Michigan football coach Sherrone Moore joined Joel Klatt for "Big Noon Conversations," the first episode of which dropped Monday morning.
During the 30-minute interview, Moore recapped the 2023 national championship run, including a detailed breakdown of the game-tying drive against Alabama in the Rose Bowl. He discussed some of his favorite play calls from last season, his transition to head coach and what will change under his leadership.
Listen to the full episode with Joel Klatt and Sherrone Moore here, and read on for highlights:
Sherrone Moore reacts to the universal support for him to succeed Jim Harbaugh as coach:
I felt honored. Felt like all the hard work that I put in that with this team and these players had really come to fruition. It was something that you can't really describe but just very humbled to have Wolverine Nation, all the people, all the players, coaches and some media say, 'Hey, he should be the head coach at Michigan.'
When I first got here seven years ago, I just wanted to be the best tight end coach I could be. That's it. At some point I wanted to call plays. The opportunity to be the head coach here was really not in my mind. And so when that whenit did take place, it was very humbling for me.
Sherrone Moore reveals when becoming Michigan's head coach first entered his mind:
Probably it entered my mind when Coach Harbaugh told me, 'You're gonna be the next head coach at Michigan.' This year [2023] he told me that. He said: 'I don't know when. I don't know what's gonna happen. No man can see the future, tell the future.' He just said: 'You're gonna be the next head coach at Michigan.'
And I was just like, 'What!?'
He's like, 'I'm gonna put it in my contract that if I ever leave or go somewhere that you're the next head coach at Michigan.' He told me that at the beginning of the year. … I just thought about that and I was just like, this man who's a legendary coach who's done it all and we have a chance this year to make a special run is telling me that I'm gonna be the next head coach here.
And what does that mean? That means I've got to work my tail off for this man. He trusted me, in this offense, to do everything possible to help him and this team win. So I just worked as hard as I could.
Sherrone Moore remembers his viral postgame interview from the 2023 Penn State win:
All the emotions that you can feel in anything. Exciting. That's what I felt, and the hard work, the dedication that the players put in, that Coach Harbaugh is putting in this program, all came out in that moment.
For people on the outside to think our players didn't win fairly or do something or do that, it was: 'Okay. Bet. 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.' And it was a moment that was unfiltered. Unfortunately the bad words came out, but I apologized to my mom.
… A lot of in the world todaythink emotion is perceived as weakness, and I don't see it as that. People can say whatever they want, but we accomplished something pretty special last year.
Sherrone Moore on what made the 2023 Michigan team special:
There was just a love, a connection, a bond that was unbreakable. You can do whatever you wanted, you can talk about them however you wanted, but the love, the connection that everybody had in this building was deeper than anything. And they just felt like they could not be stopped. It was a juggernaut, ready to go every game, any adversity thrown their way, they were ready to break it and it was something I'd never been a part of.
Sherrone Moore breaks down the drive to tie the game in the Rose Bowl against Alabama:
Two instances will be held forever in my mind. Really three.
Before that drive, I've never really been 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 the most important drive in Michigan football history.' That's how I thought of it. And I looked up to the sky and asked my grandpa: 'Hey pops, need some help here. Help me out. Love you.'
And I'll never forget I was walking and all the linemen were strapping their helmets on, and J.J. comes up to me said: 'Hey pops, we got you.' And I was like: 'Oh yeah, we're about to go score on this drive.'
We'd been moving the ball a little bit but not as much, and that drive we went down and scored. And the 4th-and-2 call. We ran it, had a play-action on 3rd-and-2 with Orji in the game it didn't work out, they had it covered. And it was 4th-and-2 and I knew Coach was gonna say go for it. And 4th-and-2, I already knew what call we were gonna do. I knew the pick, I knew what we were gonna do, I knew how it had set up because we'd shifted and motioned and made it look the same the whole game we'd ran duo. They were calling out 'run,' and then Blake pops open and we go down the field and then Roman gets the block in the back.
So guys are like, 'Oh no! It's coming back?' I'm like, 'No, 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 ran that all game and it was set up. Then came back to a play-action that we'd 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 gonna call first, but got a little closer and then all of a sudden called the play-action to Roman who slipped out and it was a touchdown.
That drive will hold true forever in my mind.
Sherrone Moore discusses what will change with him in charge at Michigan:
That philosophy on how we do things will reign true, the same on how we did it last year and the years in the past because I had a big hand in that. 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 multiplein every phase and we're gonna be fundamentally sound and balanced in what we do.
