Few schools create quarterback drama quite like Michigan, but heading into 2025, the hype was all about five-star freshman Bryce Underwood seizing QB1. Competing against transfer Mikey Keene and returning star Jadyn Davis, the battle wasn’t much of a battle because Underwood’s immense upside kept him comfortably ahead in spring practice. Yet ask die-hard Wolverine fans, and many would say the competition would’ve been infinitely juicier if Davis Warren, the comeback king, were fully healthy and in the mix.

Warren, who overcame leukemia to become Michigan’s beloved starter, suffered a major setback in the ReliaQuest Bowl win over Alabama. Late in the third quarter, a hard sack to the right sideline sent him to the medical tent and then straight to the hospital. Test results confirmed the worst: a torn ACL in his right knee. That moment not only changed Warren’s trajectory but instantly shifted the quarterback landscape for head coach Sherrone Moore, removing one of the most respected leaders in the locker room from the upcoming battle for snaps.

“It’s coming along. Obviously, sucks to end the year like that…sitting on an MRI table in Tampa and then getting the news a couple hours later, that you know about the worst news you could think of in terms of an ACL,” Warren confessed to Champ Media, reflecting on the crushing sequence that followed his injury.

Still, if you know Davis, you know it never ends in self-pity. His optimism is infectious, saying, “I was kind of just like, ‘Nope, I’m not going to accept it until I hear it from somebody who’s smarter than me. And they weren’t totally sure in the test, so obviously wanted to confirm with an MRI.” Davis Warren’s methodical approach since surgery has him progressing, even running and throwing, as he puts steady faith in the Wolverine medical team for his return.

The QB said further, “It is, you know, a 9- to 12-month injury. So, yep, you can kind of do the math yourself. But hopefully in these next couple of weeks, we will have some more lab testing and will have a more concrete timeline. But I’ve been out running, been moving around well, throwing a pretty good amount. And I really felt like I’ve turned a corner in the last month or so. It’s been feeling a lot better. Feeling like I can move around and, you know, I’m not thinking about it all the time like I was.” 

Warren has come back before. He beat cancer and won the tough competition for the Michigan starting job, then led huge wins against rivals Ohio State and Alabama during a bruising campaign. In the fight to return from an ACL, Davis Warren is drawing on the same grit and heart that made him a Michigan hero in the first place. Few would bet against him being back in the mix before long, pushing Underwood and showing yet again that no setback, not even a knee injury, can keep Warren down for good.

Leukemia battle forged Davis Warren’s resolve

The first sign that something was wrong came during a routine workout in March 2019, when the usually unstoppable junior couldn’t finish his bench-press warm-up. Within days, doctors at Children’s Hospital LA confirmed acute myeloid leukemia. His mother, Terri, still remembers the shock: “Davis had never missed a day of school because of sickness,” she said. “It was just weird for him to say, ‘I don’t feel great.’” That bewilderment quickly turned into a months-long hospital stay for four rounds of chemotherapy, each separated by a single week at home, an ordeal that would recalibrate every goal the young quarterback held.

Hematologist-oncologist Deepa Bhojwani pushed Warren to keep dreaming big, reminding him of another leukemia survivor who reached the NFL and urging, “Don’t change any of your plans.” The pep talk landed. Reflecting on those words, Warren later explained, “Hope is an incredibly powerful medicine.” Even while tethered to IV poles, he pedaled a hospital-supplied exercise bike and sneaked outside to toss footballs with his dad, visualizing the very throw he would make two months after ringing CHLA’s victory bell: a 25-yard strike on the opening play of his comeback game.

That memory fuels today’s ACL rehab as much as any athletic trainer’s script. “I wasn’t going to let cancer define who I was or who I wanted to be in my life,” Warren said, framing his past battle as a template for his present one. When frustration creeps in after knee-stability drills, he leans on the same mantra he carried through chemotherapy: set a date, attack the plan, prove the odds wrong. Beating leukemia turned uncertainty into conviction; returning from a torn ligament now feels like the next chapter, not an epilogue, in a career already powered by survival.