Can Sherrone Moore and U-M continue to run the ball down OSU’s (and others’) throats? They’ll try
Michigan football coach Sherrone Moore has embraced the “smash” mentality, as he calls it, to the point that U-M has dominated up front the last three years like few others. Former U-M coach and the late Bo Schembechler would have loved watching the way the Wolverines played the last three seasons under former head coach Jim Harbaugh, and Moore played a big role in that.
Don’t expect that to change any time soon, Moore said on the recent Champions Circle collective podcast. Some might think that’s obvious given that there’s no J.J. McCarthy lined up behind center, and guys like Alex Orji — a runner first — Jack Tuttle, and Davis Warren are nowhere near as proven. But even with McCarthy, the Wolverines ran it 32 straight times at Penn State, for example, in a 24-15 win.
That was enough to have McCarthy questioning his coach’s faith in him. The quarterback reportedly acknowledged asking his coach if he “didn’t trust him” given how much they ran the ball. In reality, it was a leaky line Moore didn’t trust that day. PSU end Chop Robinson was untouched off the edge early in the game, so Moore turned to Blake Corum, Donovan Edwards, and the running game to carry them to a win.
If it gets to that point in 2024, expect the first-year Michigan head coach to (unapologetically) do it again.
“Down in the trenches, talking to so many of my mentors like Bob Stoops and Charlie Strong who I worked with, they would all say the same thing — it all starts up front,” Moore said. “It’s cliche to say that but when you watch games whether it’s in high school, college or the NFL, it does, and you have to build your team that way.
“You have to have the thought process and mindset to do that. We’re not going to run the ball 32 times in a row like we did against Penn State — we’re not trying to do that every game — but sometimes you might have to. The mentality really came from watching those successful teams win.”
Even if teams are “quote/unquote, passing, air raid spread teams,” Moore continued, they’re starting by running the ball, too. Everyone loves a sexy passing offense, but there’s not much sexier than running the ball down your rival’s throat the way Michigan did Ohio State the last three years, for example.
“The good ones that are successful run the football,” Moore noted. “The [Kansas City] Chiefs aren’t lining up in 12 personnel or 13 personnel every play, but they’re going to run the ball. That’s key for what they’ve done, what we try to do, what other teams that are successful try to do.
“Up front, it’s a mentality that I’ve tried to grow into, Obviously, being around Coach [Jim] Harbaugh, which is crazy to think a quarterback had that mindset — you think quarterbacks want to throw the ball all over the place, but he wants to run the power just as much as anybody — that’s really where that all came from. Whether that came from my childhood growing up, watching different teams, different schools and as I’ve grown in the business and seeing successes of other teams, you can see it’s always depending on those guys up front.”
Spoken like a former offensive lineman.
He’s right, though, and he and Harbaugh proved you can win at the highest level that way. It’s his job to keep the train on the tracks, Moore said, and he’s going to do it the only way he knows.
“The way we play, the style we play, how we play, the way we attack people, the violence in which we play … that’s not going to change,” Moore said. “That’s the same mindset mentality that I’ve tried to carry on with the old line and the offense, and obviously our defense has done the same.
“I’m just going to try to continue to be myself and not try to sway from that and those values. I want to continue to try to take this program and keep it where it is.”
That, of course, is defending national champion in one of the best-ever eras for Michigan football.
The post Can Sherrone Moore and U-M continue to run the ball down OSU’s (and others’) throats? They’ll try appeared first on On3.
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