What Michigan QB Bryce Underwood Has Learned from Training with Joe Burrow

Bryce Underwood beat Rich in a rock, paper, scissors rematch, then spent the rest of the visit refusing to give away a single thing about Michigan's offense. Both of those are probably good signs.

The Michigan quarterback stopped by the show at the Champions Circle Golf Classic with the national championship trophy sitting right there in front of him, and he did not bother pretending to be casual about it.

"Every team gets an opportunity for it," Underwood said of the trophy. "I hope I'm the one to hold it up."

Asked how often that thought shows up, he said every single day. "I'm for the team and my team feel like deserves a national championship. We're going to work for that."

The easy version of this offseason involved Underwood being somewhere else. A new head coach arrived. Rich laid out the scenario plainly, including the widespread assumption that Lane Kiffin would be waiting at the bottom of Underwood's driveway with a sign. Underwood said the thought of leaving never surfaced.

"I just took it as God's plan," he said of the move from Coach Moore to Kyle Whittingham. "The first thing I always do, I pray about the situation, and then just let me back to where I was, my roots, being at the University of Michigan."

Whittingham had sat in the same chair about an hour earlier and told Rich that Bryce is our guy. Underwood said that message got delivered directly and early, going back to what he described as Whittingham's first day in office. Their first real conversation was about leadership, and what stepping into it would require of him this season.

Leadership is the thing he keeps circling back to. Last year he showed it more than he said it, which is what a barely-arrived freshman tends to do. "Overall, being more of a leader, vocalizing," he said. "I feel that's been one of the biggest step-ups for me."

On the football side, he has been working with trainer Jordan Palmer, and the whole project is subtraction rather than addition. "Just making the game way easier, not doing too much, just being calm, relaxing in the pocket."

Then came the name that turns this from an offseason update into something more interesting. Rich asked whether he had heard Joe Burrow mentioned by Whittingham. Underwood's answer was flat and immediate: "I train with Joe."

What he took from it was not a drill. It was a temperature. "It just looked calm. It just looked easy. It looked simple," Underwood said. "How can one have the footwork that's so simple and then it's just so effective and so quick?"

He now runs that footwork through his own house, changing directions between rooms and on the stairs. Rich asked whether he was looking off the kitchen and throwing to the living room. Underwood confirmed it, laughing.

The most revealing moment came when Rich asked whether his talents were properly coordinated last season. Underwood pointed at himself instead of the coaching staff. He was in the film room a lot, he said, but "I feel like I could have done a little bit more on my behalf as well."

His stated goals, in order: the national championship, being the best player and best quarterback in the country, and being the best leader for his team. The Heisman came up. "Being the best player in the country, I mean, that's what that comes with."

As for what will actually look different in week one, he gave up exactly one line. "All 11 players on the field will be electric."