Sherrone Moore speaks on NIL at Michigan, ongoing NCAA investigations

The Michigan Wolverines are into the Sherrone Moore era as he transitions into his new role as head coach. He has been busy on the recruiting trail selling his vision for the program to prospective players, and there are a ton of questions to answer.

Chief among them is what Michigan is going to look like in a post-Jim Harbaugh era. Moore addressed that and more this week on The Rich Eisen Show.

“They just ask me if the program be run the same and what the staff will look like,” Moore said. “I think all those questions will get answered. As far as the program being run in the same if it’s not broken, don’t fix it. There are a lot of things that we do phenomenally here. I want to continue that path. And there will be things that I do a little bit differently that are my way.

“But there’s not gonna be a wholesale change of the culture and the brotherhood that we have because it’s really good. And I’ve been here for six years. Understand what it’s taken to get there. And I’m not gonna mess that up. Bringing the right people to coach our student athletes be a part of our student athletes’ lives and really be their families is the number one goal right now.”

Michigan is going to do everything it can to retain what worked from the Harbaugh era, but Moore is his own man and says that there will be personal touches he adds to the program.

“The biggest thing is to be me,” Moore said. “Coach Harbaugh is a special human being. He’s an awesome, phenomenal coach and person. But just in the realm of everyday living. I’m going to be who I am. I’m full of enthusiasm just like Coach, but I’m just a little different than him. I’m going to put my touch on the program. We’re going to have fun just like we did before, but we’re going to be super aggressive, super aggressive in recruiting, super aggressive in everything we do.

“And the toughness, the physicality, the smash mentality that we have in the office of our room, we’ll just continue to carry out through the University of Michigan football program.”

Michigan’s going to need more NIL support moving forward, which was going to be the case no matter who the head coach was. Moore says that he will do everything he can to fight for the players to have a piece of what’s out there and that he will act as an advocate for them.

“We really support NIL and what it means for our players earning from their name, image, and likeness and earning what they deserve,” Moore said. “So definitely gonna fight for the players as much as we can and what we can do. As much as I can, get the money and raise the money for our players, that’s what I’m gonna do. And it’s just it’s just part of college football. It’s evolving. So you have to evolve with it and continue to stay ahead of the chains. And that’s what we’re going to try to do.”

Of course, the NCAA is still looming with separate investigations into Michigan over alleged recruiting violations and a sign-stealing saga. Much of the heat might be gone with Harbaugh out the door, but it is still something to be addressed.

“That’s something that’s out there,” Moore said. “We don’t know what’s going to happen with it. And we’re just going to take it day by day. [NCAA President Charlie Baker] made a great statement talking about how our players and won it fair and square. Just like [Harbaugh] said, I think we’re innocent and we’ll just keep trucking along and attacking every day. And that’s what we’re going to do.”

Moore has three pillars he hopes to instill at Michigan, which might carry more weight given he was a key part in the team’s College Football Playoff National Championship.

“The big thing that we’re going to do in our program I’ve talked about are three things. We’ve talked about the process, the pursuit and the standard, and we’ve hit the process. We all talked about the process over the prize, and we got the prize.

“Now, you continue on the pursuit and that’s the pursuit of greatness. And once you do that you win a couple of championships, you graduate your players and you get them to the next level. You see them be great husbands and fathers. You become the standard, and that’s what we want to be.”