Sherrone Moore looks back on how he learned that Jim Harbaugh was leaving Michigan

The collective football landscape was on the edge of their seats following the college football season to see what Jim Harbaugh‘s next move would be after leading Michigan to a national championship win in January.

As many anticipated, Harbaugh accepted the Los Angeles Chargers head coaching job on January 24. That move was quickly followed by Sherrone Moore getting promoted from within as the new head coach of the Wolverines two days later. It was an experience that Moore recently shared from his perspective with college football analyst Joel Klatt as a part of his Big Noon Conversations series.

“Well, I was in the Houston airport heading to Dallas recruiting and I just talked to Coach [Harbaugh] probably like three hours before that,” Moore told Klatt. “And he’s kind of like, yeah I don’t know what’s gonna happen. I think it could happen soon, it could happen in a day, could happen tomorrow, could happen next week.

“And I was like okay, it’s gonna have at some point, I just gotta be ready.”

Moore joined the Michigan coaching staff in 2018 as a tight ends coach, steadily being promoted from within the program throughout his time in Ann Arbor and eventually become the offensive coordinator ahead of the 2023 season. A year where he also revealed that Harbaugh prophesied that he’d eventually become the program’s next head coach.

From that moment forward Moore mentally prepared himself for the moment, but nothing could have prepped him for the whirlwind that followed the news officially breaking that Harbaugh would be returning to the NFL.

“And I saw it, I was going through the TSA and it popped up on my phone. Jim Harbaugh to the Chargers. I was like okay, and that second, phone doot doot doot doot doot doot,” Moore said, mimicking the sound of his phone notifications. “Text messages, calls, text messages, calls. Our AD, our assistant AD calls, ‘Hey, you got to come back right now.'”

Moore would return to Ann Arbor and the rest was history, becoming Michigan’s 21st head coach on January 26 in a moment he’ll never forget.

“So I did an interview that next day and got the job on Saturday. The press conference, was on the recruit road recruiting on Monday, and it was just a humbling experience,” Moore concluded.

The hard work of Moore over the years within the Michigan facility paid off as he’s now been handed the keys to the Wolverines’ program. Now tasked with maintaining the high standards and expectations placed before him by his mentor ahead of a highly anticipated 2024 college football season.