by Kyle Golik
Michigan wasted little time after the departure of Jim Harbaugh to the Los Angeles Chargers when they promoted offensive coordinator Sherrone Moore to head coach. The quick move by Michigan administrators was to hopefully avoid a mass exodus in the transfer portal and stabilize the program which is looking to defend its national championship in 2024.
Adding to the pressure of defending Michigan’s first national championship since 1997 for Moore is knowing he has to follow one of the most iconic figures in Wolverine history. Jim Harbaugh, who won the Big Ten in his senior season as a quarterback and then came back as head coach and restored the Wolverines as a national power will be forever a hallowed name in Ann Arbor. The notion of following Harbaugh hasn’t escaped Moore’s mind:
“I’m just gonna be me. I can’t be coach (Harbaugh). I love coach, coach loves this university. You know, I’ve watched him coach for the last six years, but I can’t be Jim Harbaugh. So I’m going to be me, and I think, you know, in this business in any world, if you’re not yourself, you’re gonna lose. You’re gonna lose the people around you. So I’m definitely gonna be myself, be who I am. My leadership styles, how I’m gonna approach things, and do that. I’m definitely gonna lean on him tremendously, because obviously we know what he built what we built here, but definitely going to just be myself.”
— Sherrone Moore
As Moore readies to guide Team 145 and beyond, I attempt to analogize five possibilities Moore could be for the Wolverines:
Larry Coker
After the abrupt departure of Butch Davis to the Cleveland Browns, Miami knew it had a special team and one that had a little weight to pull with administrators of who they wanted.
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In Billy Corben’s ESPN 30 for 30 documentary The U: Part II, Miami president Donna Shalala, who just arrived from Wisconsin, had a good relationship with Barry Alvarez, and there was a possibility that he could come to Miami where the players vocally weren’t for and stumped for Davis’ offensive coordinator Larry Coker.
The leverage Miami players had is similar to what Michigan players have today.
As many teams have experienced in the transfer portal after coaching changes, you can seriously gut a team quickly. Michigan already lost the majority of its 2023 team due to it exhausting its eligibility. The Wolverine brass needed to take into consideration what was best for the team, and Moore was it.
The key thing for Moore is to maintain the culture Harbaugh developed in Ann Arbor and not let it erode as Coker did, something Miami is still trying to fix two decades later.
Will Muschamp
Muschamp was a fast-rising coaching commodity throughout the 2000s, as he coordinated LSU’s 2003 national championship defense under Nick Saban, and once Muschamp got to Texas, he helped the Longhorns reach the 2010 BCS National Championship Game against Alabama.
Muschamp possessed a far more experienced resume than Moore, who has only been a coordinator for three years.
The tasks Muschamp had was to follow iconic coaches at Florida with Urban Meyer’s departure and at South Carolina with Steve Spurrier’s departure.
Moore’s situation outside of following an iconic coach is how the rosters were gutted. Keep in mind that Michigan had 44 seniors who have exhausted their eligibility, plus early NFL Draft declarations in quarterback JJ McCarthy and linebacker Junior Colson.
In Muschamp’s defense, Meyer and Spurrier, in many ways, let go of their programs, and Muschamp had the unenviable task of trying to rebuild both SEC programs to no avail.
Moore’s situation is a tad different than Muschamp’s, but the talent no longer at Michigan is an obstacle Moore has to figure out, because if he doesn’t, he is just like Muschamp.
Frank Solich
Tom Osborne did the unthinkable in his 25 seasons at Nebraska by successfully following Bob Devaney at Nebraska.
Devaney ended his Nebraska run going 33-2-2, winning two national championships in his final three seasons, and Osborne had his own Devaney run in his final five seasons, winning three national championships and going 60-3.
Moore may not be tasked with continuing a major dynasty like Solich, but Jim Harbaugh had one of the most successful runs in recent memory where the Wolverines compiled a 40-3 overall record, three Big Ten championships, losing only one conference game in three seasons, the first 15-0 record in conference and school history, three wins over Ohio State, and a national championship.
As I mentioned in the intro, Harbaugh is in that conversation of the most iconic Wolverines when you combine what he did as a player and coach, and will forever be revered for what he contributed to the Michigan program.
Moore has an understanding of this, as did Solich when he took over in Lincoln.
With Moore, if he is not successful at Michigan, there are two distinct roads he can travel. The first is the Will Muschamp road, where maybe he isn’t head coach material and is really just a coordinator. Or, there is the Solich route, where maybe the powder keg of Michigan is too volatile, similar to that Solich experienced in Lincoln, where, quite frankly, they haven’t even enjoyed the same level of success since his termination in 2003.
After his departure from Lincoln, Solich won over 100 games and guided the MAC’s Ohio Bobcats to 11 bowl games.
If Moore isn’t successful at Michigan, it doesn’t mean he can’t be successful elsewhere, as Solich proved.
Lincoln Riley
By no means am I saying Moore is going to be the next “Quarterback Whisperer” and oversee suspect defenses. Hopefully, that will change soon for Riley.
When Bob Stoops recognized his offenses were slipping, he sought out Riley, and the Sooners’ offense became a juggernaut again, averaging over 44 points a game and finishing in the Top 5 nationally.
Riley quickly became the heir apparent at Oklahoma, and when Stoops wanted to do what was best for Oklahoma and leave a full cupboard for his successor to continue the success Sooner fans came to expect.
Between 2017 and 2020, Michigan’s offense averaged just over 30 points per game and finished in the Top 25 of scoring offenses just once.
When Harbaugh turned the offensive reins over to Moore, Michigan’s offense had a similar leap that Oklahoma saw when Stoops brought in Riley.
Michigan finished in the Top 20 scoring offenses in all three seasons that Moore coordinated the offense, including finishing No. 6 in 2022 at 40.4 points per game.
Riley brought to Oklahoma the finesse of the Air Raid attack, Moore’s offenses have been the complete opposite by having amazing athletes in the trenches and punishing ground games that force the opposition into submission.
While schematically different, the similarities are that both Moore and Riley had a major influence on the offensive direction of their programs, and when they replaced legends, the continuation of what was successful gave the programs their success. If Moore can continue what he started under Harbaugh, Michigan is not going anywhere in the national landscape.
Ryan Day
The perfect meme to describe the Moore hire is the “Spiderman Pointing At Spiderman” meme that has its genesis from the 1967 cartoon episode “Double Identity.”
Ohio State fans can now fully invoke the “Third Base” quote Harbaugh used to describe Ryan Day, “Sometimes people are standing on third base, think they hit a triple, but they didn’t.”
Let’s think about the dynamics for a second here:
- Ryan Day was an assistant coach in college and the NFL for 15 years prior to becoming Ohio State’s offensive coordinator in 2017. In comparison, Moore has 15 years of total experience, including his Michigan coordinating experience.
- Day served as head coach for Urban Meyer for three games due to the Zach Smith incident. Moore served as head coach for Jim Harbaugh officially for four games due to a self-imposed suspension at the beginning of the season and the final three regular-season games due to the Connor Stalions espionage scandal.
- Both are offensive coaches with distinct offensive philosophies.
- Their first head coaching jobs are arguably the two best jobs in the college football coaching profession.
- Both enter as head coaches with significant winning streaks over the other – Day inherited a seven-game win streak against the Wolverines, while Moore inherits a three-game streak.
Michigan and Ohio State fans might be better off burying the hatchet that is the “Third Base” quote because it is eerily a similar set of circumstances each coach and school has been into.
If Moore is indeed for Michigan what Day is to Ohio State, the Big Ten will ultimately be decided as it always has in its history between who wins The Game and potentially more showdowns in the Big Ten Championship Game with no divisions in the Big Ten and the expanded 12-team College Football Playoff.
