Michigan called in the big guns to get new star quarterback Bryce Underwood to flip his college commitment.
Portnoy, who is watching his Wolverines struggle this season thanks to a dismal quarterback situation, said on one of his podcasts that he would devote millions in NIL money to help his alma mater land QBs in the future.
Someone from the university saw this and put the football in motion.
“It all started from the pick ’em when I said, ‘You know I’m going to go get us a quarterback. And I’ll put my own money, you know, two-to-three million into this thing, and this will never happen again,’” Portnoy said on Barstool Sports’ college football show. “And that started the ball rolling on what will be known forever as the Renaissance of Michigan.”
Then Michigan started making some calls to make this happen.
“I got a call from the Michigan football team,” Portnoy said. “They said, ‘Hey, there’s this donor who wants to talk to you.’ I said that I’m doing this by myself and I don’t need to talk to anybody. And they said, ‘Please, this woman is a big fan of Barstool and you; she’d love to talk to you. Her name is Jolin. … They said her husband is a guy by the name of Larry Ellison, you ever heard of him?’”
The mention of Ellison, a C-level executive of Oracle with a net worth of $240 billion, quickly got Portnoy on the phone.
“And I said Larry Ellison? You mean the No. 2 richest man on the planet? Yeah, I’ll take that call,” Portnoy said.
From there, they plotted their next move: to get Underwood — who stars at Michigan’s Belleville High School — to stay home.
“She [Jolin Ellison] said, ‘I never want to live that era ever again. I can’t stomach waking up on a Saturday knowing we’re not the best team on the field,” Portnoy said. “Jolin said on that first call, ‘I needed somebody from Michigan to step up and show they cared as much as I did.’ And then it was like the mega-powers united.”
She found the right guy. Portnoy graduated from Michigan in 1999, the same year as Tom Brady.
Brady also played a role in landing Underwood as he FaceTimed with him recently, according to CBS Sports.
The Underwood flip from LSU to Michigan had been in the works since October, and it came to fruition on Nov. 21 when he posted a commitment video to his Instagram.
Underwood was reportedly offered $1.5 million per year to play for LSU, and Michigan’s offer was rumored to have been $10 million for four years ($2.5 million annually), though some reports have the number as high as $12 million now.
Standing at 6-foot-3, Underwood looks to be a big-time prospect coming out of Michigan.
LSU coach Brian Kelly has tried to keep focus on his current Tigers team, which is 7-4 and out of the College Football Playoff picture.
“Recruiting doesn’t mean a whole heck of a lot when you’re talking about your football team in the present,” Kelly said after they defeated Vanderbilt on Saturday. “Yeah, you’re disappointed because you’ve put many, many years into recruiting, but it really didn’t affect the core of what we wanted to accomplish, and that was we wanted to finish this football game.”
LSU has a storied history of success with quarterbacks being drafted in the first round, most notably Jayden Daniels and Joe Burrow immediately turning into superstars, while Michigan hasn’t had that same rich history behind center.
Although Brady, while not being a blue chip prospect, is a Michigan alumnus and widely considered the greatest quarterback in NFL history.
