Number 1 Belleville on a 'revenge tour'

Mick McCabe
| Special to the Detroit Free Press

The excitement for the upcoming season has an added factor in Belleville.

It’s something gold medalist gymnast Simone Biles and Belleville five-star quarterback Bryce Underwood have in common.

Like Biles, Underwood is embarking on, as her coach puts it, her “revenge tour.”

It stems from Belleville’s shocking 36-32 loss in the Division 1 championship to Southfield A&T (and quarterback Isaiah Marshall) that ended last season.

What makes it more painful is that this came after championship game wins in Underwood’s freshman and sophomore seasons, leaving the 6-foot-4, 210-pound quarterback with a lot of resentment, even if it’s not visible to the naked eye.

“No doubt, for sure,” Underwood said. “I don’t have any hard feelings, but I do, for sure.”

The same goes for everyone else connected with Belleville football.

GETTING STARTED: Bryce Underwood and Belleville football ready for action in quest to reclaim Division 1 title

The Tigers had an impressive 38-game winning streak entering that championship game.

It left them with an itch they haven’t been able to scratch since that night at Ford Field.

To make matters worse, the Tigers were the heavy favorites that day to win their third consecutive state title.

Combine those factors and you can see why Belleville once again ranks No. 1 in the state heading into the season.

“After the loss, I’m going to be more on my stronger side this year,” said senior defenseman Adrian “AD” Walker, who has committed to Miami (Ohio). “I’m going to be more confident on the field, I’m going to be stronger, more physical.”

For the Tigers, it all begins and ends with Underwood, who has committed to LSU and is the consensus No. 1 quarterback in the country.

He has been a starter since day one of his freshman season and has had three brilliant first seasons.

Belleville coach Calvin Norman has seen growth in Underwood, on and off the field.

“It’s his leadership, his ability to control the offense,” Norman said. “He can read defenses and if he needs to change the play, he knows how to do it and the guys respond to him.”

Most high school quarterbacks, if given the opportunity to change the play at the line of scrimmage, would make an audible play that would require them to throw the ball 50 yards in the air.

Norman thinks Underwood is more mature than that.

“There were a couple of times where he had the whole offense to himself and he ran it perfectly,” Norman said. “He’s not the type of player where you give the quarterback control and all he does is throw long passes. Every pass he throws, he throws for a reason.”

Another reason Belleville is the favorite to win its third state title is the presence of Elijah Dotson, a 6-2 transfer from UD Jesuit.

Dotson, who has committed to Pittsburgh as a defensive back, is also a receiver, and playing with Underwood feels like Christmas morning to him.

“I knew how good he was,” Dotson said. “I’d never had a quarterback like that, so it makes my job a lot easier. It was less of a ‘Wow!’ and more of a ‘This is great.’”

Dotson transferred in December, had all spring and summer to work with Underwood, and it didn’t seem like long until they were on the same page.

“As soon as I got here, we just connected like that,” Dotson said, snapping his fingers. “We knew that to be a good team, he and I needed to have good chemistry.

“He already had chemistry with everyone else who had been there, but since I transferred I had to get that chemistry with him, but I think we have it now.”

While Underwood and Dotson have established a great connection, one of the things Dotson admires about Underwood is that he is an equal-opportunity quarterback.

That means Walker and Antwon Thomas, another Miami (Ohio) commit, will also be frequent targets for Underwood. Defenses can’t gang up on Dotson to stop Belleville’s passing attack.

“There’s no favoritism when it comes to throwing the ball,” Dotson said. “Everybody’s going to touch the ball. We have so many good receivers on the team that they can’t double-pass me because then AD is going to get the ball; they can’t double-pass AD because then Twon is going to get the ball.

“We have an elite receiving corps, so they can’t just focus on one person. It makes their job a lot easier and it makes our job a lot easier. Going one-on-one with any of us is going to be a long day for the defensive backs.”

Dotson knows exactly how long a day can be for a defensive back, as he plays against Underwood in practice. Defense is Dotson’s main emphasis and it can be painful when Underwood throws in his direction.

But if approached with the right mindset, Dotson said, it can pay dividends down the road.

“We train and he makes me improve a lot,” he said. “I knew I was a dog and he was the one who convinced me to come to Belleville. That makes me a better player, much more disciplined and allows me to pay much more attention to details.”

Those dividends are already pretty obvious. Linebacker and running back Ray-Mond Smith said Dotson’s presence in the secondary will make the defense even better than it was a year ago.

“It wasn’t hard to get used to Elijah, it was easy because his intelligence and football IQ are unbelievable,” Smith said. “It’s something I’ve never seen before. I love playing defense with him and having him behind me at safety, I feel more comfortable.”

Although this is only Norman’s second year as principal at Belleville, overall it is his 21st^streetseason running a program.

And yet, this season is already a new experience for Norman.

“I approach it differently because they approach it differently,” Norman said of his players. “They are led by the elders, which means that everything I ask them to do, they do without me forcing them to do it. They do it with great effort. They compete every day in training.

“Coaching these youngsters makes my job much easier. I have been coaching for a long time and I see a difference in them. It is a team led by the management.”

It’s actually Underwood’s team, and the other players are fine with that.

They look at all the time he’s put into preparing for this season and believe he’s shown improvement in every aspect.

“It’s better than last year,” Walker said. “It’s better in every way.”

Thomas believes there are also intangible factors at play that make Underwood unstoppable this fall and make a third state title possible.

“He has one goal: not to lose this year,” Thomas said. “This year he is better, but not just in throwing the ball, but in being a better person, a better human being. He also motivates people with the success he has, he strives to help people succeed.”

While preparing for this season, Underwood made sure he and his teammates worked hard in the offseason because their most recent visit to Ford Field ended with their only loss of the season.

“It should be an encouragement to everyone on this field,” he said of the loss to Southfield. “This summer was fun. We had fun, we got better.”

As a lot The best will begin to be determined at 4 p.m. Friday when the Tigers take on Clarkston in the Prep Kickoff Classic at Wayne State.

It’s that feeling of resentment from Underwood, much like the one Biles carried with her during the Paris Olympics, that may drive Belleville back to Ford Field.

“He doesn’t like to lose, so he’s on a revenge tour,” Norman said. “The level he’s at means that the other players have to get to that level. They have a mission, and you can see that in training every day.”

Mick McCabe is a former columnist for the Detroit Free Press. Contact him at [email protected]. Follow him @mickmccabe1Order his book, “Mick McCabe’s Golden Yearbook: 50 Great Years of Michigan’s Best High School Players, Teams & Memories,” now at McCabe.PictorialBook.com.

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Number 1 Belleville on a ‘revenge tour’

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