By halftime during Michigan’s game against Penn State Saturday, Wolverines head coach Kyle Whittingham had seen enough.
He pulled his starting quarterback, Bryce Underwood, and put in freshman Tommy Carr. The Wolverines won. Carr is widely expected to start this weekend.
What will that mean in the long term for Underwood and his multi-million-dollar name, image, and likeness deal?
For more on that and a look at other sports news, Michigan Public sports commentator John U. Bacon joined host Doug Tribou on Morning Edition.
Football this weekend:
Indiana at Michigan - Sat., Noon
Michigan State at UCLA - Sat., 3:30 p.m.
Green Bay Packers at Detroit Lions - Sun. 4:25 p.m.
Doug Tribou: The Michigan offense did nothing in the first half against Penn State. The Nittany Lions did slightly more than nothing and went into halftime with a 3-0 lead. Tommy Carr entered in the second half and gave the Wolverines enough of a spark to win 21-18.
Whittingham hasn’t announced the starting quarterback for Saturday’s tough matchup against the defending national champions, Indiana. But if Carr does start — as many observers expect he will — do you like that switch?
JUB: Well, there's only so much data to go on here. One half for Tommy Carr. However, Doug, even despite my limited math skills, I'm certain that 21 is more than zero. And that's how many points each quarterback had.
DT: [Laughs] Carry the one ...
JUB: Bear with me here, Doug. I'll pull this one off yet. [Laughs] And so, I mean, hats off to Tommy Carr, obviously, as far as that goes. The catch is they're playing a very good Indiana team. They are the returning national champs, let's not forget, and only had one — narrow — loss to Ohio State [this season] who's also a phenomenal team.
The bad news for Michigan fans is you have very little idea what Tommy Carr can and cannot do. The good news for Michigan fans is Indiana also has very little idea what Tommy Carr can or can't do. He's the wild card, so I'm almost certain he's going to be starting this weekend.
DT: And by not announcing it, Kyle Whittingham does force Indiana to sort of game plan for both.
JUB: And trust me when I tell you that does matter. I've been in these film rooms, by the way. That means the poor Indiana staff has got to watch 20 or 30 hours of each quarterback, which means you're going to waste half a week watching a quarterback who's not going to play. So they're playing a game on the Indiana coaches.
DT: Quarterback Bryce Underwood has an NIL — that’s name, image, likeness — deal that pays him about $3 million a year. There were questions last season about whether to start Underwood as a true freshman. He did start.
Now there are questions about what happens in the long term if he’s no longer the starter. Pressure to start high-profile players is nothing new, but how is NIL money affecting those dynamics?
JUB: Well, we can only guess insofar as we're not part of those conversations. However, when Larry Ellison, the founder of Oracle, drops $12 million for a new quarterback, one assumes that there's some pressure to play the guy. And one also assumes when you bench him, perhaps for this weekend, somebody in that building is probably going to call Larry Ellison and explain why. That's a new era.
So how is it going to affect things going forward? Who knows? But it's not as simple as it used to be.
"[W]hen Larry Ellison, the founder of Oracle, drops $12 million for a new quarterback, one assumes that there's some pressure to play the guy."John U. Bacon on Michigan quarterback Bryce Underwood's name, image, and likeness deal.
DT: And then you have the transfer portal. So the question of how long Underwood himself would be willing to sit back is at play in a different way. And then I don't know the logistics of his NIL deal. We don't know what the the legal paperwork involved there is because those deals are not fully public.
JUB: I guarantee you there's a contract in this situation. You don't drop $12 million for the heck of it. And the question is: all right, does Bryce Underwood eat it, basically, and become Tommy Carr's backup for a year or two making $3 million a year? Or does he transfer and risk losing that money? So this, again, affects things. The ripples of this are tremendous.
DT: And another interesting wrinkle in all of this is that ...
JUB: Why not, Doug?
DT: [Laughs] Tommy Carr is the grandson of former University of Michigan head football coach Lloyd Carr. So, sort of a legacy recruit in the mix of all of this.
JUB: Very true. And his brother — let's make it even more complicated — C.J. Carr, also from Saline, [Michigan], is now the starting quarterback at Notre Dame. So a lot going on here.
DT: Lots of Carrs [Laughs].
Two weeks ago, Michigan State lost in overtime to Illinois. Last week, the Spartans lost by three points to Northwestern. The Wildcats are ranked 24th in the nation. You noted that MSU coach Pat Fitzgerald has his team trending in the right direction in tough Big Ten games. The problem is the competition keeps getting tougher.
On Saturday, the Spartans will be in Pasadena, California to face UCLA — currently ranked 9th in the country. What does MSU need to do to break its five-game losing streak?
JUB: They need to recruit better players between here and Saturday, which is illegal [Laughs]. That's my diagnosis. Pat Fitzgerald's doing the best with what he has, as we've noted before. They're getting better and better and better. And here's the worst part. They can get better and better every week and still not get a win because that's where they started and that's where they're going to be headed.
So play better football, get a break somewhere along the way. They're going to win some games somewhere. But really what you're trying to do is get ready for next season.
The Lions have a winning record, 3-2, but are still in last place in the NFC North.
DT: In the NFL, the Lions are coming off a bye week and headed into a division rivalry game against the Green Bay Packers at Ford Field in Detroit. It’s far too early for “must-win” declarations, but this game should tell us something about where the Lions stand in the NFC North, one of the NFL’s toughest divisions.
JUB: It's brutal. And 3-2 gets you last place. That's how brutal that is. Look, I mean, it does sound silly talking about must-win games, but it kind of is. And they're playing well. But man, as I've said before, their defensive secondary, the four guys in the back who guard receivers, are simply not very good. And I bet the Green Bay Packers know this.
DT: [Laughs] In the NBA, the Pistons got the honor of playing in the very first game of the regular season and got a win over the Boston Celtics. The victory felt very similar to a number of games last season. Detroit fell way behind then went on a 23-0 run to come back and eventually win. How high should the hopes be in Detroit this season?
JUB: You know, I feel like Lucy holding the football for Charlie Brown when I say, "High hopes! Honest!" Tigers fans, Red Wings fans, may not be happy with that diagnosis, that prediction. But it should be very high. They're expected to win their division. They are expected to have another long run in the NBA playoffs. And they've bolstered their lineup in a way that other teams have not. So I hate to say it, Pistons fans, but I think you should have very high hopes.
Editor's note: Some quotes in this article have been lightly edited for length and clarity. You can play the full audio of the interview near the top of this page.
The University of Michigan holds Michigan Public's broadcast license.
