Michigan Football whiffed on two coveted quarterback recruits before finally landing Bryce Underwood. This season, all three may find the limelight:
When J.J. McCarthy committed as a member of the 2021 recruiting class, it felt like fortunes were about to change for the Michigan Wolverines . Fabled quarterback whisperer Jim Harbaugh had been anything but that during his time at head coach, but finally it looked like Michigan had the blue-chipper needed to take this team to the next level. Spoiler alert: McCarthy was indeed that guy.
Though the Wolverines were never going to be the most electric passing offense with Harbaugh in town, the revitalization of the program — in large part thanks to McCarthy — suggested their ability to recruit top quarterbacks would quickly improve. The timing was perfect, with the 2023, 2024, and 2025 recruiting classes each offering a top-six quarterback (per the 247 Composite) from the state of Michigan.
Plan A was Dante Moore, a top-five overall player in the 2023 class from just down the road in Detroit. Michigan put everything in this recruitment, seeing Moore as the perfect successor to McCarthy, and even offering a higher ceiling than the future top-10 NFL draft pick. Despite putting every egg in this basket, Moore headed out west, shockingly choosing UCLA before later transferring to Oregon.
Having whiffed in 2023 (settling for the combination of Alex Orji and Jayden Denegal), the Wolverines then turned to CJ Carr, a top-100 player in the 2024 class who lived in Saline and just so happened to be a descendent of the last coach to win a national championship in Ann Arbor. Slam dunk, right? Nope. Carr said the pressure would be too high and instead opted to go play for Michigan’s rival in South Bend.
While the Wolverines learned their lesson with Moore and had a backup plan for Carr (Jadyn Davis), the story still had a third act to come. Bryce Underwood was the very top player in the 2025 class, rated higher than the Mitten State quarterbacks before him, but was just as uninterested in coming to Michigan…until suddenly he was. After two painful misses, the Wolverines finally snagged an elite local signal caller. Now the question becomes: who will turn out the best?
Alternate realities
Oregon, Notre Dame, and Michigan all have College Football Playoff aspirations this fall, but all three will need a new starter at quarterback. Dillon Gabriel and Riley Leonard are off to the NFL after 2024 playoff appearances, and the Wolverines…yea. While it is too soon to tell who will step in at these three high-profile programs, it is very possible Moore, Carr, and Underwood all get the majority of the playing time this fall, even starting Week 1.
The temptation will be to make an instant judgment, and the comparisons are sure to arrive quickly. September Heismans always draw attention, as do immediate assertions of early strugglers being complete busts. All three schools have some big games in the first month of the season, meaning the pressure — and opportunity — will be there should any of these players get a chance to start.
For Michigan fans, it will be difficult to see Moore or Carr succeed and not wonder “what if?”. Moore was supposed to take the reins from McCarthy, and it is hard to imagine him having a worse 2024 than what the Wolverines got from their quarterbacks last fall. If the five-star had chosen Michigan instead of UCLA, would there have been a playoff berth last season? Even with the positive ending, much of 2024 felt wasted, mostly due to having no good plan at quarterback.
The situation with Carr feels more personal than just on the field. After missing out on Moore, the maize and blue legacy offered a perfectly timed mulligan, but instead his desertion just amplified the wound. Now having to watch him suit up for Notre Dame, who is coming off a great season of its own, is an unnecessary punch to the gut that just exacerbates any negative recruiting stereotypes about this program.
It just takes one
Despite all this, no Michigan fan should be rooting for either of these players to fail (though their teams losing would not hurt). Even if they never live up to their recruiting rankings, it is impossible to know if things would have worked out differently for them had they come to Ann Arbor, maybe even with Harbaugh still here. The past is the past, but it is still difficult to not warp into a weird universe where one of these two did stay home.
However, the best remedy would be Underwood living up to the hype and making those missed opportunities necessary bumps along the journey of life. Like the pain against TCU, sometimes it takes those failures to fuel the drive to the next level, and it sure looks like Underwood has the ability to do just that. Maybe it does not show up right away, but some glimmers of hope from the actual Michigan quarterback can go a long way to erase past hurt.
The storylines for the Wolverines are endless in 2025 as Sherrone Moore continues to take over the program. Underwood brings a whole saga in himself, but with Dante Moore and CJ Carr potentially taking over in their not-so-distant respective places as well, the tale of the three Michigan-grown quarterbacks will garner plenty of attention. Winners cannot be declared after a single season, but it would be nice to feel like the past pain was worth it.