Sherrone Moore discusses process of finding out Jim Harbaugh was suspended, what it meant to beat Ohio State

Michigan Wolverines head football coach Sherrone Moore had an unexpected audition for the job last fall when he filled in for a suspended Jim Harbaugh seemingly minutes before a huge road contest at Penn State. History shows a relatively dominant victory on the scorecard, but it was far more frenetic behind the scenes.

Moore was on The Rich Eisen Show on Friday and explained what was going on behind the scenes when Michigan found out that its head coach was going to be unavailable, possibly available and then officially out for the 24-15 win at Penn State.

“We heard rumblings, we didn’t really know, and I’m sitting right by coach and we’re on the plane,” Moore said. “We’ve got Wi-Fi and are twiddling through our phones, not watching movies, and then we land. And when we land, that’s when we all see it. Coach is gonna be suspended, whatever. We’re sitting on the bus talking about different options and he’s like, ‘Well, should I fight it?’

“And this is the best part about coach. He’s like, ‘If I don’t fight it, they’ll stop talking about me. It’ll be all about the players. Because I don’t want to fight it and then they continue to talk about me. It’s about the players. I think we’re going to win anyway. So I don’t want to make this about me. I should just sit out and you handle it and let it be about the players.’

“I said, ‘Coach, we need you there. We want you there.’ So initially he fought for it but you know, whatever happened, didn’t happen. That’s when ‘Bet’ started. We were at dinner and Kris Jenkins. I think tweeted it out and then JJ didn’t and the rest of them did.. It was just like ‘Okay, you’re going to take our coach from us. Do you think that’s going to stop us?’ And it was a very big boulder that was on the shoulder that they thought they wanted to prove themselves right. Not necessarily prove doubters wrong.

“The results are the results.”

Moore said that up until the team was warming up in Happy Valley, they thought there was a chance that Michigan would have Harbaugh on the field. Then, he was thrown into the fire, but he never felt any nerves or anxiety about it.

“I was extremely confident in our team and the way that they practiced and the way they prepared at that moment,” Moore said. “It was a surreal moment for me because we’re going back and forth whether coach would be able to coach and he was waiting at the hotel and our AD Warde Manuel came on about 90 minutes before the game kicked off and said, ‘Hey, We gotcha. You’re going to coach the game.’ You just heavily rely on the staff. We have an amazing staff. So That was very humbling. There was not any nerves, not any anxiety, just super excited to watch the boys play.”

Moore famously had an emotional outburst during his postgame interview after the Michigan win, and he does not regret it. At the time, it was a reflection of how the team felt after an turbulent 24 hours on the road.

“When you go through crazy times like that and uncertainty, there’s a lot of human emotions,” Moore said. “And sometimes, I wear my heart on my sleeve and I’m not afraid of that. It was a super emotional time, an exciting time, but to watch our players go through all this craziness and people try to doubt how good they were, it was just cool to watch our players play at that high level and play angry, play fast, but physically and play for each other.

“When you’re part of a family, and something happens good or bad to your family, there are emotions involved and we have a true family. I think that’s where that all came from and we wanted to do it for Coach Harbaugh and prove his legacy of who he is as one of the greatest coaches to coach at Michigan.”

Of course, Harbaugh’s three-game suspension was ultimately upheld by the Big Ten, meaning Moore would be the head coach for games at Maryland and home against Ohio State. Both were victories for Michigan, and the OSU game in particular hit differently because of what it meant for the rivalry.

“It meant everything just winning that game regardless of whether you’re the head coach or the offensive coordinator or line coach or defense coordinator. It means everything. That’s everything we work for all year. That’s the standard. We uphold ourselves in that program and we’ll continue to do so.

“We know everything we do and we work for. We’re trying to beat them every single day. So it meant everything. That’s the game we work for. We were super excited for that moment for our players, for our fans, for the university to continue what we’ve been doing, and we look to continue to uphold that standard.”