Whittingham changed one starter on Monday, and it was the punt returner

Michigan had nine days to change something, and on Monday Kyle Whittingham announced what it changed. The quarterback stays. The play-caller stays. The punt returner goes.

"Bryce is our guy," Whittingham said at his weekly press conference, and Jason Beck will keep calling plays against Penn State on Saturday. He described Underwood the way a scout describes a prospect he has already drafted. "Runs like the wind," he said, per Isaiah Hole of Wolverines Wire. "Cannon arm, can make every throw and then some." A whole year of experience last season and five games this one, in Whittingham's accounting, and so, "looking at the room as a whole," Underwood "still gives us the best chance to win."

Two people have thrown the passes in that room this season. Tommy Carr, the freshman, is 2 for 2 for 23 yards and a touchdown, all of it against UTEP in September. Underwood is 67 of 113 for 881 yards, five touchdowns and four interceptions, a 59.3 percent completion rate, per Michigan's cumulative statistics. Michigan's 180.8 passing yards a game are the fewest of the 18 Big Ten teams by CollegeFootballData's season totals, and its 315.8 total yards a game rank 121st of 138 FBS teams. It has scored fewer than 20 points in four of five games.

Whittingham did not close the door on Carr. The freshman took first-team reps during the bye, by design, and Whittingham called his UTEP work a "small, tiny sample size" that was positive. "If we think that giving Tommy a series or two helps our chance to win, then you will see that," he said, per Tony Garcia of the Detroit Free Press. (Hold that sentence next to "Bryce is our guy" and you have the whole press conference. Both are true. Only one of them is a depth chart.)

The one change#

The job that did change hands belongs to Andrew Marsh, who has returned seven punts for 30 yards this season and has put two on the ground, one against Western Michigan in the opener and one against Minnesota, where it was one of the three turnovers Whittingham spent Monday talking about.

The coach was asked about the muffs and answered with something else. "We'll have a different returner back there, and that's due to a couple reasons, not just putting the ball on the ground, but some injury reasons," he said, per the Free Press. "I won't say who that is yet."

So Michigan's one announced personnel change is a special-teams job, and the stated reason for it is at least partly a player who may be hurt. Whittingham said there would be no "major personnel changes" against Penn State. "Can't panic and you can't completely change everything because you have one setback," he said.

The tackles#

The lineup that actually moved over the bye is the one nobody polls fans about.

Andrew Sprague, the junior right tackle, started the first two games and has not played since something came up less than a day before the UTEP game on September 19. He has now missed three games. Michigan has not said what the injury is, per the Free Press, and Whittingham said Monday that Sprague saw several doctors and got several opinions before they "dovetailed" into one. "Doesn't change the fact that he's not available or won't be available for several weeks," he said. On whether Sprague plays again this season, per Hole: "If he comes back, it's way out there."

"I'm perplexed," Whittingham said. "So is he, I think."

Andrew Babalola is the other direction. The sophomore tackle tore an ACL in August 2025, per the Free Press, was cleared, had a setback, had another, and by Whittingham's count had not practiced in about a month. He practiced Monday. "We'll gradually ramp him up throughout the week and see if he's ready to contribute this Saturday," Whittingham said. He has not played in a game since the fall of 2024.

Then the sentence that makes Wednesday's availability report worth reading. "We're really thin there," Whittingham said of the tackles. "Got some other guys dinged up in the Minnesota game that will be questionable." The Big Ten's report comes out Wednesday.

The number he named#

Whittingham was asked why the offense is where it is and gave one answer. "We have got to start turning the ball over less and taking it away more, plain and simple," he said. "And until that changes, we'll struggle."

Michigan has turned the ball over nine times and taken it away five, a margin of minus 4 that 115 FBS teams can better and that sits at the bottom of the Big Ten alongside Michigan State and Rutgers. Six of the nine are Underwood's, four interceptions and two lost fumbles, by the box scores. Marsh has the two muffs. Savion Hiter lost one against UTEP.

That is the arithmetic behind the line on Monday that was not a reassurance. "If we don't get this turnover thing fixed rapidly, then something's got to give," Whittingham said, per the AP's Larry Lage.

Michigan is 3-2 and 0-2 in the Big Ten, its first 0-2 start in conference play since 2014. Penn State, 3-3 and 0-3 after losses to Wisconsin, Northwestern and USC, arrives at Michigan Stadium on October 17 at 3:30 p.m. Eastern on CBS. One of them will leave with a conference win. The quarterback for Michigan's side of that is settled, in the sense that the coach said so twice and left himself a series or two.

Sources: Kyle Whittingham's Monday press conference, October 12, 2026, as reported by Isaiah Hole, Wolverines Wire ("Kyle Whittingham settles Michigan QB, offensive coordinator questions" and "Kyle Whittingham reveals troubling Andrew Sprague injury update"), Tony Garcia, Detroit Free Press ("Michigan football notebook: Offensive line is 'thin'; Tommy Carr package a possibility"), Larry Lage, the Associated Press, and Von Lozon and Nick Durand, Maize n Brew; Michigan Athletics' 2026 cumulative statistics (passing); CollegeFootballData's 2026 team and player season statistics, game box scores and schedule results for Michigan, Penn State and all FBS teams, and Michigan's conference results 2014 through 2025.