With Sherrone Moore suspended, Michigan’s player leadership faces biggest test at Nebraska

ANN ARBOR – The Michigan Wolverines football program is in the hands of associate head coach Biff Poggi for one more week as Sherrone Moore serves a two-game suspension, but he will not be the one directly responsible for what the game result is Saturday at Nebraska.

Michigan’s player leadership, key to turning around the culture from 2021-23, is in focus while the program works through yet another head coach suspension. The Wolverines won their way through that a few years ago and are 1-0 this season without their leader on the sidelines.

Poggi, who is in his third stint in Ann Arbor, sees their in-house leadership as the biggest key to success.

“We’ve always had really good player leadership here. 2017, 21 and 22, obviously 23,” Poggi said Monday. “There’s great player leadership here. Starts with our captains, and I would say those guys are the heartbeat of the football team. And it’s not easy to be a captain, because you have to be willing to be respected and not liked, and that’s hard for any of us. We all like to be liked, but the leadership is excellent.

“Make no mistake about it. It’s been this way since day one, since football ever started. Coaches do not win games. Players do. It’s all about the players, and it’s not the plays, it’s not who’s smart, who’s this. It doesn’t matter. And we’ve got great leadership and great players.”

Michigan players have taken the school-imposed Moore suspension personally, not so much because of the decision, but because their head coach is a big loss in the building this week. It was a rallying point last week as Moore coached the team in practice, and the 63-3 win over Central Michigan was a Poggi-described “love letter” to the head coach.

“I will describe Sherrone this way. I have children his age… and we’ve known each other for a long time, and we’ve talked constantly over the years and very rarely it’s about football,” Poggi said. It’s always about life and kids. And I will say this to you, and I mean no disrespect at all to anybody. Football does not typically attract a bunch of nature’s noblemen. Football is a game where most adults in it are looking to get to the next level, the next job, the next paycheck, and may say that they love and care about their players and I’m sure they do.

“But this guy, I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. So when he’s out, it is an enormous void in the building because of the heart-to-heart human relationship factor, if that makes any sense to you.”

Poggi had the main headset on during Saturday’s win over CMU and will man the same position in Michigan’s trip to Nebraska. Despite having over four decades of coaching experience, including the 2023-24 seasons leading the Charlotte program, he admitted to some nerves ahead of last week’s win.

“To be very honest with you, I was quite anxious during the week and my anxiety was from not wanting to let Sherrone down or any of the Michigan fans down or do anything like that,” Poggi said. “As soon as I hit the tunnel, I realized I’ve done this 300 and some times, and football’s football, honestly. It’s whether you’re playing it out back and there’s nobody there or you’re playing it in the biggest stadium in the country, whether it’s Pop Warner or the NFL, it’s all just football.

“If you’re a football guy, it’s just football and that’s the truth.”

Michigan’s position coaches and coordinators will lead their respective groups this week, and Poggi has a set of plans left to him by Moore for the week, describing himself as a golf caddy in support of his head coach.

No matter what happens, there’s confidence that Michigan’s players will give it their all and be put in a position to win the game.

“The assistant coaches obviously do a good job with that because they’re with their units and their position groups much more than the head coach is, so a big part of it is the assistant coaches,” Poggi said. “The way that works, as you know, is the coordinators in the units and then the position coaches in their rooms, but we have great leadership within the team.

“You know what makes me happy and excited about this week is I’ve coached some teams where you go, ‘Oh geez,’ and you don’t know what you’re kind of [performance] you are going to get. What makes me excited is that these are the guys we’re coaching. Whatever happens, win, lose, or draw, you’re getting your absolute best from a group of fantastic kids, and you can’t ask for anything more than that.”