Everything Michigan HC Sherrone Moore said during his pre-Central Michigan press conference

On the offensive decision-making with the short-yardage decisions

Yeah, I mean, the early one, it was fourth and two, and it was on the 40-yard line. So those are situations, yeah, you can kick the field goal, but when you can pin them deep like we did in the five-yard line, it’s a long field for any offense to execute, and they went four plays and had to punt. So for us, there’s all those types of decisions that you gotta make. And there’s an analytics piece of it, but there’s also a feeling of how you feel in the game in those certain situations of how the defense is playing and what you’re doing. So it’s a collective thought process when we do that for sure.

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On whether he receives analytics updates in real-time

Yeah, I get the analytics answer in real time. Yeah, this says fourth or two, fourth or one or better, fourth or four or better. And sometimes when it says fourth or five or better, I’m like, I don’t know about that one. It’s a long distance at certain times, so usually just go with the gut.

On the interim head coach during his suspension

Yeah, we’ll operate as a collective unit. Chip will handle the offense, Wink will handle the defense, JB will handle the special teams. But the overall operation coach, Biff Poggi, will stand in as interim. And it’ll flow like normal. Obviously, I won’t be on the sideline but how we handle game days with Chip handling the offense, and Wink handling the defense, and JB handling the special teams. We’ll pull the same, and our players, they’ll be ready to go.

On injury updates post-Oklahoma

Yeah, Zeke, very mild lower body injury. So we’ll see how he progresses through the week, but he looks good. And he was jogging around the sideline in the second half, but that was more precautionary to make sure nothing was wrong. Who else did you say, Gio? Yeah. Gio, we’ll see, look, that’s day to day. So we’ll take a look at that and see how that looks. And what was the last one you asked? Marlin. Marlin’s looking better. So we’ll see what he can do this week. I think he’ll practice a little bit Tuesday and Wednesday, and then we’ll go from there.

On Rod Moore being in uniform for the Oklahoma game

Yeah, we think there’s a good chance that Rod can play this week. So we’ve been very cautious with him. No one knows their body like Rod does, and he wanted to play in that game, believe me. And just the timeline of what we said and how we wanted to do it wasn’t where we fit. High probability that Rod Moore plays in the game on Saturday. But we’ll see, we want to make sure the week goes, he feels right. There’s nothing that goes on. There’s no swelling or anything in his knee. And it’s been good this past couple weeks. So we’ll just take it day by day with him.

On what went into the decision to name Biff Poggi as interim

Obviously, he’s been in the program before. He was a huge help for me when I was an o-line coach at first, and just a general feeling of how the program goes. The knowledge of the players specifically, was huge. And then, obviously, his experience as a high school head coach, as a head coach. But just in general, his love for the players, importantly, his knowledge of everybody in our building, and keeping the cohesion in the building was huge. And I also wanted our coordinators to be able to do what they do, and continue their jobs as they go through the season. Let me come back and let there be no hiccups, and not have to do anything extra. And I think that’s gonna be important, so that they can do that at a high level.

On whether he is preparing this week as he will coach and whether Poggi will take on any practice responsibilities

Yeah, I’ll be here, so I’ll be coaching. I’ll be coaching hard. So this week’s about the how, it’s not necessarily the what. So we’re gonna really attack that, attack all the details. And he’s always with me, he’s always around me. So he’s in all the meetings, he’s right there by my side. So he sees it, he understands exactly how I feel. Obviously, he’s not me, but the players have a lot of respect for Biff. And they love Biff, they love being around Biff. So we’ll continue to work in that direction.

On things he’s learned as an interim that he’s applying to his suspension

Yeah, what I learned, a little bit different, cuz I was calling plays, and I was the coordinator then. But I think it’s just, you have to work together as a unit. And you can’t try to stray away from the plan that you’ve talked about earlier in the week. So we’re gonna do that, we’re gonna stay together as a cohesive unit, as a team, as a family, and we’re gonna continue to do that.

On how he plans to watch the game and the team’s response against CMU

Yeah, as far as how I’m gonna watch it, I have no idea yet. I haven’t even thought about it. But I can imagine and guess, since I’ve already talked to half the team from after the game until now, that they’re gonna be fired up and ready to go. No pun intended for the chips, but they’ll be excited. They’ll be, I mean, they’ve all have voiced their opinions of how they feel about everything and what they wanna do. And I continue to say, guys, you’re not playing this game for me. You’re not gonna win it for me. Go win it for yourself, go win it for Michigan, and for the goals that you guys have set. So they’ll be excited, ready to play.

On the differences in coaching styles with Grant Newsome coaching the OL

I mean, there’s things that are similar, cuz he was obviously with me throughout the time. But he’s his own person, and I don’t want him to be me. I want him to be himself. And he’s definitely taken it to his own and gotten better and better every day, and he continues to do that.

On why he chose these two games to sit out compared to the first two games of the season

I mean, it was a collective decision with us and me and Warde. Just making sure that, especially new team, new offense, new defensive people, all the things that we, when you have a new team, you wanna have, especially I wanted to be there for that, to be there to keep that cohesion in the first couple games, so that was the main reason.

On what Poggi’s day-to-day look like

If I’m in a meeting, he’s in a meeting. I’m listening, taking notes, he’s listening, taking notes. And I meet with everybody, with the offense, with the defense, with the special teams, building the schedules. So he’s always there with me, so he understands how I operate and what I do on a daily basis. And on game days, he’s with me. He doesn’t hear what I hear, cuz he doesn’t have a headset normally. He will on game days, so he just understands how I work and how I operate.

On whether he will be at the team hotel on Friday

I’ll be there for a while, and I’ll probably be here until I can be, so.

On Jayden Sanders’ game and the cornerback depth

You know what, I was pretty proud of those guys. Zeke had the one double move, and then we had to jump off a penalty, and they threw the deep one, and we didn’t reroute it. But overall, man, those guys played really well, especially Jayden Sanders for a freshman. He came into the fourth quarter and never even noticed him. Made a couple tackles, so I’m pretty proud of what they did. It’ll be good to get Shamari Earls back this week, and looks like possibly get him and Caleb Anderson back this week. So that’ll be huge for the corner depth. But Jyaire Hill is playing as good as he’s ever played. It feels like he’s playing at a great level, and he’s practiced that way. Zeke’s definitely stepping up, and then having guys like Jaden come in and get JoJo back, it’s gonna be huge for our depth.

On what went wrong with the offensive line play

It was consistency, because there’s times where there’s huge holes. There’s times where there’s movement, the line of scrimmage, and there’s times where there’s things that are leaky and loose. And it’s gotta be consistent. When you play five or you play seven offensive linemen, you’ve gotta have consistency. And there’s some things that I thought we could have done, and we’ve talked about as a staff, to come back to that could have combated their defense, and it’s a collective thing. It’s not just the players, it’s not just the coaches, it’s everybody together. And we’ll continue to work forward to make sure we clean all that stuff up.

On finding the balance between aggression vs. protecting a new QB with a new offensive line

I don’t think we ever figured — think you find the right balance all the time. You gotta continue to work to be perfect at that. And we look at everything, every single game, to see, whether you win a game by 30, or you lose a game by eight or nine, whatever it is, you’re always looking to get better. So I think there’s a piece where we’ll be more aggressive in every phase to help ourselves, but we’re not really gonna be protecting anybody. We wanna protect the quarterback, but as far as the guys in our field, when we put them on the field, we trust them to do their job. So we gotta continue to just put them in great positions to do that.

On whether Bryce Underwood has scrambling abilities ready to be turned loose

Yeah, he does, he does. We will at some point just, you run your quarterback, you better have to. And I’ve always believed that, even did that with JJ. JJ wanted to run every game. And I was like, no, you’re gonna get hit, you’re gonna get hurt. We will, and I think there’s parts of that we tried to in that game, they just were pretty good at not letting us, cuz they didn’t want him to run. And I think there’s ways we can get him to run in different ways and make sure he’s protected. So we’ll work that as we go game by game and have a strategy for that.

On what Underwood was able to learn from the road environment

I think one, that the moment isn’t too big, cuz there was never really panic. The kid kept his poise for a freshman to be in that environment. I mean, there was never the wide-eyed look where it’s too big at the moment. So I understand that he can do it. But also just to trust his self, and just trust the reads, and trust the things. And you don’t always have to go make a play. Your God-given ability, you’re gonna make a play. He made some tremendous plays. He rolls to the right on a scramble and darts to McCulley. It’s a tremendous play. He does things a lot that are tremendous plays, the throw that he made to McCulley when he went up and got it. He’s just gotta just continue to go through his progressions and trust it.

On adding a Nico Collins’ like dimension to the passing game with Donaven McCulley

Yeah, continue to do it, do it even more. We will continue to implement that, and implement him, implement Channing, and Semaj as much as we can, and Andrew Marsh. Guys like that keep putting them in a position to be successful. And do different things to do that. So we’ll definitely keep adding that to the attack.

On fixing the running back’s lack of explosive plays

Yeah, I mean, when you have four explosives, that’s pretty good. But when those runs are five, six, that’s what you kind of, that’s what the run game is. It’s three, it’s four, it’s five, then all of a sudden you got a 50. So we’ll get to the tens, we’ll get to those. I can remember back when I was coaching the line, there was times where we had only had 130 yards rushing. And it was a ten-yard, it was a ten-yard, it was a five-yard. And then people said, well, you’re not getting the 50s. I’m like, well, sometimes you don’t. So it just works in different phases, and we have to figure out how we can get those, and that’s what we’re working towards.

On whether he is happy with how the run game is going

I’m never happy with how it is. Unless we rush for 400 yards, I’m not gonna be happy. So, well, we’re getting better, and there’s definitely things we gotta clean up. But we’re trending in the right direction.

On what he wants the identity of the offense to be

Yeah, it is too early, but gonna be violent, gonna be physical, wanna be explosive, so we’re creating explosive runs. We want more, wanna create more explosive passes, we will do that. But just consistent, consistent as we go through every single game, and let the players just trust themselves and let it loose, have fun. I don’t think they’ll do that as we go through the week.

On whether he feels like the plan for four starters at linebacker has come to fruition

Yeah, it has, cuz you don’t blink when any of those guys are in there, whether it’s Ernie or Jaishawn or Jimmy or Cole. They’re in there, you’re like, okay, all right, who’s gonna make a play? So I think it’s been awesome to watch those guys play, and to watch a guy like Troy Bowles get in there in special teams and make plays. And young Chase Taylor, and so that group is really deep, and Coach BJ has done an excellent job of developing those guys, and they’re as deep as you can see in college football.

On how hands-on he is with the offensive line and how it compares to other positions

I mean, I dive in there once or twice a practice to make sure I’m — I’ve got my eyes on the whole offense, but obviously, being with the O-line, I have a lot of experience with that. So try to as much as I can be involved in it, but when you’re the head coach, you try to look at everything. So I’ll dive more back into it, but I trust Grant, trust Coach Castillo, trust Coach Peele, but Coach Roop to do their jobs.

On whether he talked to Zvada after the missed kick

Yeah, I don’t talk to Zvada, nope. I’m not a kicker, I’ve never been a kicker, and I can imagine the mindset of what happens in that moment, that you can think a whole bunch of different things, and the last thing you need is somebody ripping you or yelling at you. I just looked at him, and I went like this, and he looked back, and that was it. So I let JB handle that. He’s a phenomenal kicker. He misses very little in practice and in game, so I have full trust in him that he will recover. And you guys talk about FIDO, forget it and drive on. So people are gonna make mistakes, people are gonna make missed assignments. That was one that nobody wants to make that kick more than Zvada. So me telling him, hey, go make that kick would not be anything helpful. And I have no coaching points to tell him how to make the kick. So I just let him handle it, and he recovered from it.

On what he learned from Haynes and Underwood’s sideline discussion

Yeah, I mean, one, in the moment, that’s competitiveness. They both want to be right, they both want the team to be successful. And I mean, what people didn’t talk about is when Justice scored the touchdown, who was with him in the end zone celebrating? It was Bryce, and they were loving each other, dapping each other up. So and then yesterday, they were in here watching film together, talking. So that happens, and you don’t want that to happen on the sideline at all. And then it was squashed immediately, and then obviously it was squashed when you saw them celebrating together. So that’s a competitive piece that most competitors have. And as a group and as a team, those guys just stuck together, and to see them in here yesterday working was a huge piece.

On Mikey Keene’s status

Yeah, Mikey’s doing really good. He’s been practicing, doing all the throws. He’s actually worked a lot with, worked on offense, and then he worked as a scout team guy to help out with books. So he’s full go, ready to go.