Michigan football's Derrick Moore is primed for a breakout year

Michigan is sending players to the pro ranks with regularity, a fixture in the NFL Draft year after year. This year’s squad might be as talented as any Jim Harbaugh has fielded in his nine years in Ann Arbor, and several of the top players are underclassmen.

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One with as much upside as any — edge Derrick Moore. He’s got all the physical tools and can be “as good as he wants to be,” defensive coordinator Jesse Minter said earlier this spring. Moore was dominant in the spring game, running over one of his teammates and knocking down a pass and showing why he’s one of the defense’s top breakout candidates for the fall.

“I didn’t know that was I was going to throw my own teammate like that,” Moore told Jon Jansen on the In the Trenches podcast. “I ended up apologizing to him. Going into the spring game, I like to go speed to power a lot. A lot of our tackles here know like to go speed to power. For the spring game, I told myself I wasn’t going to do speed to power moves. I was just going to work on my dipping and bending the whole game. Leading to that, all I was doing was dipping and bending.”

Moore knew quarterback Jack Tuttle liked to step up and run, though.

“I had it in my head that I was going to long-arm the offensive tackle. The way I set up my long-arm, I aimed for the inside pec of the offensive lineman and then I just drove him back and, for some reason, I don’t know … he just fell on the ground,” Moore said.

That reason — strength and power that comes naturally and from a year working with strength coach Ben Herbert.

Moore is a natural pass rusher, but he’s also strong enough to hold the edge against the run. That makes him a candidate to be an every down player and a future high NFL Draft pick.

Last year, though, he felt he let himself get a bit too heavy, slowing him a bit on his moves. Moore has taken steps to rectify that this spring.

“My weight kind of shifts up and down,” Moore continued. “Last season, I played around 270, 275. I felt more strong, but I didn’t really feel explosive — how I normally feel when I’m 260, 265. That’s where I like to play at. Right now, currently, I’m 265. I feel better. I feel stronger. I feel more explosive off the ball.

“… I want to [continue to] work on being more explosive off the ball. I feel like I can get off more on the ball. I’m working some more on my dipping and bending, use my hands better. Also, just playing the 4-I better. I struggled with that last season. Also, rushing out of a 4-I and three-technigue because a lot of times we rush out of 4-I and three-tech. So, I just want to be able to rush from both ways so that can help me.”

And help the team, one that has a lot of promise. Pass rush was solid team-wise last year, but the edges weren’t what they’d been. That was going to be tough with Aidan Hutchinson and David Ojabo departing for the NFL.

The goal this year is to get closer to replicating their success, of course. Moore, though, isn’t putting numbers on his expectations, for either him or his team.

“The goals I have for myself for the upcoming season is to be better than last season,” Moore said. “I don’t really have any stats or anything. I don’t really want to throw numbers up in the air — I just want to be better than I was last year. I feel like I am better mentally, just being around the team and practicing. I just feel more confident in myself … I decided to put my head down and be humble and just work and just let things come to me when the season comes.

“A lot of guys left last year, but I really don’t feel like we lost anybody because I feel like wherever we lost somebody, we’ve got somebody behind him that’s going to step up. I have full confidence in them that they’re going to do their job and we’re going to be dominant again this year.”

If so, Moore and Michigan will have a great chance to be part of yet another Big Ten champion.