Michigan football finally end Jim Harbaugh coach Replacement as Sherrone Moore set start in next 48hours….
The days following the Ohio State game in recent years have served as an extended celebration of sorts inside Schembechler Hall.
The positive, upbeat mood held behind the scenes spills out into the public, where coaches are unafraid to reveal aspects of the game plan that helped contribute to the victory and players oftentimes reflect on the season that was.
Even with another game on the horizon — and the Big Ten championship on the line — emotion is abundant.
That was no different this year, when Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh joined a video teleconference with reporters a day after his team’s 30-24 win and gave a rare opening statement to reporters, telling them how proud he was of his assistant coaches for holding down the fort. Harbaugh had just concluded a three-game suspension handed down by the Big Ten and its first-year commissioner Tony Petitti, who found the Wolverines’ alleged in-person scouting ring currently under the NCAA microscope to be a violation of the league’s sportsmanship policy, and effectively returned like he had left it: His team still unbeaten and on track to return to the College Football Playoff.
“If you praise one, you have to give credit to all who contributed,” Harbaugh, now with three Big Ten championships in nine seasons, said on the call. “So many players, so many coaches — especially Sherrone Moore. Not a thing I would have changed in the way he called the game. Huge shoutout to Sherrone.
That effusive praise continued a day later inside Schembechler, when Harbaugh stood behind a lectern for his weekly game-week news conference and bestowed the title of “Michigan Man” upon Moore, a 37-year-old assistant with zero ties to the school or program before arriving in Ann Arbor in 2018.
“I’m not saying I’m in a position of granting who ‘A Michigan Man’ is or isn’t, or who a Michigan legend is or is not,” Harbaugh said. “I’m not the maker of those two lists, but I have nominated people before and —” pounding the table in front of him — “I nominate Sherrone Moore as a Michigan legend.
According to Harbaugh, he passed with flying colors — orchestrating a ground-and-pound offensive scheme to beat Penn State on the road, staving off a feisty Maryland team on the road, and beating Ryan Day and the Buckeyes for a third straight year — drawing a handshake, a pat on the back and shared podium time as Michigan began its preparations to play Iowa in the Big Ten championship.
The scene played out like the proverbial passing of the baton — except it wasn’t. Harbaugh was set to return to the sideline for the Big Ten championship, and he did, and ensuing playoff run. The Wolverines locked up the No. 1 seed in the College Football Playoff, where they will play Alabama in the Rose Bowl on Jan. 1 (5 p.m. ET, ESPN).
But with the end of the season nearing, a contract extension on the table for Harbaugh (he has three years remaining on his current deal at Michigan) and NFL jobs beginning to open up, it’s a fair question to ask: Could Moore be Michigan’s coach-in-waiting?
“All I really want to do is try and beat Iowa,” Moore told reporters when asked about what’s next. “I haven’t thought about any of that, or what those last weeks (have done for me). I just want to help the program and do what I can do to help the players in those positions.
In reality, though, the idea of becoming a head coach has long crossed Moore’s mind. In a 2018 sit-down interview with MLive shortly after his arrival at Michigan, Moore expressed interest in becoming a college head coach one day — and those familiar with his trajectory say he’s on the way to becoming one.
After beginning his coaching career at Louisville, Moore quickly rose up the ranks at nearby Central Michigan — where he started as tight ends coach and was later promoted to assistant head coach and recruiting coordinator under John Bonamego, a longtime NFL special teams coordinator. His knack for connecting with players and developing tight ends was apparent from the start, Bonamego would later tell me, putting him on the fast track to one day becoming a head coach.
