Michigan has played through a season of turmoil.
The Wolverines’ head coach has been suspended for six of the 12 regular-season games this season. The team competed in what many considered a weaker nonconference schedule and emerged undefeated entering Saturday when No. 2 Ohio State stepped up to the challenge in “The Game.”
Interim head coach Sherrone Moore has handled the critics and outside noise, managing the Wolverines to a 3-0 record in his time at the helm and through a 30-24 victory over the Buckeyes.
“The biggest thing is we just try to focus on what we’re working on, keeping the main thing the main thing that as our guys say, not looking too far into the future, not looking at the past and doing what we can every single day just to get better and attack that moment,” Moore said. “So not trying to look at the outside world and what people were saying. We know what we have in that building, and staying together as a group is the most important thing for us.”
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Michigan dominated the trenches and kept Ohio State quarterback Kyle McCord off balance. McCord went 18-of-30 for 271 yards, two touchdowns and two interceptions.
Moore credited the Wolverines for beating the Buckeyes for a third-staight season. He said this year is much different than the past two.
“The players, the way they practice, the way they did in this game, is something we prepare for 365,” Moore said. “It’s not a one-week affair. It’s not something we just dropped that week. So it’s something that’s planned out very strategically.”
Junior defensive back Rod Moore had the game-sealing interception with 25 seconds left in the fourth quarter.
McCord dropped back to pass and ranged a throw over the middle, and Rod Moore came down with the pick and later said the game was “personal” to him.
“Just being from Ohio, just in a sense, like, the whole game is personal every year,” Rod Moore said. “It’s so personal to me, and I’ll say before the defense went out there, I told myself, you’re either going to make the play or somebody else is to seal the game and I told them upfront, they got to get to the quarterback for us.”
Michigan receiver Roman Wilson caught three passes for 36 yards and a touchdown.
After the game, Wilson questioned Ohio State’s toughness and whether the Buckeyes had more of it than the Wolverines.
“No, definitely not,” Wilson said. “I mean like I told our receivers this whole week, like, you got guys back there, like, there’s the thing that I thought too like guys who you want to put on like the Louis V, like the $1,000 outfit, like you want to act hard but when you’re out there like they’re not hard. Like I see the film, like, you’re not tough. Like I don’t think I’m the toughest guy in the world. But you know, I’m out there, I’m getting physical like I don’t think they wanted it like I wanted it.”
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Michigan is on its way back to Indianapolis to play in the Big Ten Championship game for the third-straight year.
The Wolverines will get head coach Jim Harbaugh back on the sidelines in time for the postseason, and Sherrone Moore said they talked with their head coach postgame. He served a three-game suspension as a result of the Big Ten’s investigation into in-person scouting.
Now, Michigan controls its destiny, and just might get the job finished this season.
“The big thing he said to me was he loved me and do me, and I told him the same thing,” Sherrone Moore said. “I love him, and we got his back. So like I said in interviews, we got his back. We’ll do anything for him. Players will run through a wall for him, so would the coaches so we were just prepared to go win this game for him.”
