For someone who came to the program via Central Michigan in 2018 with little fanfare as the tight ends coach, the ascension has to be somewhat surreal.
Such is the case for first-year Michigan football head coach Sherrone Moore, who worked his way up the ladder from being a position coach on offense to offensive line coach to offensive coordinator and finally the headman of the entire program.
The move to install Moore as the Wolverines head coach happened very quickly. Jim Harbaugh was doing his annual ‘maybe I’ll go the NFL’ dance, but it suddenly happened — he took the Los Angeles Chargers job. While it was obvious that Moore would likely be the next man up, he was going about his business and essentially found out along with everyone else that Harbaugh was leaving — though he did have something of a heads up.
“I was in the Houston airport heading to Dallas,” Moore told Joel Klatt. “And I just talked to Coach (Harbaugh) probably like three hours before that. And he’s kind of like, ‘Yeah, I don’t know what’s going to happen. I think it could happen soon. It could happen today could happen tomorrow could happen next week.’ And I was like, ‘OK, it’s gonna happen. At some point, I just got to be ready.’ And he called — I saw it, I was going through baggage claim, or going through the TSA. And it popped up on my phone, ‘Jim Harbaugh to the Chargers.’ I was like, OK.
“And that second phone, (beeping noises) and text messages, calls, text messages, calls. Our AD, our assistant AD calls. ‘Hey, you got to come back right now.’ So I did an interview that next day and got the job. On Saturday, the press conference, was on the road recruiting on Monday. And it was just a humbling experience.”
With that in mind, there was no other option than Moore. Though some outlets put together lists detailing who could get the Michigan job, those close to the program (like us here at WolverinesWire) knew that there would be one call and one interview for the position.
That process, in and of itself, was a whirlwind. Moore detailed with Joel Klatt what happened there, as well.
“I felt honored. I felt like all the hard work that I put in with this team and these players had really come to fruition,” Moore said. “And I mean, it was something that you can’t really describe. But just very humbled to have — all over the nation, all the people, all the players, coaches, you and some media to say, ‘Hey, he should be the head coach at Michigan.’
“And, when I first got here seven years ago, I just wanted to be the best tight end coach I could be. At some point I wanted to call plays, I got a chance to do that with our young guys. And the opportunity to be the head coach here was really not in my mind. And so when this did take place, it was very humbling for me.”