“Go Prove Me Wrong” - Eric Weddle’s Message to Michigan QB Bryce Underwood

Eric Weddle lit a fire over the weekend, and Rich wanted him to own it on the air. The former NFL safety had gone on a podcast and said the quiet part loud about Michigan: do not be surprised if the backup is playing early, because he does not think Bryce Underwood can throw or play the position at the level the job demands.

Michigan fans came for him. Rich said his own phone went haywire.

Weddle did not flinch, but he did add nuance. When he says Underwood cannot throw, he clarified, he does not mean it literally. It means he does not see the accuracy, or the play at the standard a place like Michigan should expect.

His read is not from a distance. Weddle saw Underwood in two games last season and again this spring, when he toured nine schools with his son on visits. Michigan, he said, was the most impressive stop of all of them, from facilities to culture to coaching staff to brand. A lifelong Utah guy, he came away blown away, and he made a point of saying he actually wants Michigan to win.

Rich backed the take with his own eyes. Watching Underwood, a delightful kid who has sat in the show's guest chair, against an Ohio State defense stocked with top-10 picks, Rich saw a quarterback who looked lost, unsure where to go with the ball, off in his footwork.

For Weddle, it comes back to a standard. Michigan expects national championships, and that requires a certain kind of quarterback play. He watched, he compared it to the other schools he visited, and the one thing that stuck out about Michigan, amid everything that impressed him, was the quarterback position.

He also knows the program. A Utah man, Weddle pointed to how Kyle Whittingham wins there: great defense, ball security, running the football. If a quarterback struggles in that world, Weddle can see a change coming.

None of it was a shot at the kid's ceiling. "Is he talented? Yes. Is he a freak of nature? Yeah, no one's denying that," Weddle said. But after a career spent trying to stop the best, he trusts what he sees, and what he saw was not yet championship quarterback play. Then came the line that traveled: go prove me wrong.

He meant it as fuel, not a burial. Weddle has heard critics, media, teammates and fans say negative things his whole career, and his advice to young players is to let the work answer.

As for the footwork specifically, Weddle called it a sequence, a three-step rhythm with a hitch that has to line up with the route, the coverage and the progression. When it is not clean, the ball ends up on the ground or off target. It can be fixed with work, he said, but that is on Underwood and the team.

His bottom line was honest to a fault. If he is wrong, he is wrong, and he will wake up and keep coaching. If he is right, he is not the type to gloat. He just knows he started something.