How Jim Harbaugh made it clear he endorsed Sherrone Moore as next Michigan head coach

Jim Harbaugh let Michigan officials know that he was all in for Sherrone Moore to replace him as head coach. After leading the Wolverines to a national championship, Harbaugh left to become the next coach of the NFL’s Los Angeles Chargers.

Moore had been on Harbaugh’s staff since 2018 and the offensive coordinator since 2021. When Harbaugh served a three-game suspension to start the season and then another three-game suspension to end the year, Moore stepped in as acting head coach both times.

If there was anyone he trusted to leave the program in good hands, it was him.

“I think he made that very clear from what Warde Manuel said on Saturday,” The Wolverine’s Clayton Sayfie told On3’s Andy Staples on Sunday. When he called to tell him, ‘hey, I’m taking the Chargers job,” it was ‘Sherron Moore’s my pick.’ He also stood in front of the team. Jim Harbaugh flew back to Ann Arbor for his final team meeting, which lasted quite a while and was pretty emotional on Friday. He said, ‘there’s nobody better to lead the team than Sherrone Moore.’ He made that clear in other interview he’d done and obviously Michigan wrapped it up pretty quickly in just about exactly 48 hours. So yes, I think Jim Harbaugh made it clear.”

Harbaugh leaving for the NFL seemed an inevitability after this season. The coach had interviewed with teams each of the past two offseasons and, with Michigan potentially facing punishment for a sign-stealing scandal, this seemed like the right time to leave.

He knew at the beginning of the season that there was a possibility it might be his last. Even then his endorsement of Moore was made clear.

“He was kind of hinting at this over the last really year that he wanted Sherrone Moore to be a guy who eventually runs this Michigan program,” Sayfie said. “So that’s important that he has that endorsement. That’s not a small thing. I think that’s gonna help the roster stay in tact. I think that’s gonna help — really the idea is down the road that Jim Harbaugh leaves on incredibly good terms here, so maybe Michigan West in LA. You got Michigan East in Baltimore. So they’re starting to kind of take over the map.”

Michigan announced the news quickly, giving Sherrone Moore time to get to work right away. The Wolverines have only had three players enter the transfer portal, a testament to how much the team is on board with their new coach.

He also got to work building his staff, with strength and conditioning coach Ben Herbert announcing he would come back. Things are slowly starting to come together under Moore, and the fact he worked under Harbaugh should make this a smooth transition.

We’ll see how it works out with more time, but right now it seems Harbaugh had a plan set in place for his departure and it’s off to a good start.

“They have a week before the dead period,” Sayfie said. “They’re like, ‘let’s get this press conference out of the way. Let’s get you to the basketball game.’ He was there with a bunch of the top players trying to keep them as close to him as possible. He let Donovan Edwards talk, as one would, to the Michigan crowd there. You wanted to get that day out of the way and I think you wanted to make sure he got all of the first orders of business out of the way, which is staff. That helps with recruiting too. You’ve gotta announce these guys and make sure you’re retaining all these guys, including Ben Herbert.

“You gotta make sure guys don’t go in the portal. It’s weird because the timing of Washington to Alabama wasn’t great, but now that semesters are kind of three, four weeks underway, it might help Michigan in that regard, at least until the spring portal period. So that’s gonna be big and you can continue to kind of sell them throughout spring ball. He’s got a lot of his plate immediately, but he feels like he’s got the energy and the motivation to really hit the ground running here.”