On Monday, the University of Michigan announced true freshman Bryce Underwood, the consensus No. 1 overall ranked high-school football player in the nation in the 2025 recruiting class, would be the Wolverines’ starting quarterback for Saturday’s season opener against New Mexico. Underwood, who had previously committed to Louisiana State University before flipping to Michigan, becomes only the fourth true freshman in program history to start a season opener and the first since Tate Forcier in 2009, capping off what stands as the most expensive recruiting flip in college football history.
The 18-year-old quarterback’s arrival represents the culmination of a $12 million NIL deal that involved an unlikely alliance between Oracle’s billionaire co-founder Larry Ellison, seven-time Super Bowl champion Tom Brady, and Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy to sway the teenager to move to Ann Arbor instead of Baton Rouge, La., and join the Wolverines.
