Sherrone Moore and Michigan Football are on a recruiting heater, adding up victories against the nation’s top programs:
There have been few recruiting heaters like the one Sherrone Moore and the Michigan Wolverines are experiencing right now. The past couple weeks have involved more eyeball-emoji tweets than anyone can keep track of, as numerous highly ranked prospects have committed to the Wolverines, with more still on the way. Any concerns about Michigan’s recruiting look quite silly now.
The reasons for this success are plentiful (and complex), and I will not try to explain them all here. However, the combination of a young, relatable head coach, the arrival of NIL (and relatedly, the commitment of Bryce Underwood), and the changing landscape of college football has put Michigan in a place to bring in impressive classes in 2025, 2026, and for years to come.
Today, I wanted to explore how Moore is winning over these four- and five-star prospects since taking the helm, with that number already topping 30 and only continuing to climb. Getting the best players requires beating out the best schools, and the Wolverines are embracing that challenge head on — and winning.
No fear whatsoever
Name a top program in college football and Michigan has taken at least one recruiting battle from them recently. This class alone you have examples in Carter Meadows (Ohio State, Penn State), Titan Davis (Alabama), Malakai Lee (Georgia, Texas, Alabama), Zion Robinson (Miami, Texas A&M), Matt Ludwig (Georgia, Tennessee, Texas A&M), and Bear McWhorter (Alabama, Florida, Clemson) that all involve these competitive schools.
Last year’s haul was much of the same: Underwood flipped from LSU, Nate Marshall flipped from Auburn, Ty Haywood considered Alabama and Florida State, and Andrew Babalola looked at Auburn, Oklahoma, Missouri, and others. These examples do not even mention battles with conference-mates Penn State (Kainoa Winston, Benny Patterson), Oregon (Winston, Patterson, Brody Jennings), and USC (Patterson, Nathaniel Owusu-Boateng).
Blue-chip prospects will draw the attention of most big programs, so it is no surprise that the top guys Moore has reeled in were looking at these sorts of schools. It is difficult to quantify how genuine a prospect’s interest truly is in each of their offers, but the takeaway here is that Michigan can compete with anyone on a national level.
Looking in the mirror
With NIL becoming less of a game-changer and more of a requisite component of any top prospect’s recruitment, attention turns back to the ways that schools can differentiate themselves outside of financial incentives. For Michigan, that will always include an academic component, which can also be said for its biggest rival on the recruiting trail: Notre Dame.
These two schools have had many head-to-head battles over prospects, and the Irish were seemingly getting the upper hand last season with commitments from players such as Will Black and JaDon Blair, top-200 prospects that Moore would have loved to snag. The tides may now be turning now, though, with Alister Vallejo, McHale Blade, and Ludwig among the 2026 commits that have elected to go with the Wolverines instead of their rivals.
Winning these sorts of recruits will be critical for Moore’s success. Michigan and Notre Dame may not see each other often enough on the field, but their recruiting targets will never stray too far from each other given academic prestige and campus proximity. Each school will notch some victories over the other, but it is no coincidence that the Wolverines’ current surge includes some wins over the Irish.
Enemy territory
Lastly, it is extremely impressive to watch Moore take players away from hot recruiting areas. Robinson, Andrew Marsh, and Jayden Sanders had plenty of interest from schools in Texas, but still committed to head to Ann Arbor. Julian Walker, Andre Clarke, Owusu-Boateng, Jennings, and McWhorter are all leaving the South to come to Michigan despite SEC offers. Even the West Coast has been promising, with players like Brady Smigiel rejecting programs much closer to home.
Recruiting is a national game, and Michigan is up to the task. I wrote previously on how important it was for the Wolverines to snag one of the big three quarterbacks from the Mitten State, but in most seasons, the best prospects will be much farther away. Moore is showing a willingness to venture all across the country (even Hawaii!) and fight off programs who have these top prospects in their backyards. As this current stretch is showing, there are no barriers the Wolverines are too scared to face.