Everything Sherrone Moore said after Michigan's 24-7 win over Washington

Opening Statement

What a win. It’s fun. That was a fun win, a fun win to be a part of. Our players, we talked in the locker room. We talked after the game at USC about just being all in and trusting each other, trusting the process. And we had some tough conversations throughout the week, offensively, defensively, of what we need to do and how we need to adjust and how we need to play better.

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And the response by our coaches, one, our offensive coordinator, our defensive coordinator, our offensive staff, defensive staff was outstanding. But more importantly, our players, our players played with their hair on fire, played with detail, played with great fundamentals. And I’m just really proud of our kids, man, really, really proud of our kids and how they played.

On the offensive balance

Felt like Michigan football, felt like what it should feel like. When you have a win, it feels like that. But there’s always, there’s still things you look through. And offensively, we gotta be able to get those third and ones, fourth and ones. Those fourth and ones, we gotta get. So we’ll go back to the drawing board on that. And what we gotta do to get better there. Cuz there’s gonna be games where it’s gonna come down to that. And we gotta just do a better job there.

I thought tackling was so much better on defense. And just fundamentally, just fundamentally sound. Because the quarterback is dangerous, the running back is dangerous. I think he leads the country in missed tackles or something like that. And just overall, great job by our kids.

On Cole Sullivan’s interception changing the game

Yeah, it was an unbelievable play. He just continues to find the ball in the moments that you need him. And in moments you need somebody to make a play, Sully always just shows up. And that’s because he’s always in the right position. He’s always doing his job, doing it right, doing it full speed. Whether it’s on special teams, on defense, and that was huge.

And then for us to score the next play was just great momentum. Jimmy Rolder gets an interception, we go down and score. Those are the things that you need as a team to go win. So it was huge and as a defense, just tackled better, play with better fundamentals, play with better eyes. The basic things that you need to go win football games, and that’s what we did.

On the injury status of Evan Link and others

Yeah, so Evan, not really sure, doesn’t look too good. I know it was a lower-body thing, but we’ll see how he does. And Justice and Rod were game-time decisions. They practiced throughout the week, and we always err on the side of, even sometimes when they wanna go, making sure that they’re full strength before we do anything. So they’re game-time decisions.

On whether he could envision a defensive turnaround from one week to the next

I think when you look at the weeks before, that’s what it looked like, it looked like that. So it was a little out of character last week, and what it looked like in all phases. And it’s just not one person to blame, we’re a team. So as a team, we had to fix it and we gotta keep doing it cuz we got a long way to go. And we got a lot of football left to play. We know we got a big game next week that I’ve already got my mind on right now.

I gotta give myself 24 hours, gotta give ourselves 24 hours, but I find myself wanting to go to the building and go watch the film on them right now. But I don’t know, I think they play at 3:30, they play at 3.30 today? Okay, so I’ll watch that. But yeah, I mean, just proud, proud of the team, proud of the players.

On getting the tight ends involved today with Marlin Klein and Hogan Hansen out

That’s just something we thought we had to do throughout the game. Before those guys even, again, both of them possibly could go. They’ll return soon, but that room is deep. I think Coach Casula does a really good job coaching those guys. And all those guys have ability, and you saw it today in the run and pass game. We think really highly of Zack Marshall, really highly of Deakon Tonelli.

And we always talk about next man up. And in that room, it’s just the next guy’s gotta go. And it doesn’t really matter who it is and what number it is, you gotta go. So the decision was already made before that even happened.

On what the ‘tough conversations’ consisted of during the week

Those tough conversations stay in-house. They’re our conversations. Nobody else needs to hear what was said, but we responded. Everybody responded, offensively, defensively, special teams. We responded, so you gotta have those. In any great organization, in any great family, there’s conflict, there’s things that happen, you gotta push each other.

And we did that this week, but we gotta continue to do it.

On whether the USC loss felt like a fork in the road situation

I mean, kind of, not really. The players put so much hard work into what they do. We talked about the winter, the spring, the summer, fall camp to now, to have these opportunities that you have. We have two more opportunities in the Big House to play. And you don’t wanna let those opportunities falter. So we really wanted to make sure that this was the time that we went this way versus this way, and I think as a team we did.

And so for me, it was more of we gotta go win this game, do everything we can. And I thought the players just rallied. They rallied behind each other, rallied behind the coaches, and rallied behind Michigan.

On Rod Moore’s status

Yeah, it was just a game-time decision. He practiced these past couple days, but again, it’s like we’re always gonna do whatever’s in the best interest of the kid, even if they wanna go. So he probably could have went, but we just felt like it wasn’t that time.

On coming out of the half and taking the game

Will, the willpower, just the want. They wanted it more. And again, credit to Coach Fisch and their football team. I think they got a really good football team and dynamic players, but our guys wanted it more. And at the end of the day, that’s football. It’s pretty simple.

You gotta want it more than them. And if you do that, you can come away with victories like that.

On what goes into who appears on the injury report or not

Yeah, just guys that practice, guys that lead up to the game, and they feel like they’re ready. And then when you get to the game, they could do warm-ups. They go through warm-ups, and it feels like, okay, well, that doesn’t look exactly right.

So those are the things that we make the decisions off of.

On handling the tough conversations and not point fingers

I mean, in this position, you gotta hold everybody accountable. And I gotta hold myself accountable. I gotta hold the coaches accountable. I gotta hold the players accountable. So that’s just part of it. And same thing, coaches to players, players to coaches, all those things. So that’s just part of football. It’s part of great organizations. When you do that, you’ve gotta do that.

You gotta have those conversations. And we talked about hardship plus commitment plus trust equals connection. And we wanted to stay connected. And I felt like we had some hardships last week. We asked and seen everybody that’s committed. And at the end of the day, we all had to trust each other. And if we did that, we would end up winning this game and be connected.

On Jordan Marshall’s play

Career high, 25 carries, 133 yards, and a touchdown, outstanding. Ran physical, ran hard, did the little things right, and just played really well.

On whether he thought it was Bryce Underwood’s cleanest game to date

Yeah, I think so. Even there was one motion that we thought he could have got. But besides that, I think it was pretty clean, especially throwing the football, decision-making, thought process. And there’s pieces that you want more. And there’s a high standard for him and what he wants. And he has a high standard for himself.

So we’re gonna keep pushing him to reach that standard. But I think this game was as clean as he’s played. You look at the stats, he was 21 to 27, what was it, 77%? 78. Yeah, two touchdowns. He continues to take care of the football, which is huge, especially as a true freshman. So he’s doing everything possible on the field, off the field, to reach that potential. And he just continues to do it, and proud of him.

On what the win does for the goals still being on the table

Yeah, I mean, I think right now in terms of the goals, we just need to focus on this next week. We can’t worry about what’s gonna happen, or what team’s gonna win, and what team’s gonna lose. We just gotta win each game, and it starts with this next one next week. And that’s a big one. It’s a huge one. We all know the implications.

We all know the rivalry. We all know what it’s about. So we gotta do everything we can to prepare mentally, physically, emotionally for that game, and then let everything fall where it may.

On the defense limiting Demond Williams

Yeah, I mean, you gotta keep eyes on him all the time. You gotta be disciplined with your rushes. And I thought our D-line, there’s a couple times he got out, but you can’t just let him have free plays. And first, you gotta stop the run, whether it’s quarterback run, running back run. And we did that. We held him to 40 yards on 23 attempts, which is outstanding.

And if you do that and force a guy to just be a pocket passer, especially when they’re smaller, it’s harder for them. It’s harder for anybody if you’re just gonna throw the ball. If you’re gonna sit back there and throw the ball, and you can’t be balanced. It’s hard. You can dictate the coverages and things that you want to stop the pass. So just an unbelievable job by the staff and the players of buying into the process of how to stop him.

On the importance of underclassmen being dependable

I mean, it’s huge. You look at it, and I remember watching the film on Sunday evening or whenever it was, and looking on the field in the USC game on offense, we had a redshirt freshman right guard, a redshirt freshman right tackle, a true freshman quarterback, a true freshman receiver, and a redshirt freshman running back. So, and I was told we’re the youngest team in the Big Ten.

So for us, it’s the experience of them playing football and keep doing it is what we need, and they’re all dependable. Obviously, guys have done a really good job recruiting the right players and people in the program. We gotta keep doing that to evolve the program to where we wanna go.

On the defensive performance and what went well

The response tackling, I thought that was awesome, but stopping the run. In this league, you gotta be able to stop the run.

If you can’t stop the run, you don’t got a chance. So for us to do what we did, holding them to 40-something yards with that running back and that quarterback, that’s the most important piece, and was really proud of them for that.