It has been a rough year for the defending national champions, but on Thursday, the Wolverines got some great news: The nation’s No. 1 recruit, quarterback Bryce Underwood — an athletic 6-foot-4, 205-pound 17-year-old — announced he was flipping his commitment from LSU to Michigan.
After being committed to the Tigers for nearly a year, the move sent shock waves around the college football recruiting world. Football legend and Michigan alumnus Tom Brady, however, could see it coming.
A big piece in Underwood’s pledge to the Wolverines, a program source said, was that Brady was on several Zoom meetings with Underwood and became a great resource for the young QB.
Underwood grew up a Michigan fan and is from Belleville, Mich., just 20 minutes outside Ann Arbor. Wolverines coach Sherrone Moore preaches and recruits on the basis of “the best players in Michigan, go to Michigan.”
But former Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh didn’t really seem interested in pursuing Underwood the way other top programs were. Not long after Harbaugh left for the Los Angeles Chargers’ top job in January, Sean Magee returned to Ann Arbor to become Michigan’s general manager after working in the Chicago Bears front office.
And Magee and Moore made Underwood a huge priority.