Fort Myers (FL) Bishop Verot quarterback Carter Smith decommitted from Michigan on Wednesday. He had been committed to the Wolverines since June and was doing a good job of spearheading the 2025 class, but circumstances have changed since he pledged to the Wolverines.
Hit the jump for more.
A lot of rumors have filtered out in the last couple weeks about Michigan’s increased intensity in recruiting Belleville (MI) Belleville quarterback Bryce Underwood. Underwood has been committed to LSU, and it’s hard to blame him based on the offenses in Baton Rouge under Joe Burrow, Jayden Daniels, and Garrett Nussmeier; even though Burrow played for a previous regime, there’s still a program standard that exists of having good quarterback play.
But Underwood’s home-state Wolverines need a quarterback badly, and they need one right now (or, well, in 2025). Michigan can’t go into next season with Davis Warren, Alex Orji, and a true freshman battling for playing time, unless that true freshman is a superstar . . . and even then, it would be nice to have a proven veteran option. Smith is a 4-star, the #14 quarterback, and #158 overall, so he’s no slouch.
Underwood is the #1 player overall.
The real crux of the issue is that Underwood is obviously an NIL magnet as the top quarterback in the class. Rumors are flying about his being offered $4 million or $5 million. While I’m not qualified to comment on what kind of NIL packages are being offered, Michigan’s not going to be able to land someone like Underwood for chump change.
And if Underwood is being offered lots of money by Michigan, how does that compare to what Smith is/was being offered? I can certainly see where a small “contract” or an offer to be “transformational, not transactional” would be seen as a little bit insulting or demeaning. Even if it’s not, when you have one guy in the QB room with a huge payout and another guy without much of a salary is an untenable situation. This is one of the many problems with NIL and its lack of regulation. What do NFL teams do in situations where they have a 1st round rookie QB and a lowly paid veteran? They almost always play the higher paid guy because they need to see what they have or at least give him a chance.
And that’s made even murkier with NIL, because there’s no owner attached to the team who’s paying the bills – it’s random donors, who may not donate NIL in the future if you don’t play the guy they want.
So . . . here we are. Michigan has no additions slated for the QB room for 2025. They have to land Underwood, or if they receive a firm “no,” they have to try to re-attract Smith. Furthermore, they have to be active in the transfer portal and try to land an elite quarterback. After a year of extremely underwhelming play, Michigan needs to try to overcorrect by throwing in at least 2-3 new options for next season.
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