Not many believed that Michigan football stood much of a chance in flipping 2025 Belleville (Mich.) five-star quarterback Bryce Underwood from LSU, but the Wolverines put a coalition together, and on Thursday last week, it paid off.
After the initial reports, many Wolverines fans praised Barstool Sports president Dave Portnoy for securing the No. 1 recruit in the country for the maize and blue due to his outspoken desire to handle the NIL for a transfer quarterback, but that doesn’t speak to what actually happened.
As Portnoy tells it, he was in communication with Michigan about his offer to pay up to $3 million per year for a transfer, and they connected him with Oracle founder Larry Ellison — currently the second-richest person in the world — and his wife Jolin, a graduate from UM Ann Arbor who, after just half a season of mediocrity this year, didn’t want to go back to the moribund years pre-Jim Harbaugh’s arrival. So they hatched a plan, got Underwood on a videoconferencing call, and went to work.
The story of how I met the Ellisons, Bryce Underwood flipped to Michigan, and the future of Michigan NIL changed forever pic.twitter.com/g7chi35bs9
— Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) November 26, 2024
The Ellisons don’t appear to be singular benefactors as Michigan looks to surround Underwood with more talent, both in his recruiting class as well as via the transfer portal. They operated under the radar until Underwood’s commitment, but now, certainly, the couple will be considered heroes in Ann Arbor.