What Sherrone Moore Said After Michigan Lost to No. 1 Oregon

The No. 1 Oregon Ducks defeated the Michigan Wolverines 38-17 in Ann Arbor on Saturday, moving to 9-0 on the season. Michigan’s loss moves them to 5-4 on the year and 3-3 in Big Ten play.

Wolverines head coach Sherrone Moore met with the media after Saturday’s game to give his thoughts on what he saw from Michigan against Oregon. Below you’ll find some of his quotes as well as the video of his full press conference.

On effort Michigan showed in second half:

Moore: “It was awesome, to watch those guys in the second half. The energy, the excitement that they brought, but we gotta start that way. But I really thought the defense went out there, we said we were gonna go for three-and-out, they stopped ’em. Offense went down ten-play drive, scored. So you felt the momentum going and defense comes back, get another big stop. So you felt that momentum but we gotta finish.”

On first touchdown to Evan Stewart, if he has someone in the booth that tells him what they’re looking at

Moore: “Yeah every touchdown’s supposed to be reviewed. So I think that’s something we gotta talk to the Big Ten about. Every touchdown’s supposed to be reviewed. So that definitely should’ve been called and then looked at.”

On what’s wrong with Michigan run game

Moore: “The biggest thing in the run game, there’s not really an assessed amount of yards. You want to get enough yards to win. Regardless of run, pass, whatever we gotta do to win that game, that’s what we want to do. So there’s a couple things on some run-through backers that we gotta fix up front. I thought initially we were moving them off the ball pretty well. But really it was the run-through stuff that really got us. That’s something we gotta fix, but there’s not a magical number of yards that we need. We just need to have enough yards so we can go score enough points to win.”

On what he uses to motivate his team at 5-4 coming off of a national championship

Moore: “The motivation is that you’re at Michigan. That you wear the winged helmet, that you have the block M on your chest. That you gotta play really good teams the rest of the way. These guys have a lot of pride. No one’s more disappointed about the losses than these kids and these coaches. So they’re gonna continue to fight.”

On how his defensive backs fought down two starting cornerbacks

Moore: “Zeke Berry, talk about a dude that’s played safety, played nickel—he played corner today. Hadn’t played corner all year, he had a long ball against number seven Evan Stewart who’s arguably one of the better receivers in the country and played it as good as anybody could. I was really proud of him, really proud of Amir (Hall). He had some plays he wanted to get back but I thought overall those guys fought their tails off for being not the starters. Just the defense in general doing that. Gave up some points and that late point ’cause if you score in the late red zone on the offense then it’s a closer game. It’s a team game. But at the end of the day we lost. I give credit to them, Coach Lanning and their staff they do a great job and developed a great team. But we gotta continue to fight and do the little things right.”

On what he saw from the defense that didn’t work well early

Moore: “The first drive they scored off a three-and-out and then they went down, stopped ’em. Made some adjustments at halftime to get it closer. We were getting there and were almost at a one-point score, a one-point game. We gotta play complimentary football. I thought up front we gotta continue to be gap sound and do what we need to do up front. I thought the corners fought, I thought the DB’s fought, especially the corners. Those guys not being the starters, guys getting moved around I was proud of them but we gotta continue to get better.”

On if there was anything that surprised or caught them off guard in the first half

Moore: “No it was stuff we knew they were gonna do. They just executed well. We gotta continue to focus on little details.”

On how big it was not having Will Johnson

Moore: “Yeah I mean Will Johnson’s the best corner in the country. So not having the best corner in the country is always gonna be different and a challenge. But I thought those guys fought. We always talk about next man up, but when you don’t have your two starting corners that’s part of it. That’s part of the game of football you gotta adjust. You can’t make excuses you just gotta go out and get better.”

On penalty lining up over center on Oregon punt

Moore: “Just a different formation that we had to adjust to seeing. We just gotta do a better job executing on the field.”

On how pivotal that play was

Moore: “The momentum was huge. It was another three-and-out so it was huge for our defense to have that confidence to go in there and you’re going back you just scored and then go down you got a chance to go three-and-out and score again. But I thought the defense stood tall. Again they held them to a field goal. Just continue to fight and get better. It was a pivotal point in the game and momentum could’ve swung the other way for sure.”

On key to starting faster on offense

Moore: “We gotta flip that around. We can’t start slow, especially against the offense that we’re about to play. Another high-powered offense that scores a lot of points and got great players. So for us we gotta figure out the best plays that we want to start the game and continue to go from there.”