It’s not quite the same as it was when Michigan football offered then eighth-grade quarterback Dante Moore, but it’s somewhat close.
The Wolverines already had extended an offer to a 2028 quarterback in Bradenton (Fla.) IMG Academy signal caller Jayden Wade, who is starting to blow up even at such an early stage. But the maize and blue have now also extended an offer to another rising quarterback, this one from their backyard.
Though Michigan hasn’t had much luck recently at going after in-state prospects who blow up early, the coaching staff is trying to reverse that trend. On Tuesday, 2028 Detroit (Mich.) Cass Tech quarterback Donald Tabron II reported that the Wolverines have offered after he won MVP at a school-hosted camp in Ann Arbor.
Tabron also has offers from Kentucky, Marshall, Maryland, and Penn State. With so many schools starting to get involved even though Tabron is an incoming freshman in high school, that indicates that his recruitment will likely be a fully national one.
Itâs been a long time coming but Michigan football managed to secure a top-priority target kicking off the month of June.
Recruiting has been a big deal for the maize and blue but the Wolverines havenât had much to show for it. Sitting at five commitments entering the most pivotal month, the hope for the period where Michigan started hosting a slate of official visitors was that targets would start filling out the class.
Though June 21 kicks off the pivotal âvictors weekend,â the second week of visits managed to produce some fruit with the commitment of 2025 Palatine (Ill.) four-star defensive lineman Jaylen Williams.
BREAKING: Four-Star DL Jaylen Williams has Committed to Michigan, he tells me for @on3recruits
The 6â6 250 DL from Palatine, IL chose the Wolverines over Tennessee, Nebraska, & Texas A&M
Williams chose Michigan football over Nebraska, Purdue and Tennessee. He also had offers from Auburn, Florida, Florida State, Iowa, Ohio State, Oregon, Texas A&M, USC, and others.
Tall, long frame with athleticism and a basketball background. Gets off the ball with quickness and makes a good number of negative plays in the backfield. Runs by his high school competition quite a bit or wins quickly with his size and strength. Will need to get more technically adept at shedding against more even competition in college. Has a little bit of experience standing up, but we’re likely looking at a 290-300+ pound hand-down college lineman. He fits very well in an odd-front as an end. In a 4-3, he could be a combo guy but will likely grow into more of an interior player in that scheme. Still learning and has rawness to his game, but has clear high-major physical gifts and plays the game hard which is a good foundation.
247Sports has Williams rated as a four-star at No. 153 overall, the 20th-best defensive lineman and No. 5 player in the state of Illinois.
Ohio State misses out on four-star tackle #GoBucks
Most of the news surroundings Ohio State football recruiting has been positive, but we do have some relatively bad news to report. It appears the Buckeyes have missed out on a four-star offensive tackle recruit in the class of 2025. Ziyare Addison, who is a Florida native and has committed to a rival Big Ten school, conference newcomer, Oregon.
Ohio State made the final five in the Addison sweepstakes along with Georgia, Michigan and UCLA, but in the end he decided to become a Duck. Many saw this as a the most likely possibility and the timing makes sense considering he visited Eugene over the weekend. However, it is a bit of a blow to some Buckeye fans.
That being said, recruits flipping have never been more abundant than right now, and with the emergence of name, image and likeness, many times these commitment flips don’t occur until signing day, so there is no shame in keeping your fingers crossed that Addison still become a Buckeye.
Contact/Follow us @BuckeyesWire on X (formerly Twitter) and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Ohio State news, notes and opinion. Follow Josh Keatley on X.
One of the big questions this offseason is how, if at all, will Michigan football differ now that Sherrone Moore is the man in charge, compared to his predecessor, Jim Harbaugh. After all, the Wolverines’ turnaround starting in 2021 coincided with Moore being elevated from tight ends coach to offensive line coach and co-offensive coordinator. The identity of the maize and blue the past few years has had entirely to do with offensive line play and physicality up front.
Speaking with Joel Klatt on his podcast, Moore says that he was a big part of the identity shift that happened in the past. And thus shared the tenets of what his teams will look like now that he’s the head coach.
“That philosophy on how we do things will ring true, the same on how we did it last year, in the years in the past, because I had a big hand in that,” Moore said. “But there’ll be some different changes in what we do, but, to my core, we’re gonna be physical, we’re gonna be tough. We’re gonna try to outlast people. We’re gonna be multiple in every phase, and we’re gonna be fundamentally sound and balanced in what we do.”
Klatt then asked the question we all were wondering about — how will he be different than Jim Harbaugh? What obvious differences will we see?
Moore, in typical fashion, wasn’t ready to divulge anything — especially considering that the future opponents don’t need to know anything until they’re facing something wildly different on the field live.
“I guess we’re gonna have to see,” Moore said, tongue-in-cheek. “I don’t know yet.”
Moore called it ‘the most important drive in #Michigan history.’ #GoBlue
Was it the most important drive in Michigan football history? If you ask the current Wolverines head coach, he would say it was — at least that was his thought at the time.
Now Sherrone Moore is the head coach of the maize and blue but when the Wolverines were down, 20-13, to Alabama late in the fourth quarter of the Rose Bowl, Moore was the offensive coordinator. Thus, he had the most nerve-wracking job of just about anyone in the world at that specific time on Jan. 1. He had to engineer a drive to ensure that his team had an opportunity to win and thus make it to the national championship game.
Easier said than done, to be sure.
Moore went in detail with Joel Klatt what it was like calling the plays for that final drive in regulation against the Crimson Tide, what was going through his mind, and how he made his decisions on each of the plays, starting with the fourth-and-2 pass from J.J. McCarthy to running back Blake Corum, keeping Michigan’s title hopes alive.
“I’m never really nervous to call a drive, never really anxious. That drive, I was looking around. I looked at the clock, I looked at the time, I said, ‘This is like the most important drive in Michigan football history,” Moore told Joel Klatt. “That’s how I thought of it and looked up to the sky and asked my grandpa like, ‘Hey, Pops, need some help here. Help me out. Love you.’
“And I’ll never forget, I was walking and all the linemen strapping their helmets on and J.J. comes up to me and said, ‘Hey, Pops, we got you.’ And I was like, ‘Oh yeah, we’re about to go score on this drive!’ And we’d been moving the ball a little bit but not as much. And that drive, we went down and scored on a fourth-and-2 call, so we ran it, had a play action on third-and-2 with Orji in the game. It didn’t work out, they had it covered. And it was fourth-and-2 and I knew coach (Harbaugh) was gonna say go for it.
“Fourth-and-2, I already knew what call we were gonna do. I knew the pick route, I knew what we were gonna do, knew how it had set up because we’d shifted in motion and made it look the same the whole game when we ran duo. And then they were calling out, ‘run!’ Yeah. And then Blake pops open and we go down the field and Roman gets the block in the back so guys are like, ‘Oh, no! We’re coming back!’ Like no, I think we still got the first down.
“And we got the first down, called the run option with J.J. we hadn’t run all game. It was set up — I was like, ‘OK, this is the time then.’ Came back to a play action that we actually called earlier in the game but the route spacing wasn’t right. We fixed it on the sideline and then Roman popped open and made an incredible catch, made the guy miss as he landed.
“And then the play that I called second I was actually going to call first. But I got a little closer and then all of a sudden called the play-action to Roman and slipped out and it was a touchdown.
“So that drive will hold true forever in my mind of how it went down at the time and what happened as a result.”
The day after Michigan football won the national championship, NCAA president Charlie Baker proclaimed that the Wolverines earned the title ‘fair and square.’ But that hasn’t stopped rival fans from claiming that there’s an asterisk next to the 2023 championship and that the hammer is coming down, yada, yada, yada.
That talk doesn’t faze those in Ann Arbor, as fans are excited about the championship still, nor does it faze those inside Schembechler Hall.
It started with Michigan’s win over Penn State, a game in which Jim Harbaugh was suspended. Just an hour before the biggest game of the year to that point, Sherrone Moore was alerted that he would be the acting head coach for the game. And he was incredibly emotional afterward, swearing on live TV following the win.
Joel Klatt asked Moore about that moment and he expounded on it, discussing the people who continue to assert that Michigan cheated to win that game and the national championship.
“And for the people on the outside who think our players didn’t win fairly or do something, or do that, it was just kind of like, ‘OK, bet,'” Moore told Joel Klatt. This is what we’re about. We’re gonna go attack the moment, we did. And now what can you say about us? Without our head coach, we proved ourselves right, that we can go win in this big environment.”
Of course, by that time of the season, Connor Stalions was long gone from the program. Michigan had its arm tied behind its back for that game, as well as the game against Ohio State, with Harbaugh still being suspended.
For Moore, he oddly thinks that such manufactured adversity helped the maize and blue because it kept the team motivated, to prove that it was good enough to win a championship, no matter the obstacles thrown their way.
“I think a little bit, I think they’re they were motivated by that, more than anything,” Moore said. “Winning the national championship, getting the national championship — because that’s all they talked about in the beginning of the year, after the TCU game last year. And we always talked about process over prize, and we knew what the prize was. Alright, let’s stop talking about the prize and let’s go attack the process of getting better every day. So we did that.
“And I think when all that stuff started to come out, it just added a little fuel to the fire just a little bit. And we didn’t need any but kind of glad you had a little fuel. It kept that chip, kept that boulder on their shoulder, even brighter, and they took it and ran with it.”
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.”
Michigan football currently has one tight end committed in the 2025 recruiting class in Alcoa (Tenn.) three-star Eli Owens. And the Wolverines have their sights set on another big prize in the 2025 recruiting class in Central Valley (Pa.) Southern Lehigh four-star Andrew Olesh, rated by 247Sports as the No. 84 player in the country overall. Olesh isn’t committed, but does appear to be trending more and more to the Wolverines, though Penn State looms large.
And now the Wolverines are setting their sights on some future classes.
Rock-solid with predictions, The Michigan Insider’s Steve Lorenz logged a 247Sports Crystal Ball prediction for an in-state prospect in the 2026 class in Orchard Lake (Mich.) Catholic Central three-star tight end Jack Janda.
Rated No. 434 overall and playing in Michigan’s backyard, the Wolverines could use a local product to start off the proceedings when it comes to building out the 2026 class.
Janda has some big-time offers from schools like Kentucky, Miami (Fla.), Oregon, and Wisconsin. At this juncture, there is no obvious timeline for his decision.
If these numbers are true, #Michigan isn’t just lagging behind, it’s being left in the dust.
There has been a lot of consternation in and around Ann Arbor about Michigan football recruiting in the light of name, image, and likeness. NIL completely changed the game and though it appeared years ago that the Wolverines would be one of the most poised to take advantage of such a new initiative, the maize and blue have fallen behind.
Under Jim Harbaugh (and continuing under Sherrone Moore), Michigan’s ethos has been ‘transformational, not transactional’ — that’s to say it’s not ‘pay-for-play.’ At other programs, recruits are essentially being induced, which is against the spirit (and technically rules) of NIL. But beyond that, with the transfer portal now being fully open and with players not needing to sit out for a year, coaches have to recruit their own roster. And sometimes, that means invoking the collectives and making sure that they match or exceed what other teams are willing to spend on the same players (which speaks to the rampant tampering that is now taking place).
Michigan’s collectives are targeting somewhere in the $10-15 million range, just to keep those star players it has. It turns out, even with those projected goals, that’s chump change compared to some other schools.
According to Football Scoop, Nebraska athletic director Troy Dannen spoke to the Cornusker collective ‘1890’ and shared that Ohio State and Oregon are spending $23 million. And for schools like those, they may or may not be adhering to the ‘transformational over transactional’ approach, particularly when it comes to the transfer portal.
We’ve got great advantages here. We don’t have debt; we have great reserves, we have a fan base, facilities, we have great advantages to addressing what lies ahead. Let’s talk about what happens in the next two years. NIL’s not coming in-house, it’s going to be replaced by something else. At Washington, our football program last year had an NIL budget of about $10 million and went to the national championship game. Oregon’s is 23; Ohio State’s is 23. Ours here is not even 10.
If that’s the case, considering it sounds as if teams like Washington and Nebraska are spending about the same as Michigan, there will be no way to keep up with those who are spending more freely.
Now, Michigan is working its way into NIL relevance by having partnered with Learfield and Altius Sports Partners as well as signing with the same agency used by Texas. However, those are only pieces to the puzzle at the moment. Considering these are tactics used by most big schools now and no one is in danger of following in SMU’s footsteps, there has to be some kind of, at least, middle ground where the Wolverines can be more competitive when it comes to landing high-profile recruits and transfers.
On the other hand, considering how the maize and blue just won the national championship built on team principles compared to a collection of ‘me-first’ individuals, there is a balance. There are certain types of players who will be more team-oriented compared to those looking simply to get theirs. But there should be some kind of happy balance, where those who perhaps are on the fence but are still good character fits won’t feel precluded from coming to Ann Arbor — because if two schools are essentially equal in terms of prestige and the football programs, if one is offering something the other is not, business is still business.
And Michigan needs to continue to find ways to be on the cutting edge of this newfound entrepreneurship.
Continuing to move in a positive direction. #GoBlue
It wasn’t that long ago that, first. 2025 Palatine (Ill.) four-star defensive tackle Jaylen Williams appeared to be a Michigan football lock; but then his recruitment to the maize and blue appeared to wane a bit.
However, things have turned around in a big way in recent weeks. As a matter of fact, Williams is on campus in Ann Arbor as we speak for his official visit — which wasn’t a given just a few short weeks ago.
Just before he made it to Ann Arbor, Williams revealed his top group and Michigan football is, indeed, a finalist — along with Texas A&M, Tennessee, and Nebraska.
NEWS: Four-Star DL Jaylen Williams is down to 4ď¸âŁ Schools, he tells me for @on3recruits
The 6â6 250 DL from Palatine, IL is ranked as a Top 25 DL in the â25 Class (per On3 Industry)
247Sports has Williams rated at No. 153 overall, regardless of position. Michigan football appears to be firmly in the pole position with four 247Sports Crystal Ball predictions that he’ll end up a Wolverine — with the most recent coming earlier this week from Allen Trieu.
Tall, long frame with athleticism and a basketball background. Gets off the ball with quickness and makes a good number of negative plays in the backfield. Runs by his high school competition quite a bit or wins quickly with his size and strength. Will need to get more technically adept at shedding against more even competition in college. Has a little bit of experience standing up, but we’re likely looking at a 290-300+ pound hand-down college lineman. He fits very well in an odd-front as an end. In a 4-3, he could be a combo guy but will likely grow into more of an interior player in that scheme. Still learning and has rawness to his game, but has clear high-major physical gifts and plays the game hard which is a good foundation.
