• Michigan’s quarterback competition is ongoing, with no clear frontrunner emerging during spring practice.
• Five-star recruit Bryce Underwood and transfer Mikey Keene are vying for the starting role, but Keene’s injury limited his participation in spring practice.

The Michigan football quarterback competition this past spring did not play out as expected.

The Wolverines brought in the nation’s No. 1 recruit, five-star quarterback Bryce Underwood from up the road in Belleville. The outside expectation was for him to take over the room and run away with the job. But he is 17 years old and this is not only the Big Ten, but an important season for Sherrone Moore and company to get back to the top tier of the sport.

The end of last year was a thrill. Mopping Northwestern by 44 points created the belief that turned into a 13-10 victory over Ohio State in Columbus the following week as underdogs by more than three touchdowns. Once that happened, nobody could limit the Wolverines, who played without all seven of their now NFL draft picks, yet still defeated Alabama 19-13 in the Reliaquest Bowl.

It was a sky-high finish to the year, but frankly, an 8-5 record is not what cuts it in Ann Arbor. They knew they could perhaps need a Plan B.

That’s why U-M not only brought in new offensive coordinator Chip Lindsey, but a veteran quarterback he was familiar with from their time at University Central Florida. Mikey Keene, who has more than 2,200 collegiate snaps under his belt and was a solid starter both at UCF and more recently Fresno State, was expected to push Underwood for the starting role.

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Instead, those in the Michigan football program confirmed that he did not take a single snap in practice this spring as he continued to rehab from an undisclosed injury. With Davis Warren, last year’s starter, also on the mend from a torn ACL, that left just two healthy quarterbacks in Underwood and Jadyn Davis to take all of the snaps this spring.

“(We) handled it and he’s doing well now,” Moore said of Keene after the spring game April 19. “He’s throwing, he’s in a good place, and (we) felt like pushing it to end the spring that way. … we feel like he’s in a good place.”

“We’ll have Mikey, evaluate and see where Davis (Warren) is. But we’ll see what that situation looks like (if we want to add another quarterback into the room).”

Coaches and players are saying all the predictable lines about how the competition has progressed. Whenever somebody is asked about how Underwood has looked, more often than not, they reference the room as a whole, like when Derrick Moore told Big Ten Network after the spring game, “I got confidence in both them boys.”

But the public got to see more than enough April 19, when Underwood quarterbacked the Blue team and Davis the Maize team, and Underwood didn’t exactly thrive. In his first live snaps at Michigan Stadium in front of a crowd, Underwood completed 12 of 26 passes for 187 yards, with one touchdown and one interception. The score and nearly half the yards (88) came on a trick play on the final snap of the game.

Davis, meanwhile, didn’t have the same type of play to pad his stats. His final line was rough, completing six of 17 passes for 75 yards and two interceptions. Of those, one-third of them came on a free play jumpball to Donaven McCulley after the defense jumped offsides. That means he was 5-for-16 for 50 yards on plays where something negative could happen.

These are the reasons Keene was brought in, to be genuine competition for Underwood, not forced competition. Instead, it hasn’t played out that way, and it’s hard to not think the 17-year-old QB has the inside track to be the starter in the season opener against New Mexico.

But when will Moore make the decision?

“It usually carries into fall camp,” Moore told On3’s JD Pickell. “All the real good battles I’ve been a part of, you can say something in spring, but it changes, so we’re gonna take our time with the process of who that person is.

“It’s probably going to go into fall camp and then probably a week before the game, the first game, make a decision and make the announcement then.”

Keene is now throwing and is expected to be “full go” in June, so don’t count him out just yet.

While the expectation remains for the job to be Underwood’s, Moore recently told team color commentator Jon Jansen on an episode of Inside The Trenches there’s a lot more to playing quarterback than just making throws. He discussed their ability to dissect defenses pre-snap and make smart, sound decisions post-snap.

He talked about making sure the work ethic remains consistent, never wavering just because they’ve arrived at a place like Michigan. But perhaps most importantly, sometimes the biggest part of being the guy, is being the guy.

“They’ve made the throws, the reads. … but they got to become the leader of the team,” Moore said to Jansen about what he’s looking for. “We talk about the offensive line running the team, well somebody’s got to lead it.

“You’ll know at some point who that person is.”

[ MUST LISTEN: Make “Hail Yes!” your go-to Michigan Wolverines podcast, available anywhere you listen to podcasts (Apple, Spotify) ]   

Tony Garcia is the Michigan Wolverines beat writer for the Detroit Free Press. Email him at apgarcia@freepress.com and follow him on X at @RealTonyGarcia.