The Michigan of old and the Michigan of new are stuck in a transitional period called bowl season. Sherrone Moore was let go last week for scandalous reasons. Replacing him in the interim is Biff Poggi to attempt to guide this team through the Citrus Bowl vs. Texas on New Year's Eve. At some point down the line, Michigan will have lined up its long-term replacement for Moore at the helm.
For now, Poggi touched on the complexities at hand when it comes to coaching this team right now.
"Unique and complex, obviously. Multiple levels of complexity that our young people are dealing with, our university is dealing with, Athletic director Warde Manuel is dealing with, and then our team, our coaches and our kids. It's been — I don't know that you can prepare for something like this. I'll just say complicated."
Poggi then articulated how the Michigan players feel about the decision to move on from Moore.
"It has been a tumultuous time. A lot of anger. At first disbelief, then anger, then really, what we're in right now is the kids, quite frankly, feel very betrayed, and we're trying to work through that."
Not to make light of a serious situation at hand, the timing of this all could not have been any worse. Moore was let go right after we all thought the coaching carousel had ceased moving. At this time, only Michigan and Missouri State are without faces to lead their program into next year. Michigan is attempting to go big-game hunting, despite having just signed its recruiting class to play for Moore.
Michigan will take on the Texas Longhorns in the Cheez-It Citrus Bowl in Orlando on New Year's Eve.
Michigan players feel a certain way about how Sherrone Moore era ended
The word that sticks out in Poggi's comments to the media is clearly "betrayed". That is a rather complicated word in a fairly complicated situation. The legal issues at hand had to result in Moore's termination. Nobody really seems to be in denial of that. What is incredibly difficult to get one's head around was people in the know knew this scandal was going to inevitably break a few weeks back...
Could you imagine would all could have transpired had Michigan defeated Ohio State for the fifth year in a row? A 10-2 (8-1) Michigan team might have been the last team to make the College Football Playoff field. Yes, Moore's scandalous nature was inevitably going to bubble to the surface at some point. However, the ones that we should feel bad for here are the players who committed to this team.
Until Michigan gets some clarity on who will be taking over for Moore on the sidelines next year, soon-to-be enrollees, as well as active players on this team, are stuck in a state of limbo. While it should serve players to pick a school and not a coach when being recruited out of high school, when has that ever been the case? Michigan has to make a hire at some point soon to attempt to save face.
Overall, betrayed does not feel like the right word to be using here. Dumbfounded seems more appropriate. Again, nobody could have seen this coming. However, Michigan has been constantly embroiled in scandal for the better part of three years now. It is why it probably serves the university to do a complete outside hire to finally cleanse itself of the Jim Harbaugh era, for good and for bad.
Michigan will pay an extraordinary amount to replace Moore, but we will have to wait until Sunday first.