Michigan HC Sherrone Moore plans to appeal Jaishawn Barham's targeting ejection

Michigan will be without linebacker Jaishawn Barham for the first half of next week’s game against Oklahoma after being ejected for targeting in the second half of Saturday’s 34-17 win over New Mexico.

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U-M head coach Sherrone Moore is going to try his best to make sure that doesn’t happen, as he confirmed to the media after the game that he will try to appeal the call.

“We’re going to talk about the ejection when we get to that point with the Big Ten and handling that because we don’t agree and we’ll handle it from there,” Moore said.

The play came in the third quarter with Barham having a clear path to New Mexico quarterback Jack Layne and what was originally called a sack-fumble that was returned for a touchdown, the official review instead reversed the call and ejected Barham for a helmet-to-helmet hit.

In Barham’s absence, Moore has been confident in the depth behind both Barham and Ernest Hausmann and was pleased with what he saw from the three depth pieces who played, who each made a play throughout the game.

“Overall, Ernest, Jimmy, Cole, those guys, we look at as starters as well,” Moore said. “We play them every single day, and those guys are moving fast. And Cole Sullivan is putting in a lot of work. And I said this in Big Ten Media Days of how I thought he would really step up. And it wasn’t really a surprise to watch him do what he did today. And to watch Jimmy play like he did wasn’t a surprise either. So we got a really good group of linebackers.”

As for the explanation he received from the officials, Moore said he got lost in the moment as he did not feel like the play should’ve been called for targeting.

He says he will pursue all possible avenues to have Barham available.

“I kind of blacked out on the explanation,” Moore said. “It really wasn’t really that detailed of an explanation. So we’ll go with the process. And I’ll reach out to whoever I need to reach out to in the Big Ten and go from there.”