Dave Portnoy worked with billionaire exec to get Bryce Underwood to Michigan

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 rig...