Everything Sherrone Moore said on Inside Michigan Football pre-Washington

On his reflection on the loss

Yeah, first off, like I said previously, a lot of credit to them how they executed and they played. I thought the week of prep was good, but you got to execute in those moments, and there’s just too many little things in all three phases that we got to get better at. And right now it’s just all about the work.

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It’s all about putting in the work to get better at those things. I thought offensively, there was times we moved the ball. We had the first drive was three and out, then we went 12 plays, and then you get in the red zone, you don’t score, that hurts, especially against a really good team that’s top five in scoring offense.

And then 12 plays, no points, 15 plays, touchdown, and then one play, and that’s the half. So when you have those opportunities in the red zone, you got to convert on them. And then defensively, we got to tackle better.

So those are the two things that really stand out as you go through the game. There’s opportunities to win it, but obviously, we got to get better at it.

On the challenges of the offense not putting the ball in the endzone when the offense is down there

Yeah, the first one in that first 12-play drive, we were third and four, and then we get a penalty. The penalty bumps you back to third and long, and then we get sacked. You wish you don’t take the sack, but those are, again, those are learning pieces that young quarterbacks got to learn, and we got to be better in protection of ID’ing it. It’s O-line, it’s running backs, it’s everybody. So all those little moments, they amount to big things at the end of the game. So those are the big things that I take away.

As the field gets shorter, everything gets tighter. So you got to do a great job of when we did get down there on the third drive, we went and scored, you know? But that’s got to happen on that second drive for us to be successful.

On Donaven McCulley’s progression and getting the receivers more involved in the offense

Yeah, I think you saw a little bit of him, and then Andrew Marsh obviously had a breakout game. You got to continue to put those guys in position, whether it’s not just outside, but in the slot and move them around and motion them and do different things to get them the ball. We used a couple more RPOs and things in the game, and I think that helped and that comforts Bryce a little bit. So we’ll continue to do that as we go through.

On whether he feels Bryce Underwood is evolving with the RPO game and his progressions

Yeah, for sure. I think the RPO piece, he’s gotten better and better, and he’s making decisive decisions. Even making some off-schedule plays with those, which are necessary sometimes.

And then the rollouts and the movements, he’s doing a good job. We just got to do a good job of protecting them. You know, the one rollout, the big SAM backer bats the ball down, and that’s going to happen when they blitz, you try to get it in the flat.

So we just got to continue to format different ways to protect them.

On the OL’s progression of identifying blitzes

Yeah, I think overall they’re doing a good job, but you know, we got to continue to be perfect. Continue to be perfect in every situation. And it’s play by play because teams give you different fronts, different looks that you got to identify.

And it’s just constant communication from left tackle to right tackle or left tight end all the way down to the right tight end, whoever’s in the game, to make sure we’re all on the same page.

On what Gio El-Hadi’s return brings to the OL

You can tell there’s some — the leadership there, there’s the attitude. I felt like we had some drives, especially on those long drives, and we had another 10-play or 12-play drive in the third quarter and fourth quarter that you’re getting to move the ball a little bit. And you didn’t have the explosive with Justice down at that point, but you had those three and four and six-yard runs that made it successful.

On how Jordan Marshall performed with Justice Haynes out

Yeah, he did well. I thought he made some plays in the run game. Same thing in the blitz pickup. He always does an outstanding job in that, and making sure he knows he’s on the same point with the offensive line. So he did a really good job when he was in there.

On how he is handling the RB room and the competition for snaps

I think continual competition and practice. Those guys have done a really good job of being selfless as we’ve gone through the season. We’re in week seven now, or really week eight with the bye.

And those guys have done a great job, and Coach Alford’s done a really good job of distributing that. And we’ll just continue to do that and put the best players out there for each situation.

On Haynes’ status for the Washington game

You know, right now, I think he’s questionable. There’s a chance he’ll play, feel good, but, you know, we’ll see how he progresses through the week.

On the depth at RB if Haynes is unable to play

Bryson Kuzdzal is definitely a guy that we’ll look at using. Jasper Parker, the young freshman. He’s definitely shown flashes of what he can do in fall camp and as we’ve gone through during the season. And he’s got a lot of good carries. He’s a big, strong kid. I think he can make the play. So we’ll see as he progresses through the week.

On his excitement having so many young players that haven’t scratched the surface of their potential

I think I looked out there on offense at one point or two, the right side was both redshirt freshmen, the quarterbacks are freshmen. Jordan Marshall’s a redshirt freshman. People forget that. And then Andrew Marsh is a freshman. So there was five guys out on the field at one point that are freshmen. So it does excite you about the future and what it can be.

But we got to make sure we do what we can right now to get the best people in position. And those guys are part of the best people. So we got to continue to get them better.

On Underwood’s development and where he needs to improve

I think he’s in a good place, and he continues to learn. He’s continuing wanting to learn, but there’s things that he’s got to continue to progress on his footwork, the basic throws, some of them he missed, and it’s all footwork. It has nothing to do with his arm angle or hips.

Those little things will help him. We went for two, on the two-point conversion, the reason we went for that is statistically, you look at it, and we look through all the analytics of if you get that one, you’re down nine and a field goal and a touchdown win the game.

So that’s why we went for that. But like even that fade ball that he usually makes to Donovan, 100 out of 100, you know, 99 out of 100 he makes it, and then he overthrows that a little bit because of his footwork. So all those things and then the decision, like on the sack, it’s a free runner, which is part of the issue in protection.

We got to make sure we get that, but then get out of the pocket and throw it away and keep us in field goal range. But yeah, those are all things he’ll learn.

On whether Underwood underestimates the speed of defensive players

Yeah, I think you just got to know when you’re in college football in the Big 10. They’re all good. They’re all really good. They’re all athletic. They’re all fast. So you can’t underestimate anybody.

On whether the team is relying too much on the run or whether it’s a result of what the game presents

Yeah, I think there was a little bit of both. I think part of it is we’re leaning on them a bit, and you can see the line of scrimmage moving and those five and six-yard runs, and that one drive popped open a 10-yard or 15-yard run. So I think that happens.

But we got to do a good job of keeping balance. And that’s part of us as coaches of evaluating ourselves and making sure we get better. And that’s a big thing we’re going to do as we go through this week.

On how the offensive line performed and Brady Norton’s health status

Brady’s fully healthy, I think this week. So he’s going to challenge Jake to see where he is. And, you know, love the competition, need it. So we’ll see how that goes this week.

On how the travel process went

I think the travel was smooth. And, you know, Friday night, guys saying, Coach, I’m glad we came out here Friday. It feels like a little more tired today based on the travel and trying to catch up on the hours and the sleep.

And they felt really energized on Saturday. I don’t think it was for a lack of effort or anything. So I think the travel and we’ll continue to replicate that.

On Trey Pierce’s status for Saturday

I think so. We’ll get a better prognosis today and see where he’s at. He’s played so, so well, but we’ll see where he’s at today.

On the defense not being able to stop the run against USC

Explosive plays. And you look at the biggest one, you know, that second and 25. It’s all about gap integrity and playing the run versus playing the pass.

You know, dent in the line of scrimmage. All those things, because I think a couple of plays later they ran the same exact run and we dent in the line of scrimmage and we stopped it for no gain. So as you look at it, it’s not guys just getting blown off the ball.

It’s more guys being out of position. And we’ve got to continue to emphasize those pieces because that’s what ends up getting you beat. And for us, we’ve got to refocus as coaches, as players to make sure we get that fixed.

On the reaction by the defense to give up a big play

Yeah, I think you have to forget on defense. I mean, I remember in the second quarter, maybe it was, it was the first quarter, they drove down the field and Jyaire comes and hits the tight end and he fumbles the ball. That’s defense.

You’ve got to play each play because on offense, you’ve got to go execute and score. So I felt like they responded. But in the second half, the biggest thing we saw was angles, like our angles to tackle what causes the missed tackles.

It wasn’t just, hey, we’re missing tackles. It’s the angles in which we’re taking and trusting the pursuit angles of everybody around you. So continue to emphasize that as we go through the week.

On who is standing out on the defensive line in efficiency

Trey Pierce was the number one guy really doing that. The other guy that doesn’t get talked about enough is Damon Payne. It’s the guy that’s consistently out there making plays.

Same thing with Rayshaun. But a guy that really jumped out this week and made some plays was Tre Williams. It was good to see him make some plays and be a force in there.

So everybody’s got to roll, and they got to continue to get better.

On what he needs to see from the linebacker room

Just consistency. I think overall they played, look at the whole season in the framework, they played really well. But that game as a defense, we just didn’t play good enough. And it’s not just one position. Everybody’s got to play better. Everybody’s got to do their job and do their role to make us all work as a defense.

And overall, they played good this season. But that game, we all didn’t play good enough.

On respecting the run and the pass against USC

Yeah, I mean, you got to put a roof on the defense. There wasn’t a lot of just explosive plays over the top of the defense, which is what we want to do, keep everything in front of us. So they just wanted to dime and dink and we had to rally the football.

So the big thing for the DBs was keeping everybody in front, which I thought they did a good job of. But we got to continue to mix that in and do a good job with the front seven stopping the run.

On constructing a defense that avoids an offense from dinking and dunking down the field

Yeah, I think it’s a combination of you got to be able to stop the run and make them one-dimensional because you’ll take them trying to take those short passes. But then if they try to run the ball, they can’t. Then they get one-dimensional.

So you got to take that away. And we didn’t do that. And if we do that, we’ll be in a much better shape.

On how the team responded to the environment

Yeah, I mean, overall, the response from a mental standpoint or emotional standpoint, they were good. They don’t really get flustered that much about that. It’s more of us not executing.

It’s us not playing to our standard is what makes everybody frustrated. But again, there’s so many young guys playing on the field, that’s part of the game that we got to get better at.

On the special teams performance

I thought our kick coverage, they had the one kickoff return. It got to like the 23-yard line, so it wasn’t too crazy. And then the punt return we covered down, handling number six was a big task, which we thought we did well.

We just got to punt better. We got to punt more consistent. Hudson, he does a really good job in practice, but we got to carry that over to the game.

On the balance of fair catching a ball vs. going to make a play

Yeah, I mean, a little bit of both. I think part of it is, you know, you got a true freshman back there. You want to make sure he makes a good decision and take care of the football.

And then knowing that you’re getting the ball in the second half is part of it. So, you know, we’ll continue to evaluate those things as we go forward.

On whether he’s concerned that there’s so much going on in CFB with NIL and other things it will be a distraction and the pride he has in his players who take up causes

I think the NIL piece is just part of college football that we got to adjust to. We always educate the players in the off-season on how we want to handle it during the season. And the guys have done a pretty good job of that.

But the guys doing these unbelievable things outside of football to raise awareness for charities, it’s something that I believe wholeheartedly in and will continue to support them in doing and continue to do myself.

On what times for kickoff did he prerfer as a player and now as a coach

Player night, coach noon. Coach noon all day. There’s nothing that beats getting up, getting ready for the game and getting after it and attacking that, attacking that game at noon as a coach, and then going home and hanging out with the family for the rest of the day and watching everybody else stress.

On his early thoughts on Washington

Yeah. I watched a lot of football of Coach Fish, obviously, Pat, last year and this year, but the defense is different than it was last year. Some of the same principles, but different.

But overall, you got a phenomenal football team coming in here. A team that has a dangerous quarterback, dual threat guy that can, he’s just not a runner. He can throw it.

And then dangerous running back. Probably, I think he’s close to leading the country in missed tackles. So I mean, an emphasis of what we’ve got to do this week with this guy. He’s an unbelievable back. And then the receiver, Boston, he’s a great player too. So we got a big challenge on our defense to stop their offense because they can do a lot.

And defensively, they play sound football. They play physical. They’re going to be pressed corners. They got 6’4 corners on the outside. So it’s going to be a big challenge.

On managing conversations with the team about a sense or urgency but not applying too much pressure

Yeah, the big thing is that we got to really focus on today, fix anything we need to fix from the game that would just happen, and then move on quickly to this team that’s coming in here and worry about this team and don’t worry about anything else. Because as you’ve seen in college football, who knows what’s going to happen? Who knows who’s going to win?

Who knows who’s going to lose? So, all you can worry about is this game and then just go game by game, let everything play out. We’re six games in, and we got six left.

So we just got to go 1-0 this week. It’s a wild ride. Wild.