Michigan DB, Ohio native Rod Moore made OSU pay for not recruiting him: 'I'm not losing that game'
Michigan Wolverines football sophomore safety Rod Moore, a three-star in the 2021 class, had scholarships offers from Notre Dame, Wisconsin, Iowa and a host of other Division I programs. One notable absence from the Clayton, Ohio, native’s list of options was Ohio State.
Starting when Moore committed to Michigan, he began to hear from fellow Ohioans that he made a mistake and he’d never beat the Buckeyes. Before 2021, after all, Ohio State had won eight consecutive and 15 of the last 16 games in the rivalry.
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Moore used those comments as fuel, though. A starter by year’s end, Moore helped lead Michigan to a decisive, 42-27 victory over the Buckeyes inside The Big House last November. He tied for the team’s lead with nine tackles, playing on the back end of a defense that forced two field goals on four red-zone trips, came up with 10 third-down stops on 18 attempts, committed zero penalties, made eight tackles behind the line of scrimmage and sacked Ohio State quarterback C.J. Stroud four times.
This offseason, Moore has had the opportunity to head back south to Ohio. His chin is held high, and his promise that he’d beat the Buckeyes came true.
“It feels really good,” Moore said on the Blue By 90 podcast. “They didn’t recruit me coming out of high school. They told me they wanted me to come to a camp, this, that and a third — but I wasn’t doing all that for an offer.
“So when I came here, I’m like, ‘Oh yeah.’ And everybody at my school kept telling me, ‘You’re never going to beat Ohio State when you go up there,’ so I’m like, ‘OK, when I’m on the field and we play Ohio State, I promise you I’m not losing that game.’
“And then we played them, won that game — and I was talking crazy to everybody. Half of my family was Ohio State fans — my mom and my dad — and they switched over in a heartbeat because obviously their son is on the team. [The rest of] my family was still like, ‘We’re going to cheer for you every game except Ohio State. I hope you get five picks, but I still want Ohio State to win.’
“Just cheer for Michigan. We beat them already. We’ll keep beating them.”
At the beginning of the year, Moore said, he had no idea he’d be a starting safety for Michigan, playing in the biggest of games. He had just made his first start two weeks earlier at Penn State, a game he came into with a lot of nervous energy but played well, registering the game-sealing fourth-down tackle.
“It was crazy, because two games before that, that’s when I had my first start against Penn State,” Moore said. “And then we came to Ohio State, and I’m like, ‘Oh, this is a game where I could make a name for myself, actually.’
“We came out in that game — and I knew we were going to beat them all week — and when we came out, it was like they didn’t have any energy. But we had all the energy, because the stadium was packed, it was crazy. It was crazy, it was a surreal moment, especially when we beat them and everybody rushed the field. I’ve never felt anything like that before, and I’ve seen it on TV and everything. I’m just like, ‘Damn, we actually did it.’”
