Dave Portnoy posted on X on Monday that Bryce Underwood belongs in the Heisman Trophy conversation if he keeps playing the way he has, two days after Michigan beat No. 11 Oklahoma 17-10 at Michigan Stadium.

“I said it kind of joking, but if Bryce Underwood keeps playing the way he does you’ll have to start talking about him for the Heisman,” the Barstool Sports founder wrote.

Underwood carried 18 times for 87 yards against the Sooners, a team high, and opened the scoring with a 38-yard touchdown run in the first quarter.

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Michigan’s defense did the rest of the job, holding Oklahoma to 10 points and forcing two turnovers, the second a Jyaire Hill interception late in the fourth quarter that set up Jordan Marshall’s tiebreaking one-yard touchdown run.

Oklahoma lost linebacker Kip Lewis to a knee injury in the first half, which thinned out one of the better defenses Underwood will run against this season. The Wolverines are 2-0 and should return to the AP Top 25 after voters voted them out of the top 25, which I think is due to their controversial win over Western Michigan.

I said it kind of joking, but if Bryce Underwood keeps playing the way he does you’ll have to start talking about him for the Heisman pic.twitter.com/oXQKHuWGX8

— Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) September 14, 2026

What the current Heisman board actually rewards

Underwood completed 9 of 17 passes for 111 yards against Oklahoma, and Michigan gained 263 yards on 58 plays. Across two games he is 21 of 39 for 281 yards with one touchdown and one interception, and 47 of those yards arrived on the Hail Mary to JJ Buchanan that beat Western Michigan after a second was restored to the game clock.

Miami’s Darian Mensah and Ohio State receiver Jeremiah Smith shares the top spot on the DraftKings board, according to SI, heading into Week 3, with Texas quarterback Arch Manning third at +850 after his fourth-quarter comeback against the Buckeyes.

Mensah went into the weekend having completed 41 of 45 passes for 653 yards and eight touchdowns, and his 401-yard opener against Stanford alone beat Underwood’s season passing total by 120 yards. Outside that leading group, no player on the board is priced shorter than +5000, and that is where a Heisman case built on 18 carries and a defense that allowed 10 points currently sits. Michigan has won its two games by a combined eight points, so its not much of a big deal, and its too early for the whole hype.

Kyle Whittingham, in his first season at Michigan, spent the week before the game putting a condition on the job.

“He’s our QB right now, It’s not something that’s infinite. At some point, we’ve got to turn a corner, and we’ve got to see improvement.” Whittingham said.

Underwood said afterward that he had been unaware of the remarks. Once the game ended, Whittingham told Fox that Underwood delivered a great response and played an excellent game, then set out what still has to change.

“We understand we’ve got to throw the ball a lot better,” he said. “We can’t just sit there and rely on running the ball.”

Portnoy, a Michigan graduate, helped assemble the NIL package that flipped Underwood, the No. 1 overall recruit in the 2025 class, from LSU in November 2024, after connecting with Jolin Zhu, the wife of Oracle founder Larry Ellison and a Michigan alumna herself.

Last December, following a home loss to Ohio State in which Underwood struggled to move the offense, Portnoy said on The Triple Option that he would not fund a renegotiation if his quarterback asked for one. “I’m out of it,” he said. Nine months later, this is Dave again, raising the Heisman.