The Josh Innes Show - Bryce Underwood Is Talking A Big Game

Episode Date: August 25, 2025

Bryce Underwood is the highly paid Freshman QB at Michigan. He has just been named the starter. He's going to make over $12million bucks in 4 years at UM. This weekend he said something that really, really annoys me. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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somebody like that from LSU, that you're going to have to start him, right? Like, I don't know who would have been a better option. Like, you want a guy who you're paying $12.5 million to win the starting job. Now, whether he won the starting job or it was just given the job because he's making $12.5 million, like, can you imagine being in that spot? Like, you go out and spend all this money on a dude, like the biggest NIL deal ever, and then he's not even good enough to be the starting quarterback. Like, you almost, not almost, you're forced to make him the starting quarterback in that spot

just so you don't look like dipsets. So, but he's going to be the starting quarterback. He, of course, was committed to LSU for an extended period of time. And then late in the process decided he was no longer committed to LSU and took a giant deal like a Dave Portnoy-Aided NIL deal to go to Michigan. He was the number one recruit in the country. It was going to be the big coup for Brian Kelly, and then Brian Kelly lost him to Michigan, and that's where we are now.

Let me play a couple commercials, and I'm going to play a piece of audio from Bryce Underwood. It's one of these things that really annoys me. It's something that athletes say that annoys me, and we'll play that after these words. Reading, playing, learning. Stellist lenses do more than just correct your child's vision. They slow down the progression of myopia, so your child can continue. Continue to discover all the world has to offer through their own eyes. Light the path to a brighter future with Stellist lenses for myopia control.

Learn more at SLOR.com. And ask your family eye care professional for SLOR Stellist lenses at your child's next visit. All right. So here is Bryce Underwood when asked what he's looking forward to most in being at Michigan this year. Honestly, just a shock to where, you know, they've seen a lot of freshmen, but I feel like nobody's seen a freshman like me. Well, we have seen a lot of freshmen's, and we'll see if we've ever seen a freshmen like you. But I love when people use this example of wanting to shock the world. And I get that if you're an athlete, you have to create this kind of universe where you're an underdog all the time.

But you're the quarterback at Michigan. You were the number one overall recruit. You're making $12.5 million. nobody is going to be shocked if you are great like if michigan goes 11 and one no one's going to be shocked if you're a heisman trophy finalist no one's going to be shocked you're making 12 and a half million dollars you're the most highly sought after prospect in the country you are famously getting the biggest nil deal ever like the idea like i don't know i understand what athletes have to do to psych themselves up and i understand what like it's a mental thing right like

you have to convince yourself that the world is against you. You have to convince yourself that everyone is your enemy. Like, I get it. But you're at Michigan. You've got a giant endowment. You're at one of the biggest football programs in America. The idea that somehow we're in a world where, oh, we'd shock the world if Michigan were great. Like, it would be shocking if you went five and seven.

That would be shocking. It would be shocking if you went to Oklahoma and got your dick knocked off by Oklahoma. That would be shocking. What would not be shocking is Bryce Underwood being a good football player and Michigan being a good football team. Honestly, just a shock to where, you know, they've seen a lot of freshmen, but I feel like nobody's seen a freshman like me. So, and look, guy believes in himself. Nobody's seen a freshman like me. Like, it almost feels like it's setting up for a massive crash, doesn't it?

Like, that's the vibe you kind of get when you hear this guy. Like, maybe he will be the cock of the walk. Maybe he'll be the biggest shit on the planet. It's possible. Like, again, it's far more likely that he's successful, that he's not successful. But when I listen to him, and I haven't heard him talk a lot, but he's a freshman, he's making 12 and a half million. Here's a fair question.

And this is something that I think I've seen Penny Hardaway and other coaches talk about. I've heard a lot of basketball coaches talk about this as it relates to NIL. But a lot of these dudes, actually, this was Penny Hardaway when he was on the Out the Mud podcast with Zach Randolph and Tony Allen. And one of his main points was that, like, you know, part of getting to the league or, like, the drive to get to the league was you finally wanted to get paid. So college, you had to take seriously. College, you were hustling. College, you're eating ramen noodles.

And, yes, you're probably getting paid under the table and getting impermissible benefits and shit. And some guys were getting more than others. But, like, in college, you were doing everything you can to get to the league because that's where you get paid. that's where you take care of your family. That's where your mom gets a house. What's going to happen with a dude that's making $12.5 million at 18 or 19 years of age? A lot of the young dudes that went straight to the NBA and got paid out of high school. Remember, this dude's just out of high school.

A lot of those guys failed. Now, some were successful. LeBron became one of the greatest players of all time. Kobe became one of the greatest players of all time. Kevin Garnett became one of the greatest players of all time. But there's also a lot of dudes who leave at 7.000. 18 years old, go straight to the NBA making money. And it fails because they're not mentally prepared for it.

And that's what this is. You can say, well, it's just going to college. This ain't college. Michigan football is bigger than some NFL teams. Like the Michigan football program is bigger than the Jacksonville Jaguars or the Carolina Panthers. Like, it is a bigger entity. It's one of the biggest sports entities in America. It's one of the heritage programs, right?

So, like, this guy is basically now with a guy making $12 million, you're getting paid millions of dollars a year to be the quarterback, you're basically a pro. This is not a college experience where you're going to take, you know, 12 hours of classes and all that. No, it's not that. You are getting paid stupid amounts of money relative to what kids used to make or dudes used to make. So this is like making the jump from high school to the pros. This is a big jump. So, like, I could see a scenario where it. flops. Like, are you still driven? How do you keep that drive? And I think that's a human,

that's a factor with all humans, right? Like, you know, I'll give myself as an example and you guys know what I'm talking about because you guys hear when I, you know, when I was making a lot of money over at Keishi and some of these other places, podcast wasn't a big deal to me. I wasn't doing the podcast anymore. When I had a job a lot of the time and was making really good money, a podcast wasn't that big of a deal to me. I wasn't driven to keep doing those types of things. At Keishy, when I was making $150,000, I was like, ah, fuck it. I'm not, like, I didn't have to get up at 4 o'clock in the morning to do a podcast. Like, that's not the way that worked, right?

But when you get fired at Keeshee, and then boom, you start the podcast again, because that's like the only way you can make a couple bucks. And then boom, when you get fired, you're driven to go out and do DoorDash. Or when you get a job that's paying you considerably less money than Keeshe was. By the way, I'm not complaining. I'm very glad to have the job. but now that I'm making considerably less than I was at Kashi, well, now you have to come out and you get up at 4 o'clock in the morning and you do five podcast episodes, right? That's how this works.

Like, you're driven, like you're hungrier in that way. If you're an 18-year-old kid that's got $3 million every year, I guess essentially is what they're going to pay him, right? If he's making $12.5 million, that means he's making like, what, like $3.125 million a year. So if he's making that and that's how the deal works, and I'm sure that they're going to be. There are different ways they go about doing that. But if you're rolling in and getting checks, I don't know if you get paid every two weeks or if they pay you in a lump sum. Like, I don't know how some of these NIL deals work.

I don't know if it's lump sum. I don't know if you're an employee and they take taxes out of it. Like, I don't know how NIL deals work. But are you still as hungry and still is driven? Like, when you're gifted the job because you're making $3.125 million a year, are you as driven? And I think that's just, that's human. It is human to sit in those situations and get complacent. It's human to be Rocky 3 Rocky after you've beaten Apollo and you're on the Muppet show.

It's really easy to go in that route to kind of let yourself get comfortable. It's very easy. It's a lot harder to wake up at 4 o'clock in the morning and run the steps at the stadium whenever you've got $3.125 million coming your way every year for the next four years. Is that FU money? No, that money can run out pretty quickly, depending on how you spend it or you invest it poorly, whatever. But in theory, $12 million can set you up for life. You can't probably not going to live off a $12 million for your life, but you're pretty comfortable, right?

It's not the same as Arian Foster eating ramen noodles at Tennessee. It's a different universe, right? But it's natural. It is a natural reaction of humans to get comfortable and complacent. I tell you, because I do it myself all the time. It's really easy to get caught up. When I was making all that money at Casey, it was very easy to just kind of roll in and be like, well, I've got the money now.

You know, what's next? What are you driven to do? Is this guy driven to be in the NFL? Maybe. Maybe that's his goal in life. Maybe it's not. I don't know. But I'm curious.

This is going to be one of the great case examples here because there are a lot of guys getting NIL deals and some guys might be getting 50 grand, 100 grand,000, $250,000, a million, whatever. There aren't too many guys that are getting this kind of deal with this kind of attention. at that kind of a program where all eyes are on that program. It's one of the top 10 most viewed programs out there. So if not top five, probably is. It's one of the biggest brands in all of college athletics. So I will be curious watching this as it goes on to see how this dude reacts.

And if it looks like, look, Jim Marcus Russell was a great example of a dude that was complacent. At LSU, he seemed complacent. He was just a far more talented guy. Got to the NFL, lazy as shit, made a ton of money. I forgot how much money his contract was initially. I think he made like $50 or $60 million guaranteed right out of the shoot in the league. Comes in, doesn't watch game film, lazy as shit and flamed out. When you get that big check, it is just human to go, I've made it.

What else is there to do? Honestly, just a sector where, you know, they've seen a lot of freshmen, but I feel like nobody's seen a freshman like me. We'll see. We'll see if anybody's seen a freshman like you. But, God, the lame-ass angle of we're going to shock the world, no one's going to be shocked if you're good. No one. Like, just creating this boogeyman, creating this negative person, this negative entity that believes that you're not going to make it. Thus, you have to shock everybody to make it, I think, is a preposterous approach to all of this stuff.

But I guess whatever athletes have to do. Look, I used to do that stuff, too. You got to create an enemy. Like, it keeps you driven. Some people aren't just naturally motivated by stuff. I find myself doing that a lot. Like, I'm whatever, whatever, whatever. Then I hear someone says some shit about me, and then I'm motivated again.

Like, I'm driven. Maybe I'm not self-starting as much as I used to now that I'm 39 years old. I'm just don't, I'm not driven in the same way. But if I hear some guy from another radio station say I suck, then all of a sudden I'm driven. Whatever that means, I don't know. But, you know, not everybody's a self-starter. As I told you, when I was doing, when I had the job in St. Louis, and that was the second highest paying gig I've ever had, it was like,

why should I sit in this room over here and do, you know, five episodes of the podcast? Even though I'm making solid money doing it, like, who needs it? I'm already crushing it over here. Why do I have to put in that extra effort? Now I'm putting in all the extra effort because I ain't making that catch anymore. Again, I'm up at 4 o'clock in the morning every day. I get here about 4.30 and knock out at least four of those before I go on the air. Anyway, more to come.