While there’s no shortage of plays that he looks back on fondly from the 2023 national championship season for Michigan, new head coach Sherrone Moore does have a few that stand out. And naturally, they involve his team executing in big moments.
One, though, stands above the rest, and it came when Moore was serving as the acting head coach on game days. The play in question: The halfback pass from Donovan Edwards to Colston Loveland for a first down to open the 4th quarter against Ohio State.
The Wolverines led, 24-17, at the time and Edwards’ connection to Loveland moved Michigan into Buckeye territory, setting up a field goal that would be key to giving the Wolverines enough margin.
“Probably the halfback pass with Donovan against Ohio State. Probably my favorite. I’ve got a lot of favorites. It’s hard,” Moore said to FOX Sports’ Joel Klatt.
Moore continued, citing two plays from Michigan’s Rose Bowl win over Alabama in the College Football Playoff semifinals as joining the Edwards-to-Loveland pass.
The first was the opening touchdown of the game for the Wolverines. Alabama had taken a 7-0 lead on the previous offensive series and Michigan needed to muster some sort of response. After a methodical drive into the low red zone, including a key 4th down conversion, everyone on the field and sideline for the Wolverines knew what play was coming: Mesh with running back Blake Corum slipping out across the face of the defense and quarterback J.J. McCarthy before coming wide open for a game-tying score — it’s a play Michigan also ran to convert a 4th and 2 on the game-tying drive to set up the chance for another of Moore’s favorite plays (more on that in a second).
“My second favorite was probably the first touchdown to Blake, the mesh where we threw it out of the backfield to him, because that’s something that the whole team knew was going to get called at that moment, at that time,” Moore said. “We had talked about, ‘The ball gets inside the 10, it’s coming.’ You can call it, like, ‘J.J., you can call it.’ And he looked at me, the ball got — we ran like an end-around to Semaj on the left hash, went to the right hash and go inside the nine.
“J.J. looked at me like,” Moore said, mimicking the knowing look, “and I was like, ‘Yeah, got it.’ Everybody knew.”
And Moore did love the same call for the 4th and 2 conversion, in part because it set up his final favorite play from 2023, a play-action pass to Roman Wilson for a game-tying touchdown in the Rose Bowl in the final minutes.
To spring Wilson open in the look, Michigan motioned Loveland into a tight split after being lined up wide to begin the play. At the snap, Loveland kept coming across the formation from left to right as McCarthy faked the handoff to Corum going to the right. All the while, Wilson cut back across the play from right to left from a tight slot alignment, coming open just beyond the left end of the Michigan line with the linebacker covering him in no position to make a play as Wilson walked into the end zone.
“The 4th and 2 was good. Probably the play-action in the low redzone to Roman to tie the game up in regulation. That was probably my favorite,” Moore said.
The post Sherrone Moore reveals his favorite playcall from Michigan’s 2023 season appeared first on On3.