With the Early Signing Period quickly approaching, all eyes are on five-star quarterback and No. 1 overall recruit Bryce Underwood, who is a long-time LSU commit but is on flip watch with Michigan fiercely pursuing his commitment. Underwood pledged to the Tigers early in the cycle, on Jan. 6, but questions about his ties to the program arose as the losses piled up this fall for LSU and the Wolverines ramped up their pursuit of a game-changing quarterback.
Brian Kelly had his program positioned for an SEC Championship push and a berth in the inaugural 12-team College Football Playoff, but after three-straight defeats, the Tigers are out of the AP Top 25 and no longer have a realistic path to the conference title. But with all of the momentum trending out of his school’s favor, Kelly expressed optimism with his efforts on the recruiting trail.
“Certainly any time that there’s some losses, people are going to ask questions,” Kelly said Monday on The Paul Finebaum Show. “But we’ve been in constant conversation with our recruiting class. If you’re just starting to pick up the phone now and talk to them, you’re going to lose them. We look at all the schools in the SEC; there’s going to be additions and deletions in these last couple of weeks, and that’s just the nature of where we are today with NIL, the revenue sharing that’s coming onboard.
“But relationships are really what this is at the core, and if you’ve got the right relationships, you’re going to hold onto your players regardless of the situation.”
Michigan emerged as a candidate to flip Underwood — the top-ranked player in the cycle and long considered a future star at both the college and NFL levels — after its struggles at the quarterback position emphasized the need to secure instant-impact talent. LSU also has a projected hole under center, though, with Garrett Nussmeier projected to leave for the pros at the end of the season.
“Now, does it make it easier if you’re winning all your games? Absolutely,” said Kelly. “Does it mean that it would be great that you don’t have the chirping because you’ve had a couple of losses? Yeah, but it comes with that, so now it’s important for us to lean on those relationships. And the reason why you came here from the very beginning was to help us win a championship. That’s what we’ll be talking to our recruits about.”
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Underwood plays his high school football at Belleville (Mich.), where proximity to Ann Arbor also makes the Wolverines program a potentially attractive landing spot. The prized signal-caller is the reigning Gatorade Michigan Player of the Year and a two-time MaxPreps National Player of the Year for his class.
