Inside The Huskies

Huskies Offer Scholarship to No. 1-Rated QB for Class of 2025

Bryce Underwood from Belleville, Michigan, soon is going to be the next thing in football recruiting.

Dan Raley

In this story:

Bryce Underwood, a quarterback who stands so tall and poised in the pocket, might remind some people of Michael Penix Jr.

At 6-foot-3 and 205 pounds, he bears a physical resemblance to the University of Washington standout, needing just eight more pounds to match the other guy's dimensions exactly. 

Yet there are two noticeable differences between Underwood and Penix. 

He's right-handed.

Oh yeah, Underwood is just 15.

Youth, however, has not stopped the talented Michigan signal-caller from leading his Belleville High School Tigers to a pair of state championships and a 27-1 record with him as the starter behind center.

With everyone beginning to crowd around him, Kalen DeBoer's UW coaching staff made a scholarship offer on Tuesday to Underwood, a 5-star recruit who now has 23 college football pitches.

Underwood is rated as the No. 1 player and and sixth overall for the 2025 recruiting class.

As a freshman, he threw for 2,888 yards and 39 touchdowns, and ran for six more, in leading Belleville to the Division 1 state championship and a 13-1 season.

Turning into a 10th-grader, Underwood backed up his sensational first season with an even more impressive sophomore showing.

He led the Tigers to a 14-0 record by passing for 2,751 yards and 37 touchdowns, and running for 642 yards and 8 more scores.

In the quarterfinals, Underwood led Belleville to a 33-10 victory over Catholic Central from Detroit with heavy snow flakes falling all around him.

A week later in the state semis, the savvy quarterback took on a tackler at the goal line and dove in for a game-deciding, two-point conversion to provide his team with a 29-28 overtime win over Cass Tech.

In the recent title game, Underwood threw for 155 yards and 3 touchdowns and ran for 149 yards, including 48 for a TD, in directing his team to a 35-17 victory over Caledonia.

"He has unbelievable poise not only for his age, but for anyone," said former Belleville High coach Jermain Crowell.

Did we forget to mention that Underwood is just 15?

His hometown of Belleville is a lakeside destination that can be found halfway between Ann Arbor and Detroit, 20 miles in both directions. The rich and famous of the likes of Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh used to have summer homes there. More currently, it is considered the birthplace of techno music.

Now Belleville has everyone talking excitedly about its quarterback prodigy. Underwood is so good at such a young age he holds scholarship offers from Michigan Michigan State, Notre Dame, Tennessee, Miami, Minnesota, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Kentucky, Louisville, Missouri and the Huskies, among others. 

Of course, because he's just 15, they'll have to wait. He still has two high school seasons left to play.

 

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Dan Raley
DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.

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