ANN ARBOR, Mich. — After the most dominant three-year stretch in program history, Michigan is starting over. Sort of. Not really. Not completely.
Jim Harbaugh didn’t necessarily leave the cupboards bare when he hopped a plane for L.A. and the NFL. Valuable pieces remain, just not fully tested. Some items are missing labels. A couple shelves need restocking.
Head coach Sherrone Moore isn’t new, an assistant here for six years, and acting head coach four games last season. He called plays for a team that went 40-3 overall, 15-0 while winning the national championship. He knows what he’s taking over, the enormous standards and daunting challenges, one reason he was the right guy for the job.
It makes the task familiar. It doesn’t make it any easier.
Spring football just ended and it’s unclear who the starting quarterback will be, or if he’s lurking somewhere in the portal. My guess is, it’ll either be ultra-mobile junior Alex Orji, who showed flashes in the spring game, or well-traveled Jack Tuttle, who’s been out with an injury.
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The entire starting offensive line headed to the NFL, as did receivers Roman Wilson and Cornelius Johnson, and decorated back Blake Corum. J.J. McCarthy, who was 27-1 as a starter yet somehow has pro people wondering what he can do, likely will be picked anywhere from No. 5 to No. 12.
The schedule transitions from cakewalk to death march, with all the usual rivalry suspects, plus Texas, USC and Oregon. And no one knows the final price for Michigan’s misdeeds, slapped by the NCAA with a three-year probation for recruiting violations during the COVID year. It’s unclear when we’ll see resolution to the sign-stealing investigation, but UM’s cooperation and Harbaugh’s departure should mitigate repercussions. It’s a scar the Wolverines must carry, but it’s not the biggest challenge.
Moore said Monday he couldn’t comment on how the NCAA issues affect his job, or recruiting. But surely it can’t be more problematic than the unrelenting swirl last season, which resulted in Harbaugh being suspended six games.
That experience serves as both a sting and a salve. You’d think Moore would be prepared for anything now.
“The good thing with coach (Harbaugh) was that it was a very collaborative effort,” Moore said. “What coach did was part of what I did. We’re just gonna continue to keep this train kind of rolling.”
The train may look similar with the same destination, but the track (and potential sidetracks) is different. The defense was ranked No. 1 and could be imposing again, despite losing as many as eight players to the draft and the entire coaching staff. Mason Graham and Kenneth Grant might form the best tackle tandem in the country and cornerback Will Johnson has the look of a 2025 first-round pick.
Coaching unknowns
There are more unknowns than knowns, starting with the coaching staff, including new coordinators Kirk Campbell and Wink Martindale. The new boss will do a few things differently, but has no desire to command the spotlight.
We’ll see less of Moore than we did of Harbaugh, that seems certain. And by design. Harbaugh is gone but his fingerprints are everywhere, and that’s fine with Moore.
“Me and coach are different people,” Moore said before spring practice. “That's my guy, he's like a brother to me but we're just different. … I don't want any attention on me, I want it on our players. I'm going to stay low and hidden as much as I can and let the players get the credit and the limelight.”
There will be plenty of limelight and a few spotlights, and maybe some red lights. Moore will be challenged in ways he probably doesn’t even know, natural for a 38-year-old first-time head coach. UM hasn’t yet generated recruiting momentum off its national title, but some of that is by circumstance. Harbaugh’s future was a mystery for a while, then Moore was busy putting his staff together.
The Wolverines landed four-star defensive end Nate Marshall Monday, their first commitment in three months. Recruiting rankings are important, but with the ever-churning transfer portal, not as paramount. The NCAA issues have hovered as well, and when asked if that slowed recruiting, Moore sounded unbothered.
“Not really slow,” he said. “There’s a process of how we do things, who we want and who we get.”
He’s only been the head coach for three months but recognizes necessary adjustments. For one, he speaks for everyone in the program when he speaks to the media, and it doesn’t appear to be his favorite activity. That could change as he gets more comfortable in the role.
“It’s different in the fact it’s not as much football,” Moore said. “I used to sit in a room with two big screens and watch football all the time. It’s less of that and more of managing an organization on a daily basis.”
Experienced leaders
It helps that the roster includes several experienced leaders, including Donovan Edwards, who will get a chance to reclaim his status as an elite power runner.
“He’s done a fantastic job,” Edwards said of Moore. “When he speaks, we all stop talking. He has that type of vibrancy to him.”
Harbaugh took a chunk of his staff with him to the L.A. Chargers, which wasn’t a surprise. It gave Moore a chance to put his own stamp on the staff, hiring Martindale, a long-time NFL defensive coordinator. It also came with some messiness, including the case of newly hired defensive line coach Greg Scruggs, who resigned after an OWI arrest.
Moore promoted Grant Newsome to offensive line coach and Campbell from quarterbacks coach to offensive coordinator, which should ease the transition. When Campbell talks about Moore, he sounds like Moore talking about Harbaugh. The program’s DNA — fast and physical with plenty of downhill running — isn’t changing.
“That’s how I was raised, I’m a blue-collar guy,” Campbell said. “I view Sherrone first as my boss, and a really good friend after that. It changes a little bit, but we have so much respect for each other.”
Campbell said he has seen “humongous” development in the line and suggested the offense might be “more explosive than we’ve had in the past.” Junior tight end Colston Loveland will be a multi-faceted weapon, and speedy sophomore receiver Fredrick Moore popped a 48-yard touchdown in the spring game.
Of all the unknowns and potential distractions, the quarterback position naturally draws the most attention. Moore and Campbell said nobody is leading and there’s no urgency to name a starter. Orji’s physical style makes him the most intriguing, but he must work on his accuracy. Tuttle, in his seventh year of eligibility, is someone to watch but missed the spring game. Davis Warren, Jayden Denegal and freshman Jadyn Davis also are in the mix.
“With our ability to run the ball straight at people, we’re not afraid of it,” said Orji, who was inserted for designed runs last season. “We have a new batch of o-line guys that are all just as hungry. And there’s nobody in the world that’ll preach details and precision more than coach Kirk Campbell. He always tells us, we’re not focused on the little things because there are no little things. Everything’s a big thing.”
It was that way for nine years under Harbaugh, where every little thing seemingly became a big thing. It ended with the biggest thing possible, a national championship. The Wolverines won’t be picked to replicate it, and likely won’t be favored to win a fourth straight Big Ten championship.
Maybe that helps. In Moore’s view, there’s no complacency and no entitlement. How could there be? In many ways, not all ways, they truly are starting over.
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