Why Michigan Football Recruiting Will be Much Better Under Sherrone Moore
We are fully into the first offseason of the Sherrone Moore era at Michigan. And man, things seem to be trending in the right direction. After a rocky start, including losing many key defensive coaches, Moore is gaining some footing and has made some tremendous hires, while NIL has made huge strides.
Within just the past week, Michigan football has reportedly hired Wisconsin DL coach Greg Scruggs, a touted recruiter and energetic coach, Stephen Adegoke, the Houston Texans safety coach who was skyrocketing through the coaching ranks as his DBs coach, and just today Tennessee linebackers coach Brian Jean-Mary.
All three of those coaches figure to be tremendous recruiters; Scruggs and Adegoke are young and should be able to relate with high school and college athletes, and Jean-Mary is well known as an elite recruiter. With 2025 being stacked at defensive back and linebacker, these are huge hires.
Likewise, I believe Sherrone Moore is a recruiting upgrade over Jim Harbaugh. Recruiting is a young man's game; it takes a lot of energy and devotion, and it seemed like Harbaugh became less invested in being a recruiter as time went on. With Moore, however, he's been traveling the country nonstop since his promotion to meet with recruits. He understands the importance of landing top players and, to introduce the next point, NIL.
While Harbaugh emphasized the need for adequate NIL at Michigan, things just didn't get done in that realm. I don't know if it's a coincidence or not, but ever since the promotion of Sherrone Moore, NIL has made huge strides.
Michigan football is ramping up NIL
Michigan football hired a GM for the football program in Sean Magee, who will play a prominent role in growing NIL. Champions Circle hired a full-time fundraiser to help with large donors. There are reports of big donors finally buying in and pledging millions of dollars of support. And just yesterday,
Michigan football announced a partnership with Altius Sports Partners, an agency that brings NIL opportunities to college campuses.
Michigan joins a list of programs such as Georgia, Miami, and Texas among others who are partnered with Altius. About a year ago, there were rumors that a Michigan partnership with an agency was coming, but it never materialized. Now, it has.
While I still believe that Michigan is not going to throw millions of dollars at recruits, it's going to be a lot easier for them to sell their NIL with the guaranteed opportunities that the agencies will bring. Likewise, the collectives garnering more support will allow them to pay players on the roster more, which will be a huge recruiting bonus.
Everyone has heard the reports of schools throwing huge offers at current Michigan stars. The collectives are now able to negotiate competitive offers with those players, which is huge. If recruits see that the Michigan stars are making hundreds of thousands - if not millions - and the rest of the roster is being included in that too, it'll be a big draw.
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The 2025 class is stacked. It'll be interesting to see how big of an impact all of these changes make on this year's recruiting class, but it wouldn't surprise me to see Michigan football land a top-10 class this year. That should be the norm at a national program like Michigan, but it hasn't yet. The coming months will be fascinating to watch and should be very exciting. Go Blue!