Everything Michigan acting HC Biff Poggi said during his pre-Nebraska press conference

On TJ Guy’s status and the EDGE room’s performance on Saturday

Yeah, TJ’s fine. Just using a game plan, a heavy run team. And so we wanted some bigger bodies in there on that, but no issues with TJ. And he understands it, he’s a complete team player and all good with it. I thought the edge guys, they’re getting better every week. I don’t want to get out over my skis and say elite, but when you look at that room and you see number 8, you see number 1, you see number 9, occasionally you see 23, you see number 4, you see 33, I don’t know. If it’s not the best, it’s awful close to it. Deep experience, twitchy, good football players, and very selfless kids.

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On Rod Moore, Gio El-Hadi and Brady Norton’s status

Can I discuss any of that? Rod is really progressing well, and we’re going to arm wrestle after this, but Rod’s progressing well. Could have played this past week, but I really think you’ll see Rod this week at Nebraska and the two guards, you’re talking about Gio and Brady, we think there’s a real good chance Brady will be back and practicing this week and back. Gio’s going to be a little bit longer, but will return in a couple weeks.

On Jake Guarnera’s performance

He played awesome. He’s a strong smart, physical kid, and he played really well.

On the initial connection to Michigan and why he came back

Well, as you know, I was a high school coach for a long time, and Michigan was always recruiting our players and my son, Henry, played here, and when Jim Harbaugh came in, this is a hilarious story actually in my house, we have kind of a little church group Bible study on Wednesday night and I leave my phone with my daughter, and I said only interrupt me if it’s one of the children, there’s blood involved. She comes down and she says, there’s a guy named Jim Harbaugh on the phone. I was like, what? So I, of course, thought it was a joke. I pick it up, walk outside, and he goes, hey, Biff, it’s Jim Harbaugh, and hey Jim, how you doing? We just start talking about Michigan football. He said, what do you think our record would have been last year had we punted the ball more? And I was like, Jim, I don’t know. And we just started talking ball, and he said, why don’t you come up and join the staff? And I said, well, I’m running this high school program in Baltimore, and he said, yeah, yeah, but why don’t you come up and join the staff? And so I met him at the bowl game. That was the Citrus Bowl that year, right, where we beat the brakes off of Florida. And we met in his hotel room, and we were demonstrating offensive line blocking techniques on a dresser that was in his hotel room, and then it was kind of love ever after that. And then I was here. That was, what, 16 days? 16? And then Baltimore had a little bit of an issue in the city with a young fellow getting killed by the police, and the city kind of blew up, and I said to Jim, I love it, but I got to go back. So we started this program in the city, St. Francis Academy, and then we were going on there. I was very happy there, and then he called me at the end of 2020 and said, I’d really like you to come back. So I came back, and then it’s kind of been to me, Michigan, I’ve been a lot of places, I’ve coached a lot of places, I’ve played, but Michigan to me is honestly, it’s just like home, man. I feel like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. I just want to go home, and Michigan is like that for me. It’s just so comfortable. The people here are wonderful. And then this situation, I got fired at Charlotte, and Sherrone gave me a call and was like, come up to the Northwestern game. And I said, okay. I came up, and then we spoke, and he asked me to come back and do this, and so I wanted to do it. The other thing is, I’ve had a great relationship with Warde Manuel, and Doug, and so it feels right here.

On the player leadership during his last tenure compared to the current one

Well, we’ve always had really good leadership, player leadership here. 17, 21, 22, obviously 23. There’s great player leadership here. Starts with our captains, and I would say, though, those guys are the heartbeat of the football team. And it’s not easy to be a captain, because you have to be willing to be respected and not liked, and that’s hard for any of us. We all like to be liked, but the leadership is excellent, and I will say this about your question. Make no mistake about it. It’s been this way since day one, since football ever started. Coaches do not win games. Players do. It’s all about the players, and it’s not the plays, it’s not who’s smart, who’s this. It doesn’t matter. And we’ve got great leadership and great players.

On his thoughts on the Big Ten as a whole

Yeah, it’s got a lot of great teams, doesn’t it? And it is huge, and probably that’s the way the future’s going to be in conference alignment in football, but the league is ridiculous. It’s incredible. Anybody can beat anybody. Nebraska, watched all their tape, and I think they’re really good. They have a really good football team. It’s interesting. I realized I know there’s so many guys on the staff. When I was a coach at Charlotte, the first day I was in my seat there, the first phone call I got was from Matt Ruhle, welcoming me to Charlotte, and was so kind and welcoming and helpful. And then Dana Holgerson, I coached his son for a bit at St. Francis. Ron Brown, Bill Bush, I mean, I know a bunch of the guys there, so it’ll be good to see them, but they’ve done a really good job with their team.

On what changed with the reluctance to run Bryce Underwood

I don’t think anything changed. I think, look, you start learning about your team. It takes a while to learn about your team when you transition from spring ball to summer to camp. You really start learning the most when the games play. And I think what we’re learning is what I said over here. Coaches don’t win games. Plays don’t win games. Players win games. And you have to let your players play. So we’re letting them play. All of them.

On why the program has emotions for Sherrone Moore not being with the team despite a self-imposed punishment

Oh, because he’s so well loved. I will describe Sherrone this way. I have children his age. And we met in 2000. We’ve known each other for a long time, and we’ve talked constantly over the years and very rarely it’s about football. It’s always about life and kids. And I will say this to you, and I mean no disrespect at all to anybody. Football does not attract typically a bunch of nature’s noblemen. Football is a game where most adults in it are looking to get to the next level, the next job, the next paycheck and may say that they love and care about their players and I’m sure they do. But this guy, I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. So when he’s out, it is an enormous void in the building because of the heart-to-heart human relationship factor, if that makes any sense to you.

On what he has seen from Dylan Raiola

Man, he’s a really good player, isn’t he? He’s been one for a long time, too. I thought he had a great high school career, obviously. He was highly rated. I thought he played really well his first year in Nebraska. I think he’s very polished and very dangerous.

On what Underwood can take from his first road start in Norman into Lincoln

Well, everything stacks, doesn’t it? I don’t know if there’s a harder place to play than Nebraska. Fans are very loud. The stadium is loud. Very raucous. They’ll obviously be very excited and what Bryce has to learn and I think Bryce learned this, just be Bryce. You’re not playing against the stadium. There’s 11. They got 11. We got 11. Everything else is just noise.

On whether he was brought back because they were aware a Moore suspension was coming

I don’t think so. I hope not. I certainly didn’t know what was going on. I just came back because I think he asked me and quite frankly, I personally needed a little bit of Michigan healing after what I went through.

On what Nebraska does well

I love the running back. He’s a guy who’s yards after contact are ridiculous. He has unbelievable balance. Think about Nebraska. When you think about Nebraska, these are the things that this team has. They are big and physical on the offensive line. They have really good body-up receivers. Defensively, there’s a lot of movement. Their defensive line, as stout as can be. They take great pride in their defense there. The whole black shirt movement there. They’re real good. Look at what they’ve done. I don’t care who you play. I don’t care who you play. The results are the results. They’ve got it going. Matt is a tremendous coach. You’ve all seen the statistics. Everywhere Matt’s been in his third year has been tremendous. He’s got the football team. He’s won them over. He’s got the staff he wants. He’s got a lot of good players.

On the challenges of keeping Guy engaged when not playing and whether he will be available on Saturday

He’s a team guy. He’s really a team guy. He gets the differences in game plans and he’ll be totally fine. He’ll have a great game this weekend. I’ve got no issues about that.

On how much of the gameplan will be made by him vs. Moore this week, and what makes Raiola dangerous

I’ll go from the back to the first because I can’t remember that long. What makes him dangerous? He has a huge football IQ. He’s one of the few young guys that can actually sit in a pocket and make the right reads. The kid can throw the football. He finds open windows and he’s a good enough runner that if you are undisciplined in your lanes, he can extend the play and keep your defense on the field. I also think when you watch the tape, you realize that everybody rallies around him. It’s kind of his football team. It looks like from the film. Sherrone is a very organized, detailed football coach. Before he left, he gave us a strict menu of what he wants to see. As I said to you before, think of him as Tiger Woods. I’m the old guy with the fluffy mustache, caddy for him. We’re going to keep it the way he wants it.

On how much Saturday whet his appetite to be a head coach again

No. I’m not going to say anything about that. I just say this, that I want to spend a lot more time with my little grandchildren.

On the green light Underwood has to run vs. Nebraska and how much teaching is he getting to slide

He got a green light to do whatever he wants because he’s one of the great playmakers, I think, in the country. You can coach competitors to slide and it’s good that they do. This kid’s a football player. If we could hit stop and everything would stop, we’d run out on the field and get him down, but we can’t. He’s going to finish those runs.

On the punt return unit

We’re going to clean that up. We’re still trying to figure out who we want back there and some of our mechanics back there, but that certainly wasn’t a great look, but we’ll get that fixed.

On what it felt like being the head coach of Michigan

To be very honest with you, I was quite anxious during the week and my anxiety was from not wanting to let Sherrone down or any of the Michigan fans down or do anything like that. As soon as I hit the tunnel, I realized I’ve done this 300 and some times, and football’s football, honestly. It’s whether you’re playing it out back and there’s nobody there or you’re playing it in the biggest stadium in the country, whether it’s Pop Warner or the NFL, it’s all just football, and if you’re a football guy, it’s just football and that’s the truth.

On keeping the leadership steady heading into Nebraska

The assistant coaches obviously do a good job with that because they’re with their units and their position groups much more than the head coach is, so a big part of it is the assistant coaches. The way that works, as you know, is the coordinators in the units and then the position coaches in their rooms, but we have great leadership within the team, and I’ll just repeat this, you know what makes me happy about excited about this week is I’ve coached some teams where you go, oh geez, you don’t know what you’re kind of going to get, but what makes me excited is that these are the guys we’re coaching. So you know, whatever happens, win, lose, or draw, you’re getting your absolute best from a group of fantastic kids, and you can’t ask for anything more than that. So I hope that answers your question.

On how much Rod Moore can be a difference-maker and his role upon his return

Rod has maybe one of the highest football IQs in the building, and now of course there’s rust to knock off, right? But we’ll try not to put him in situations that are, you know, we’ll manage reps and all those kind of things because listen, it’s a marathon, not a sprint. We don’t ever want to put him in a situation that’s bad for him, certainly physically or emotionally or mentally, but I gotta tell you something, if you had to take a guy that hadn’t played a while and throw him in a game, it’d be that dude.

On the future of the guard position moving forward

The guards can all play the guard positions. We’ll have to wait and see how practice goes for who’s gonna be starting, but Jake played very well, I mean, I think very well. I think the offensive line played well, and it’s gonna be obviously a much tougher test, and I’m sure you guys got a chance to look at film, but they’ve got a bunch of guys. But yes, we’re gonna stick with that and figure out probably Thursday or so who’s gonna be able to start there.

On whether Jaishawn Barham is always intense

He is a beautiful kid. He really is a beautiful kid. He doesn’t say much. A quiet person, but a deep thinker and has a beautiful, wonderful heart. And I think between him and Derrick Moore and a lot of the kids on the team. Justice and a bunch of them, they’re kind of just to tell you what kind of EQ they have, I think they’re looking at me like their elderly Italian grandfather taking care of me. But on the field, when they get between the lines, forget it. He is what you see.

On whether he has a close relationship with Matt Rhule

No, but I plan to reach out to him today. I have a great relationship with him. I really like him. I think he’s a very kind guy and a very giving guy and an excellent coach. So, yeah, I mean, I know a bunch of guys there.

On what he sees from Justice Haynes so be consistent every week

He’s ultra competitive. He’s very bright. He has obviously unbelievable athletic skills, but he’s the kind of kid that he wants the football, he wants the football, and he wants the football. And you want him to have the football as a coach. I think he’s one of the top backs in the country, if not the top back.