Sherrone Moore to Pat McAfee: I’m gonna run Michigan football my way

Love Coach’s mentality! #GoBlue

Sherrone Moore is not Jim Harbaugh, and he knows that. And he’s not going to try to deviate from who he is to look like a facsimile of his mentor.

Moore is Harbaugh’s protege, and his unit — the offensive line — was the heartbeat of Michigan football over the past three years. So you can expect that the Wolverines won’t have anything resembling an overhaul as you may see with other coaching changes. But the first-year head coach for the maize and blue recognizes that in order to get the most out of his team, he has to be himself — instead of pretending to be Jim Harbaugh 2.0.

Appearing on the Pat McAfee Show on Thursday while on the road recruiting, Moore shared his coaching philosophy after taking over a program for the first time. He says don’t expect him to pretend to be anything he’s not, but he also says expect more of the same from what fans have seen over the past few years, too.

“The biggest thing people want to know is like, how am I gonna run the program compared to Coach (Harbaugh). I’m gonna run it my way,” Moore said. “And we’re still gonna be tough, we’re still gonna be smart, we’re gonna be dependable. We’re gonna be relentless in everything we do, continue the enthusiasm.

“The energy for me is a big piece of it. I want to be someone that the kids can rely on, they can be a vessel for, be very open with them. My philosophy in coaching is I coach hard but I love harder so they’re gonna feel that.

“The program and how we’ve done it and how we built it, it’s gonna be the same. There’s gonna be bits and pieces that is me — I’m gonna be me. I can’t be Coach, don’t want to be Coach. Coach is his own person. I love him, got mad love for him and always will and respect him and learned so much. But I’m gonna run the program my way.”

In case you thought that another head coach meant going in a different direction, think again.

When Ryan Day took over Ohio State from Urban Meyer, the onus in recruiting switched from building from inside out, from the line play to the skill position players, to getting elite skill players more than those in the trenches.

Moore doesn’t intend on making the same mistake, as he’s out on the road looking for high-level ‘blue-collar’ guys to fill out his roster. He told McAfee that he will find the types of players he’s looking for out on the recruiting trail.

“Yeah, I don’t know if there’s a plethora, but there’s enough,” Moore said. “There’s enough out there that will do it. And we’re gonna go find them.”