What Michigan football OC Sherrone Moore said MSU week

Michigan football is set to embark upon its biggest week of college football yet in 2023, as the Wolverines make the short trip to East Lansing to take on rival Michigan State.

The maize and blue are humming, having beaten every team by at least 24 points this year while the Spartans are 2-4, working with an interim head coach in Harlon Barnett, and are still looking for its first Big Ten win of the season.

On Wednesday, Sherrone Moore met with the media to discuss the offense, the matchup, and much more. Here is everything he had to say.

Great kid on and off the field. Just works his tail off to try to get better and push himself to make the team better and his role and just unbelievable to be around and just love having him on the team, in our room.

Confidence in Blake Corum on the goal line

Yeah, pretty high. Very high and coach Hart does a great job with the backs and selling and all that so just the way the guys are knocking guys up front when we get those packages and doing those things, it’s giving me high confidence to do that when we get down there.

What allows him to score beyond being strong?

His low center of gravity, the way he runs his legs on contact, the physicality, and far more importantly the mindset that he has that he’s not gonna get stopped.

Scoring more touchdowns in the red zone

Execution, the guys, the plan, what we have, what we’re doing together, (the plan is) really good, very simple, just multiple and different ways to the defense. But things that we’re used to, things that we do in packages that we’ve really practiced throughout the offseason. And we’re sticking to that plan as we go through it and have different ones as we go get in the game.

AJ Barner as a blocking tight end

Yeah, I mean, I’ve been super impressed by AJ and what he’s done. In the pass catching but especially as a blocker, he’s really cemented himself as a legit blocker in college football at the tight end position. He takes a lot of pride in it and you can see the work that he does at practice, when he’s in the weight room in the offseason. And he’s just done such a phenomenal job and very proud and happy that we have him.

On Jim Harbaugh’s sayings

He’s always had the sayings. I think he’s probably open to saying a little bit more now. But I mean, he’s been the same. And I mean, again, I’ve said it on in some record, I’m just blessed to be here with him, and learn from him and be around him. He’s a wonderful man, a phenomenal coach, phenomenal father, phenomenal husband, and just excited I get to learn from him and continue to do so.

Does he have a favorite?

I mean, there’s so many, there’s not really one. There’s always a new one every day. So I just try to absorb them all in and keep them in a think box for later. So not any in particular.

Are there any particularly funny ones?

He’s great to be around. Obviously, when it comes to football, serious about football, serious about winning. But he’s just like anybody else, cracks jokes. He likes he likes to hear jokes. So he’s as funny as the next guy. So I love him.

Keeping emotions in check in the MSU rivalry

Yeah, I mean, everyone understands the rivalry. But we’ve got to prepare like we’ve been preparing. And we know that they’re going to give us everything they got, we’re gonna give them everything that we got. So it’s another game for us that we got to go out there and prepare, like we have been in practice, like we have been to play at the highest level possible so we can continue to get better.

Can J.J. be the best Michigan QB ever?

Yeah, man, just keep doing what he’s been doing to do. Just works tirelessly. He’s up there right now trying to get ahead on gameplan and get ahead on stuff that we’re doing, not only for today, but for tomorrow. So he just needs to just keep progressing as he does every day or he does in practice and he’s performing in the game. So just keep doing what he’s doing to get to that point.

Keeping players fresh

I feel like we’ve done a good job as a staff from substitutions, from the game plan and how the games have gone. Fortunate for us that we’ve been able to get guys out a little earlier. You don’t plan on doing that every game but that’s just how it was done because our guys have done such a good job executing so good plan so far. We’ll just try to keep it rolling.

On the playcalling