Michigan injury updates: What Sherrone Moore said about banged up Wolverines ahead of Wisconsin game

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Michigan Wolverines football holds a 3-1 record through a third of the regular season and is coming off its first of two bye weeks. The Maize and Blue are set for a clash with Wisconsin Saturday at Michigan Stadium.

The Wolverines had several 21 players listed on the availability report ahead of the 30-27 road win over Nebraska Sept. 20, including 16 that were tabbed as “out.” The bye week gave the Wolverines a chance to get healthier, however.

“Yeah, I feel really good about where we are,” Moore said. “That was the No. 1 goal of [last] week, was to get guys healthy, get guys back.”

Michigan had multiple starters still out for the last game. Graduate left guard Giovanni El-Hadi, a captain, went down with a lower leg injury during the 24-13 loss to Oklahoma Sept. 6. In practice the following week, junior right guard Brady Norton went down with an injury and hasn’t played since.

Senior cornerback Zeke Berry was also hurt against Oklahoma and hasn’t seen action since. Junior cornerback Jyaire Hill went down late in the Nebraska game, forcing the Wolverines to rotate freshmen in at the position.

Sophomore tight end Hogan Hansen, meanwhile, missed Michigan’s season-opener against New Mexico with an injury but returned for tilts against Oklahoma and Central Michigan, before going down with an injury ahead of the Nebraska game that held him out of action. Moore said that Hansen is currently dealing with a different injury than he was previously.

Moore discussed all of those players, and seemed optimistic about all of them, but less so about Hansen.

“I feel like Gio’s in a good place,” Moore said. “I feel like Brady’s in a good place.

“Hogan’s in a good place. We’ll see how he’s doing as we go through the week, because I don’t ever want to predict it.

“But I feel like we’re trending in the right direction with all of those guys, and same with Jyaire.”

Moore explained how Michigan attacked the bye week, which he called “opportunity week.”

“Obviously, internally the self scout from what we do, I’m not going to speak on those,” Moore said of Michigan’s focus during the bye. “Fundamentally, we just want to get better as a football team. We just want to get better as a football team. We really worked on fundamentals. We had a team tackling circuit. We had a team ball security circuit. That was offense and defense; that was to emphasize ball security on defense just as much as offense, emphasize tackling because so much carries over with tackling and blocking. To watch guys do it, because that involves in special teams. We went back to the roots of the basics.

“We always talk about recommit — recommitting to your why and recommitting to the process. But why do that after a loss when you can do that after a win and you’re on a bye week? Just focused on getting better.

“Offensively, really focused on the drops. Wanted to attack that. Creating competition in the receiver room, and really focusing on the fundamentals of how to catch the football and doing that at a high level and making that a priority, whether that’s ball placement by the quarterback or hand placement by the receiver or tight end, whoever’s catching the football.

“Defensively, continue to emphasize tackling and being physical, hand placement and eyes. We know this week’s going to be a great challenge with their offense and shifts and motions and formations. We’ve got to be great with our eye discipline.

“Those are the things we worked on. Special teams — being the best tackling special teams [unit] in the country, working on doing that and continuing to do that at a high level.”