For the second time in the last three seasons, Michigan had to navigate a significant stretch of its season without its head coach on the sidelines. In 2023, Sherrone Moore filled in for Jim Harbaugh, who was suspended on gamedays down the stretch of the regular season, and this year, it was Biff Poggi replacing Moore during his suspension.
The mechanics were different. Harbaugh was allowed to be around the team during the week in 2023 and was only suspended on gamedays, while Moore’s self-imposed suspension this season, relating back to that 2023 sign-stealing scandal, required him to stay away from the team for the entire two-week stretch. The response, however, was exactly the same: an energized group and an undefeated record.
“We just had fun,” junior wide receiver Fredrick Moore said in an exclusive interview with FanSided, promoting his NIL partnership with Popeyes. “We were doing it for Coach Moore, and we just poured heart and tears into playing, and we just wanted to get the win for Biff and Coach Moore.”
Navigating Sherrone Moore's suspension
The win, referred to the final game of Moore’s suspension, a 30-27 Michigan victory over Nebraska in Lincoln on Saturday. In Week 3, Poggi’s first game as acting head coach, Michigan steamrolled Central Michigan 63-3, a bounce-back victory after falling to Oklahoma on the road in Week 2.
Back in 2023, Frederick Moore’s freshman year with the Wolverines, Harbaugh was suspended for the final three games of the regular season. With Sherrone Moore leading from the sidelines, Michigan defeated No. 10 Penn State, Maryland, and No. 2 Ohio State. While the suspension appeared to be a major impediment to that team’s national title quest, according to Fredrick Moore, it only added fuel to the fire.
“I feel as though with them both leaving,” Moore said, comparing the two suspensions just two seasons apart, “it really just gave our team a spark, an extra gear. With them leaving, we know that there’s still business to be handled, and we just move like that. Every single week we didn’t have Coach Harbaugh, every single week we didn’t have Coach Moore, we just put it into next gear and just kept driving.”
Still, it wasn’t all smooth sailing for Poggi, the former Charlotte head coach, manning that post for Michigan. Timeout mismanagement before halftime allowed Nebraska to complete a 52-yard Hail Mary touchdown on the final play before the intermission and tie the game at 17.
That put even more pressure, not just on Poggi in the second half, but on his true freshman quarterback, Bryce Underwood. Michigan, as it often did in the 2023 season with Moore running the team in Harbaugh’s absence, leaned on the run game to close out the game, but Underwood helped to steady the ship and has impressed his veteran teammates in the process.
Bryce Underwood's sky-high ceiling
“It's been impressive to see his poise through the early part of the season and how that is kind of translating throughout the team, Moore said.”
But everyone knows that this is more to the $12 million five-star quarterback than just managing the game. “I see a lot of growth from him and it's just gonna keep coming, keep coming, and I know that he's gonna keep growing each and every week, because his confidence is gonna be rising,” Moore said of the freshman QB. “t's just the moon, the moon, probably even further than the moon is his ceiling, so he has a lot of potential. I know that he's gonna probably keep growing.”
Moore covered everything from the 2023 title run and his current freshman quarterback to the biggest freak he’s ever seen in the Michigan weight room and so much more in the full interview with FanSided. Check it out below and redeem Moore’s promo code MOORE12 with Popeyes to get 12 Better Popeyes wings for $12 and help Moore bring a Popeyes tailgate celebration to Ann Arbor.