coach Kyle Whittingham<\/a> noted the extenuating circumstances: Underwood was an 18-year-old freshman who didn\u2019t get much opportunity to develop. Michigan is banking that new offensive coordinator Jason Beck can unlock the potential that made Underwood such a coveted recruit.<\/p>\n\u201cThe expectations might have been a little high for him last year,\u201d Whittingham said. \u201cI don\u2019t know what people did expect, but he was able to win nine ballgames and put up some decent numbers. He knows and we know that those numbers have to improve, but given the circumstances, I thought he did some good things.\u201d<\/p>\n
Underwood completed 60 percent of his passes with 11 touchdowns and nine interceptions while throwing for 187 yards per game. Underwood had a lot of work to do on his fundamentals, Whittingham said, particularly in refining his footwork. Underwood\u2019s offseason included trips to Southern California to train with quarterback specialist Jordan Palmer and Bengals star Joe Burrow.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was amazing just to watch how calm he was at all times,\u201d Underwood said. \u201cIt was just real refreshing, honestly, to see some of the things I could take from him.\u201d \u2014 Austin Meek<\/p>\n
Ryan Day still wants schedule changes<\/p>\n
Eight months after losing to Miami in a CFP quarterfinal in the Cotton Bowl, the Ohio State coach said that his team didn\u2019t handle the nearly four-week layoff after the Big Ten Championship Game well against the Hurricanes. Ohio State fell behind 14-0 to Miami before losing 24-14.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a really good plan going into it, but I don\u2019t think we played very well in the first half,\u201d Day said. \u201cWe found ourselves in a hole and ran out of time, because we couldn\u2019t finish things off.\u201d<\/p>\n
While acknowledging that he, and his coaching staff, have to do a better job of preparing his players, he said he has voiced his concerns about the scheduling to Petitti. If Day had his way, the entire season would be moved up one week to narrow the gap between the end of the regular season and the postseason, move the semifinals to New Year\u2019s and play the championship game a week after that.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat would allow us to end the season sooner, open up the (transfer) portal, finish the season and then put your roster together, which would all make much more sense to me,\u201d Day said. \u201cBut it\u2019s college football, so we\u2019re going to adapt because nobody cares. We better figure it out, because we\u2019re going to be in that situation again. Hopefully, really soon.\u201d \u2014\u00a0Cameron Teague Robinson<\/p>\n
A first for Fitzgerald<\/p>\n
The first-year Michigan State coach returned to his hometown Wednesday to attend his 18th Big Ten media days. But this was the first where Pat Fitzgerald wore a green tie, not purple.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s considerable curiosity surrounding the 51-year-old\u2019s return to the Big Ten after a three-year exile following his ouster at alma mater Northwestern in July 2023 following an investigation into hazing allegations in his program. But he was quick to correct reporters who referred to him being \u201cout of coaching.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not trying to minimize your question,\u201d he said. \u201cI just never felt like I was out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fitzgerald, who reached a settlement with Northwestern last August in his $130 million wrongful termination suit, spent the past three football seasons as a \u201cvolunteer parent\u201d assistant coach at Chicago\u2019s Loyola Academy. One of his sons, Ryan (now a walk-on at Iowa), was a quarterback for back-to-back state title teams in 2023 and \u201924, and another son, Brendan, is a receiver there. (He recently committed to Michigan State as a preferred walk-on.)<\/p>\n
\u201cI learned a lot. I\u2019m a better teacher,\u201d Fitzgerald said. \u201cWhen you\u2019re teaching a young guy how to run a curl route, and he\u2019s like, \u2018What\u2019s a curl?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, there are understandable questions how Fitzgerald will adapt to modern roster acquisition, which has changed dramatically since 2023. Michigan State signed 32 transfers this past cycle. But the Spartans coach believes coaching itself is timeless.<\/p>\n
\u201cGuys want to be developed. They want to be coached,\u201d he said. \u201cOur staff motto is to be the best player development staff in the country.\u201d \u2014 Stewart Mandel<\/p>\n
Chesney\u2019s charm takes Chicago<\/p>\n
Bob Chesney was a big hit on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
The 48-year-old Pennsylvania native played and coached Division III football in his home state and coached at various levels in Georgia, Washington D.C., Maryland, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and for the past two seasons at James Madison in Harrisonburg, Va. And yet, the takeaway from nearly all who met him in Chicago was that Chesney appears a great fit at UCLA.<\/p>\n
Perhaps it\u2019s that simple \u2014 he fits anywhere. And with anyone. He\u2019s formed a bond in Los Angeles with Dave Roberts, manager of the Dodgers who served an adviser to the search committee that picked Chesney.<\/p>\n
Chesney also sought advice from Los Angeles Rams coach Sean McVay about handling the long distances that both of their teams must often travel to play on the road. The travel issue has kept Big Ten coaches on the West Coast up at night, worried over the logistics of long trips.<\/p>\n
UCLA\u2019s new coach is unlikely to overthink time-zone jumps and circadian rhythms. McVay told Chesney that if the Rams play in London, \u201cthey just show up.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey show up at 6 o\u2019clock the night before the game, get up in the morning and play the game and go home,\u201d Chesney said. \u201cThe belief is, they get in and get out and it never really hits them.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Bruins play this year at Maryland, Minnesota and Michigan. For Chesney, who grew accustomed to long bus trips while coaching at the lowest levels of college, UCLA\u2019s luxury travel, by comparison, seems manageable. \u2014 Mitch Sherman<\/p>\n
Mutual respect<\/p>\n
First-year Penn State coach Matt Campbell and Ferentz, his Iowa counterpart, battled against one another for 10 seasons in the state of Iowa, and the coaches\u2019 rhetoric generally featured muted respect amid the in-state rivalry. Now, with Campbell leaving Iowa State, the coaches are looser with their praise of one another. Ferentz called Campbell to Penn State \u201ca great marriage\u201d while the former Iowa State coach said, \u201cmy respect for coach Ferentz is second to none.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI teased him this May in our spring meetings that I\u2019ve been mad at him for a decade because I really had nothing to hate him about,\u201d Ferentz said. \u201cI just respect him as a coach and respect him as a person.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI sat right by him and tried to pick his brain with as much knowledge as I could,\u201d Campbell said. \u201cCoach did the same thing when I was at Iowa State. He was always willing to sit and talk and listen.\u201d \u2014 Dochterman<\/p>\n
\u2018I\u2019m getting killed on Twitter\u2019<\/p>\n
Nebraska hears the outside negativity after the Huskers lost consecutive games in lopsided style against Penn State, Iowa and Utah to end the 2025 season. Coach Matt Rhule kept a low profile this offseason. When he attended a New York Knicks playoff game in April at Madison Square Garden, some fans howled on social media that the coach should spend all of his time at work for the Huskers.<\/p>\n
According to Rhule, that\u2019s exactly what he was doing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI take a donor to the Knicks game,\u201d he said. \u201cI spend my own money to get the donor there. I get the tickets. We sit with the GM and the president. I\u2019m doing all this in the service of the university, and I\u2019m getting killed on Twitter.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can say whatever you want, you can\u2019t say I don\u2019t work hard.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last fall in working to generate visibility for his program, Rhule co-hosted a weekly podcast and made regular appearances on \u201cThe Pat McAfee Show.\u201d He likely won\u2019t do much of that this season, Rhule said. Of course, with players and staff, it\u2019s impossible to block out all the noise.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I could get everyone in our building not to listen to anyone outside of our building, I would,\u201d Rhule said. \u2014 Sherman<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHICAGO \u2014 The Big Ten has won three consecutive College Football Playoff championships, sent six programs to the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":796904,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[1607,399,13424,6815,13427,13421,1777,7560,13423,398,396,397,12695,13425,1776,5693,5694,13426,13422,99,17392,14034,3350,7561],"class_list":["post-796903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-college-football","tag-football","tag-illinois-fighting-illini","tag-indiana-hoosiers","tag-iowa-hawkeyes","tag-maryland-terrapins","tag-michigan-wolverines","tag-michigan-state-spartans","tag-minnesota-golden-gophers","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-nebraska-cornhuskers","tag-northwestern-wildcats","tag-ohio-state-buckeyes","tag-oregon-ducks","tag-penn-state-nittany-lions","tag-purdue-boilermakers","tag-rutgers-scarlet-knights","tag-sports","tag-ucla-bruins","tag-usc-trojans","tag-washington-huskies","tag-wisconsin-badgers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=796903"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796903\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/796904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=796903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=796903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=796903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/2026-07-30T190541Z_557087023_MT1USATODAY29481938_RTRMADP_3_NCAA-FOOTBALL-BIG-TEN-MEDIA-DAYS-scaled-e.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n