Expectations for Michigan football coming off the national championship in 2023 were through the roof, but perhaps they shouldn’t have been.
Of course, the Wolverines lost coach Jim Harbaugh, as well as a bunch of personnel. But with longtime assistant Sherrone Moore taking the helm of the program, it was thought he would be a stabilizing force who could still potentially will the maize and blue into the 12-team College Football Playoff.
However, the season hasn’t exactly gone that way. The Wolverines have limped to a 5-5 record through 10 games. The defense has taken a step back — in some games, it’s by a little, in others by a lot — while the offense barely looks above high school capability. Thus, when asked about which first-year coaches they’re concerned about, ESPN’s Heather Dinich and Adam Rittenberg came up with the same name. (subscription required)
Dinich: Michigan’s Sherrone Moore is at the top of the list of coaches who have struggled. The Wolverines have slid from their national championship season to a middling 5-5 team that doesn’t have a dependable quarterback. Moore should get a bit of a mulligan because of the situation he inherited when Jim Harbaugh left for the NFL, but it’s still mind-blowing that a program such as Michigan — coming off its best season in decades — has tried three different quarterbacks and ranks No. 129 in the country in passing offense. The pressure is on Moore to dip into the portal or find the next Arch Manning.
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Rittenberg: I’ve seen Michigan in person three times, and certainly share the concerns about Moore. The quarterback issue is one thing and, like you said, can be tied at least in part to the coaching transition and what sources have told me about Harbaugh’s hesitancy to add a notable transfer last December. Still, the idea of pinning your offense to Jack Tuttle, who was coming off surgery on his throwing elbow and was, as we found out, one concussion away from retiring from football, rather than adding a transfer in the spring portal, seemed shortsighted. The other issue that has surfaced is game management. Trailing Indiana 17-3 at halftime, Michigan ran the ball on third-and-7 from the Hoosiers’ 46-yard line on its first possession of the third quarter, gaining four yards before punting. Two possessions later, Michigan ran for a yard on third-and-6 from the Indiana 39, only to attempt a long field goal rather than go for a first down. Most egregiously, Michigan allowed more than 20 seconds to elapse before calling timeout after an 8-yard Indiana run in the closing seconds. The Hoosiers ran out the clock moments later. We didn’t see those game-management errors from Moore when he filled in for Harbaugh late last season. Definitely an area to clean up for 2025.
We’re in agreement with the ESPN duo both on the problems that Moore and the Wolverines face as well as that he can fix the issues. Some coaching and-or philosophy changes as well as hitting the transfer portal for an elite quarterback, receivers, and potentially patching the offensive line (yes, that’s most of the offense) could help revamp things quickly. While that seems like a lot, we’re seeing a renewed effort by Michigan football with name, image and likeness licensing, and we’ve also seen teams pull a 180 quickly now that the college football offseason landscape has changed so dramatically.