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Michigan safety Rod Moore announces return for 2025 season

Chris Balasby:Chris Balas•about 10 hours•

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Michigan Wolverines football safety Rod Moore defended a pass beautifully against Alabama in 2023. (Photo by Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports)
Michigan Wolverines football safety Rod Moore defended a pass beautifully against Alabama in 2023. (Photo by Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports)

The Michigan defense suffered a huge loss last spring when safety Rod Moore went down with a torn ACL, robbing him of his senior season. The captain has been progressing steadily, though, and will be ready to play in 2025 …

And it will be at Michigan, he announced on social media. Moore is expected to be the cornerstone of a defense that played extremely well despite the absence of many starters in a 19-13 win over Alabama in the Dec. 31 ReliaQuest Bowl. 

The U-M defense started slowly but got it together by the end of the year, playing some of its best football. Senior safety Makari Paige played arguably his best game in a Michigan uniform, picking off a pass and laying a hit on quarterback Will Howard that arguably changed the game and had the signal caller looking nervous the rest of the game. 

But Moore was the defense’s quarterback, and he was missed. Before the safety’s injury, defensive coordinator Wink Martindale compared him to one of the better safeties he’d ever coached in the NFL with the Baltimore Ravens.

“Rod Moore, he’s the safety that — and I’m not talking about play-wise or anything else — smart-wise, football knowledge-wise, all that, that’s exciting to me, because there are a lot of checks that have to be made on the field,” Martindale said. “The head pieces, the earpieces coming in now, which is great because that’s what I’m used to … there are still signals going to be going on. Rod is like, ‘If they go hurry up, what should we do?’ Call the defense. You can’t be wrong. He’s that smart.”

Moore was a threat to leave for the NFL after his junior year and winning a national title, but he came back for one last go-round as a Michigan captain. He’d missed the first three games of 2023 due to injury, but he was outstanding when he came back and locked up another win over Ohio State with a late interception in a 30-24 victory.

“He reminds me of Eric Weddle,” Martindale said. “And he was one of the smartest safeties I’ve ever coached. So, I called Weddle and told him about it.”

I’m just taking it day-by-day still and making decisions on whether to come back or not,” the former all-Big Ten safety said.

Moore started walking on his own again, lifting, and running on a treadmill in late December, at which point he told reporters he was still weighing his options on returning or going to the NFL. Several sources said they expected him back at Michigan, though, and now it’s official.

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