A Michigan budding defensive star and a lot to look forward to
For the last three years, Michigan defensive end Derrick Moore has been a popular pick here as a game “X-factor,” “break out player of the year,” or “one to watch.” He played well this year, though he didn’t put up the kinds of numbers of a dominant edge (for many reasons) — but he finally showed why we were so high on him in Tuesday’s 19-13 win over Alabama in the ReliaQuest Bowl.
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Moore was dominant, notching two sacks, recovering a fumble, and notching several pressures. He showed his power repeatedly with a bull rush the future ‘Bama NFL tackles couldn’t match, and it helped lift the play of the entire defensive line.
By the end of the day, Michigan fans were probably thinking, “we’re glad he announced he’s already coming back instead of going pro” given how much his stock probably rose … and he agreed that like the fan base, Alabama probably didn’t expect the pressure it saw from the Michigan front.
“I don’t think so. I think they wanted to throw the ball on us,” Moore said with a grin. “They have great receivers. They have a great quarterback … got a great O-line. I think they wanted to figure out … get the deep ball on our secondary. But our secondary, they’re too good. They found a way to strap it up and get out after them.”
Credit the game plan, too, from defensive coordinator Wink Martindale. Once again, he put on a master class on confusing quarterbacks that for the fourth game in a row was as good as anything we’ve seen the last four years (and that’s saying something).
But it was the line that really carried the defense Tuesday, and Moore was the catalyst. He’d been getting pressure and moving quarterbacks all year, only to have someone else finish the job. Tuesday was his turn to eat.
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“I would say [it was my best game], but when you’re out there with three first rounders, they take all the damn sacks,” Moore quipped. “They make it difficult to get to the quarterback. Today was my time to shine. I just feel like I’ve been patient my whole college career, and I’m just proud I could show the world what I could do today.”
And even prouder of the young guys who stepped up around him. The backups had been waiting their turn, and guys like Trey Pierce, etc. more than held their own.
“Preparing for this whole game, that’s all we heard this whole entire game … oh, we don’t got KG [Kenneth Grant], we don’t got Mason [Graham], we don’t got Josaiah [Stewart],” Moore said. “No matter who we got or who we don’t have, we’re always going to have dawgs on this D-line — really on this team – and we’re going to always continue to be hungry and just show the world we want to work, no matter who we go against.
“I feel like we really did show the world what we’ve got going into next year. I feel like people are already telling us [that] going into next year, so we just showed everybody who we’ve got, who we have, and we’ve also got guys coming in. Next year we can be strapping up, reload, and dominate whoever’s in front of us again.”
Judging by what we saw Tuesday, we wouldn’t doubt it.
