Carr didn't have the same results against the Hoosiers. Underwood was primarily benched due to his turnover woes. But Carr lost to turnovers himself and made some freshman mistakes, like taking a couple of unneeded sacks.

Following Michigan's 13-6 loss to the Hoosiers, Kyle Whittingham remained mum on who will start at quarterback this weekend against Rutgers.

"That's to be determined," Whittingham said of who starts against Rutgers. "I don't want to play this game every week. Who's going to start? That will be a decision we'll make in the next couple of days here. Again, keep it to ourselves until somebody lets the cat out of the bag."

During the bye week, Carr had half the reps with the ones, and this past week, he had all of them. But with the offense continuing to struggle, will the Wolverines turn back to their five-star quarterback? That's to be determined.

"To be determined. We don't have practice today. Today's more a walk-through introduction to the new opponent and how the week's going to go," Whittingham said.

Whittingham talks Carr's play

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Throwing Carr out against Indiana was never the plan. But as Underwood struggled under Jason Beck and Carr sparked the Wolverines' offense — Michigan had little choice. His first start came against the defending champions, who suffered their first loss since 2024 the week before playing Michigan.

Indiana already has one of the top defenses in the country, and losing to Ohio State only added more fuel to the fire. While he had freshman mistakes, Carr did the best he could with a shaky offensive line in front of him and zero threat from the run game.

"Yeah, Tommy did some good things," Whittingham said. "Things we've got to improve on, obviously, as we say about everyone in the program. He was gaining experience.

"He was having an opportunity to run all the reps with the ones last week in practice. He's a guy I thought he handled it pretty well. Obviously, again, we've got to continue to get better play across the board in that position as well."

Does it even matter who starts?

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Through eight weeks of college football, Michigan has the No. 130 total offense. There is only one Power Four program behind the Wolverines and that's rival Michigan State. On the flip side, Michigan's defense is ranked second in the nation, and the Wolverines continue to waste one of the elite units in college football.

Michigan's passing offense is ranked No. 127 and that is the Wolverines are the lowest P4 school in the nation. It hasn't mattered who Michigan trots out there at any position; the results are the same. Beck's offense hasn't translated in Ann Arbor and Whittingham says they continue to ask the same question: why not?

"We're asking ourselves all those questions that you're posing," said Whittingham. "It hasn't gotten much traction yet. We're looking at everything, and it's not one thing. It's a combination of things. We've got to get, like I said, better. We've got to coach them up better in pretty much every position. I'm getting that done right now. The plan is simple. We're not getting it done from a coaching standpoint at this point in time."

We will see who starts against Rutgers on Saturday, but there are bigger issues in Ann Arbor than the starting quarterback. Unless those get squashed, Michigan could struggle to make a bowl game in Whittingham's first season.

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