Everything Sherrone Moore said on Inside Michigan Football pre-Oklahoma

On the preparation leading up to the opener and his takeaways

I think when you look at the preparation and what they did from winter to spring to summer to the game, the excitement, the energy that you wanted to have for the first game, you saw that. The intensity, the physicality, you saw that. I think in every football team that I’ve ever been a part of, even the championship ones here, week one, you’ve always had something that, oh, man, we could have did this better. We could have done this better. We could have blocked this better. We could have executed this better. The overall goals we had coming out of the game was on offense, no turnovers. We did that. Obviously, we had the one on special teams, but we wanted to make sure on offense we did that. On special teams and defense, we wanted to tackle well. We didn’t want a lot of missed tackles. We had some, but for the first week, it was pretty good. And you want a consistent energy throughout the whole game. And I thought from the beginning to the end, I mean, we played 31 players on defense. You saw that energy and excitement throughout the team. And I thought our sideline operation was great. That’s something that goes unnoticed from the fans and everybody else. And for the game one, as good as we’ve had, substitution, sideline, just management, coaching, I thought play calling on both sides of the ball was extremely creative, but still good for our players. And it was fun to watch the guys go after it.

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On the process of appealing Jaishawn Barham’s suspension

The process is, I talked to Tony Petitti, our commissioner, and him and A.J. Eves, our vice president of football operations for the Big Ten, and we’re in complete agreeance of what we thought. And we disagreed on the call. It goes to Bill Corolla and the official committee and Steve Shaw, who’s the rule, who’s overall the rules of the NCAA rules official, and they review it. And then it comes back to us and we just got the ruling that they upheld it. So right now, Jaishawn is going to be suspended for that first half of Oklahoma. We completely disagree. A.J. completely disagrees. Tony disagrees. And to teach the game the right way, there’s only so many things you can do. And the kid was trying to avoid, you saw him turn his head at the last minute. And when you’re 6’3″, 250 pounds, hitting a guy that’s 5’8″, if he lowers his head at that moment, he’s probably going to hurt himself or hurt the kid even more. So it’s something, a rule, that we definitely have to address in college football in general, because it doesn’t just happen here. And last night in a game, that actually hit. That hit took place the same way and it wasn’t called. So we have to figure out how to make sure that rule is refereed the same way not to punish the kids.

On whether he believes the first-half suspension rule should be addressed

Yeah, 100%. I mean, if it’s a blatant duck your head, and we have our teaching periods where we tell them exactly what, like, guy launches his head or puts his head face to face with the guy and intentionally does it, then yeah, we could see that. But, you know, 15-yard penalty, absolutely. But throwing the guy at the game is not the right way, especially suspending him for the next half of the next game.

On where he’s seen improvement from Barham the most

Yeah, I mean, I think just the way he prepares every day in practice, but not just how he prepares mentally, but how he prepares physically with taking care of his body and taking that to another level with his nutrition and his recovery has put him in a place, because he, you know, behind Mikey Keene, he was the second highest snap getter in college football with, like, 1,700 snaps of college football before this year started. So he’s a guy that’s played a lot of football and done it since he’s been a true freshman. He’s really just, I mean, he practices so hard. He practices with intent and purpose, and that’s why he’s played so well, obviously with his natural-born athleticism and talent. So he’ll be missing that first half, but also excited about the rest of the crew, right? Ernest Hausmann played his tail off, and he had eight tackles. He was all over the field. He directed the defense, but you felt like Jimmy Rolder came in. You really didn’t lose that much. You know, Jimmy Rolder is a starter for us, and then the young kid, Cole Sullivan, he’s electric to us, and we think he’s going to be special, and he just went in there, and it’s just like, it’s not like you forgot Jaishawn was gone, but you didn’t feel that effect as much with those three guys in there.

On feeling good about the LB room in Barham’s absence

Yeah, 100%. Coach BJ has done a really good job with that group, and Coach Wink putting those guys in position. So I feel like those guys are doing a really good job, and then adding a guy like Troy Bowles in the mix, who, you know, had the final sack of the game, who’s just a hard hitter, violent player, and then Chase Taylor as well. So you feel like you got a good group of guys to go in there and go in the battles.

On the traits Cole Sullivan brings to the team

Yeah, I mean, start off just freaky size. He’s like 6’5″, 230-something pounds, and I don’t know what his 40 is, but he’s fast, because it’s hard to run away from him. Long, athletic, great vertical, but he’s gotten so much stronger, so much more violent, and his ability to kind of do the things that Jaishawn does with being an inside linebacker, but playing on the edge is what has us like really excited about his future, and he’s a sponge man, and he’s just worked his tail off all training camp, and you can see it coming to fruition and see the product on the field.

On whether Brandyn Hillman’s hit power is innate

Yeah, B-Hill is a tone setter, just in every sense of the word. He does that in practice now. The cool thing about it is how he practices. He practices that speed, but he’s able to turn it off when it comes to hitting his teammates. He knows how to give them a nice jolt and make them feel it, but not try to knock them out, and he always lets them know you would have been hurt right there. He’s the guy you see in your nightmares. Yes, and the coolest thing, when he made that first hit, I looked to my left, and I don’t know if Bryce had just gotten off the phone with Coach Lindsey, but he was up. He’s like, oh, B-Hill, here we go, and it’s fun to watch the kid play because he plays so fast, but that’s how he practices.

On his evaluation of the cornerback play

Yeah, I thought pretty well. We had a couple plays. Those touchdowns were just eyes, eye violations, things that we got to fix with JoJo and Sug, but overall, Sug played really well, so did JoJo, but Zeke Berry played really well. I thought those guys, you know, we had some penalties on the edge with the pass interference. There was one that was out of bounds, but those guys played physical, which we really wanted to do. We got to continue to tackle on the perimeter, but they played physical, which was what we wanted to see them do.

[Speaker 1]

And we saw a lot of Metcalf, and I know you don’t need to go into it. We’ve already talked about the officials. I thought the officiating was subpar, and there were some things, whether it was holding Jay Sean, holding the guys up front that we’ll talk about in a minute, but there was one where I think TJ got held as well and actually spun around, but your thoughts on his play?

On TJ Metcalf’s play

I thought he played well. Continued to just pull that trigger because he’s got it, and he does it, but I thought he played fast and played physical.

On whether he liked what he saw from DL depth and whether to expect it all season

Yeah, I mean, I think the most a guy played was 35, 38 snaps, and for us on the defensive line, if you’re just playing 35, 38 snaps, it’s really good for us. We rotated a lot of guys, and you felt like the waves and the guys playing fresh and the guys all into the game, so that was huge to see, but guys like Eno Eta making an impact, Trey Pierce making an impact, and Raysean obviously. Damon Payne had one of the better games of the guys up front, so that was awesome to see up front. The edge guys, Derrick and TJ with his first pick, Dom Nichols with his first sack, Nate Marshall coming in the game, playing well. Cam Brandt is just a hammerhead in there, so I think according to Coach Phee, he won defensive edge player of the week, so those guys, they’re all challenging and all pushing to go play.

On how he determines who starts in a loaded position group

Yeah, whoever practices is the best. Those are the guys that start the game, but they all know they’re going to play, and then obviously there’s packages where, you saw a package where there was three edge guys on the field, and we’ve had packages where there’s four, and then there’s two obviously, and so I think it’s just how the week goes and what happens during the week of what we need and who’s necessary at certain places, but all those guys are going to play.

On his evaluation of Bryce Underwood

Yeah, I thought he played well. You know, 21 of 31, you’d think, oh, he missed 10 passes, but I think there was about five drops in there and just a couple missed throws, but, I mean, the poise, going in on that two-minute drive, like, as a true freshman to make that throw on third and 14th, you watch that, I watch it over and over again, like, it was an incredible throw, incredible play, and then there’s a couple of throws that get kind of brushed to the side. He threw the play to Marlin coming out on the six-yard line, just a little touch pass, and then rolls out to the right and throws a dig to Kendrick Bell, and it just continues to be like, okay, yeah, this dude’s different, you know, he’s really, really different, and, but, like, he goes to the sideline, he is as poised, he’s calm, you’d think he’d played for three years in college football, and it was awesome to watch the kid go out there and have fun with his teammates, and then I’d wish he’d not, you know, throw his shoulder in there and try to block people. I don’t think this is the last time we’ll be having that conversation.

On Underwood showing leadership to the team

Yeah, I think the whole defense saw it first. The offensive guys saw it that were, you know, on the sideline, and then the guys that were in the game watched the replay and seen it, and they just like, okay, this kid is completely bought into what this place is all about. They already thought he was, but now he did it in the first game, and on a run for it to be on third down, the ball rolls to the left, and he can easily just let the guy score and not do anything, but to find and seek contact kind of gives you the mindset of what we’re all about and what he’s all about.

On not having Underwood run in the game and whether it’s an option in the future

Yeah, I mean, I think obviously he has the ability to do that, and game by game, whenever we need to have him as a weapon to run, we will, but I always say if you got one quarterback, and if you got a quarterback that runs, you better have two, so you don’t want to run a guy like that too much because these guys in college football are big, and fast, and strong, and violent, so we’ll see what we do and how we do it with them in the run game.

On areas where he’d like to see Underwood grow

Yeah, I think just continuing to not press and stay within the framework of whatever the plays are. There was a couple plays where the ball’s a little bit high and a little bit here, but I told the staff, and I told about 80% of his throws are going to be right on target, and there’s going to be 20% that aren’t going to be right there, and that’s how most quarterbacks are, so let’s see if we can get it to 90 this week and see how good we can get.

On the miscommunication between Underwood and Andrew Marsh

Yeah, so that play, actually, him and Channing had repped that throughout the week, and they had timed it pretty well where as soon as the backer passed, Channing would look, and he’d just throw it in the spot. So it was Andrew Marsh that time, and he’s a true freshman. He hadn’t taken the rep, so he went in there, ran the route like it’s drawn on the paper, and the ball went there, and he didn’t look for it, so that’s just a timing thing.

On the wide receiver play

Yeah, I thought Semaj started the game off hot with two catches in the first three plays. McCulley with some short passes, we got to keep working on getting him the ball, but he did his job, and he blocked his tail off all game. Channing, there was a couple where it was just a little off target, but he played well. That third down conversion was huge for us, and so I think those guys, they’re doing a good job, but again, it just takes time and takes rhythm. Obviously, he had a great connection with Marlin throughout the game.

On his evaluation of Chip Lindsey and his call on third down

No, yeah, I was pretty excited. It really didn’t bat an eye because when Chip calls it, he has a lot of conviction of what he wants to run and how he wants to do it, and I told him, dude, just let it rip, man. Just have fun, enjoy the moment, and get after it, and he was super excited for the opportunity, obviously, to be here, but I thought he did a heck of a job. Mixing formations, motion shifts, under center, in the gun, play action, perimeter, up the middle, so he did a really good job, and that’s why we brought him here.

On his thoughts on Marlin Klein’s day

Did what he’s been doing in camp, you know, caught the ball really well, had one drop, another one was a little bit behind. In the running game, you got to keep improving, got to keep getting better there in the running game, but career high in receptions and yards and first touchdown, so I was really proud of him the way he played.

On his evaluation of the guard play and the offensive line

I thought good and consistent, you know, from where they were in the first game last year to where they are now, they just look different. You know, there’s different confidence. There’s a different aura. I think moving Gio back to left was huge. I think moving Evan back to left was huge. And, you know, Brady and Nate going in there, rotating in there, I thought Brady played a little bit better. Nate played well, though, and then Sprague played good. He was just catching, he caught a little cramp and he’s fine, so Blake went in there and didn’t bat an eye when Blake was in there. He played well as well, so I thought that group played really good and just excited to watch them progress because week one, you know, you always take that biggest jump to week two.

On his evaluation of Justice Haynes’ performance

I mean, record performance, I think what’s the most yards in a debut since 1970. The guy just did the things he did in the spring and did in fall camp because every other practice, you’d feel like Justice is about to break a big one. You just didn’t know what play it was going to be, and he did, and same thing in fall camp, and I told the staff at some point, I think maybe on Thursday, like, this dude’s going to break a 50-yarder. I just don’t know when it’s going to be. I didn’t know it was going to be on the first drive, but he’s electric with the ball in his hands and he’s just showed that.

On addressing special teams mistakes

Yeah, competition, you know, competition for sure. We got to, you know, you don’t want to take away confidence from the young men, especially a freshman like Andrew Marsh, because that could mentally jam you for a while, so we got to teach him, we got to coach him, we got to help him be better because he has ability, he has skill, and I know he can do it, so we’ll help him, but got to promote competition in both rooms with that and the punt returner.

On his thoughts on the Oklahoma game

Yeah, I mean, I think it’ll be a fun atmosphere. A lot of respect, obviously, for that program and the history and tradition of the program and playing there, seeing I know how the fans are. They’re loud. It’s an exciting place to play. It’s a great town. It’s a great place to be, and I have the utmost respect for Brett Venables. He was my defensive coordinator when I was playing, so as good as one in college football over the last 20 years, you know, so somebody that’s done it at an extremely high level, and I know Kevin Wilson’s now on that staff, too, who was my offensive coordinator, so both guys that were the coordinators when I was playing there are both there. Joe Jon Finley, who I played with as the tight end coach, DeMarco Murray was a running back when I played there, so there’s a lot of familiar faces and people that are great people there that I have a ton of respect for, so it’ll be a great environment, great opportunity, but really it’s going to be about our players and how they play in that environment.