Former Michigan football linebacker Mike Barrett knows a little something about being underestimated.
Once a quarterback at the high school level in Georgia, Barrett came to the north and languished on the bench on the defensive side of the ball for years. He finally had his turn to thrive in 2020, but the defense was a step behind as a whole, and then-coordinator Don Brown lost his job as a result. With a schematic change defensively, Barrett, again, was sentenced to the bench — at least for a long while.
Then, over the course of the past two-and-a-half years, he made one play after another. It became clear in late 2021 that he had something, and by the end of his sixth year, 2023, fans didn’t want to see him leave.
While Barrett’s story is one of patience and perseverance, he doesn’t believe new Michigan head coach Sherrone Moore will need much of the former, because he’s got a ton of the latter.
At the NFL scouting combine, Barrett was asked about Moore being elevated to head coach. Though the reaction from the national media was tepid, the former Wolverines team captain is sure Michigan has the right guy leading the team moving forward.
“He’s gonna give it everything he has, man. He’s probably more than anybody in the country, I think,” Barrett said. “Coach Moore — I think a lot of people really underestimate him because they don’t really know him as much, know him as much of a coach. But now I feel like he’s gonna be — that’s probably the best hire they could have made. Honestly, when I heard that, I was in there jumping around, I was in there talking with him.
“But yeah, coach Moore, he’s a guy who’s gonna get everybody fired up regardless of offense, defense, regardless of the position, he’s gonna get everybody — when it’s time to lock in, he gonna get them locked in. He knows the game plan, he’s gonna get the guys ready to execute the game plan. And yeah, I’m excited to see what he’s gonna do.”
While many think the Wolverines will be good next year, just about everyone expects them to take a step back from the national championship season in 2023. Given the personnel losses, that makes sense, but the foundation is still there for the team to be elite, Barrett believes.
When it comes to what Moore, the new coaching staff, and the players Barrett and his ilk have passed the torch to need to do, the outgoing linebacker believes that the best course of action is to keep doing what the team has been doing. If Moore can do that, the team should be in good hands.
“Just keeping the culture,” Barrett said. “I feel like over the years I was there, it was a culture that was built and just being able to really just lock into that. Not really get deterred by everything that’s going on. Just kind of stay on that one-track mind that we always talked about and just being able to focus on the job at hand and just going out there and kicking (expletive deleted) every week-to-week.
“So yeah, it’s just keeping that in front of the mind, just not letting everything — outside noise really getting in and just continue to grind. They know the kind of work that it takes, what kind of work it takes on a day-to-day basis and just continuing to do that.”