For “disappointed” Sherrone Moore, the challenges of starting over in Michigan are tough

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – Michigan fans saw Sherrone Moore with tears of joy in his eyes as he hugged everyone in sight after leading the Wolverines to a win at Penn State last year.

That moment and the omitted portions of Moore's postgame interview on Fox showed a side of Michigan's head coach that is rarely shown in public. Saturday's 21-7 loss at Illinois, one of Michigan's lowest moments in a decade, showed a different side. After the game, Moore spoke in a hushed tone. His eyes were red and he was holding a handkerchief in his hands.

“I’m disappointed in myself as a head coach that we didn’t come out at a better level,” Moore said.

Michigan's fall from the podium was hard on everyone. Especially Moore, the coach tasked with continuing what Jim Harbaugh had started. Seven games into Moore's tenure, it is apparent that the Wolverines are starting over and all of the positive momentum from their national championship season has disappeared. This realization, which is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore, hit like a meteorite on Saturday.

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Michigan's seven points were its fewest since a 31-0 loss to Notre Dame in 2014, Brady Hoke's final season. That was fitting for a team that turned back the clock in many good parts of the Harbaugh era.

“Seven points is unacceptable,” running back Kalel Mullings said. “That's awful.”

Michigan (4-3, 2-2 Big Ten) has lost three games, but it feels like more. The Wolverines will have to contend with the feeling that the season is over the rest of the way, which is a difficult situation for a program accustomed to playing for the highest stakes. The College Football Playoff was already off the table, but Michigan had a chance to have a respectable season with a win on Saturday. That too now looks precarious.

The problem is Michigan's offense, which imploded again with its third starting quarterback. From Davis Warren to Alex Orji to Jack Tuttle, it was the same story: turnovers, sacks, threes and no consistency in the passing game. If there was an easy solution to this situation, Michigan would have found it by now.

“I think we’ll just have to reevaluate and see,” Moore said.

The troubling thing is that Michigan just spent two full weeks making such an assessment. The open date should be a chance for Michigan to look in the mirror and make changes to put the team on a better path. Michigan made Tuttle the starting quarterback, moved Andrew Gentry into the starting lineup at right tackle and shuffled reps at wide receiver. Offensive coordinator Kirk Campbell left the locker room and headed to the sideline, hoping to energize the offense. None of it made any difference.

Inexplicably, none of that self-reflection led to Michigan doing the obvious and going with Mullings, its most reliable offensive player. The Wolverines started the game with a deep shot to Amorion Walker that failed incomplete. On the next series, Tuttle opened Colston Loveland on a corner route but overthrew him. Trailing 13-0 late in the second quarter, Michigan finally started feeding Mullings and scored the game's only touchdown.

Moore acknowledged that Michigan could have done more to get Mullings the ball, but said the Wolverines “also wanted to take some shots early.” It's unclear what part of Michigan's first six games made anyone think this would work. That sounds good in theory, but at a certain point coaches have to coach the team they have, not the team they want.

It's telling that of all the things to mourn about the loss, including a fumble and a brutal interception when Michigan was in the red zone, Tuttle was still thinking about Loveland's fall in the first quarter.

“This can’t be happening,” said Tuttle, who finished 20 of 32 for 208 yards. “This changes the game. It’s something that hits you at night while you’re sleeping.”

Sometimes it feels like Michigan is just a game or two away from being a decent team. At other times, it feels like the Wolverines are a lost cause. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle, but it's uncomfortably close to the latter and getting closer and closer.

Michigan fans prepared to take a step back, but the speed of Michigan's decline was a shock to the system. At this point, the realistic goals are to beat Michigan State next week and qualify for a bowl game, which is not a guarantee. Moore entered this season with a lot of goodwill from last year's national championship, but the Wolverines burned through a staggering amount of it in just seven games.

For the rest of this season, opponents will be waiting for moments of magic at Michigan's expense. Saturday was one of those moments for Illinois. The Illini wore throwback jerseys and drew a sellout crowd for the rededication of Memorial Stadium and the 100th anniversary of Red Grange's epic game against Michigan.

As the game ended, Illinois athletic director Josh Whitman stood at the corner of the end zone and took panoramic video of the stadium in the moments before fans stormed the field. Coach Bret Bielema fought back tears as he recalled losing his mother before a game against Michigan in 2022 and his sister before a game against the Wolverines when he was a player at Iowa.

“This game has always had a lot of things that were on my mind throughout the week,” Bielema said. “I came here to experience this moment. I thought we could make Illinois something sustainable, and this is a very big step in that direction.”

These emotional insights showed how deep a game can go. Michigan fans have seen the full spectrum of Moore: the tears of joy last year at Penn State, the pain on his face Saturday night. He wasn't the only one hurting.

“With a loss like that, we all kind of felt bad,” edge rusher Josaiah Stewart said. “It's never easy to be 4-3 after the season we just left behind. It just shows his love for the game and his love for the team.”

(Photo: Michael Allio / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)