The Michigan Wolverines are back in action this weekend, but a lot has changed from that January night in Houston until now. Here are the biggest offseason takeaways for the program:
Jan. 8, 2024 will live in Michigan Wolverines football history forever. It was the night all of the program’s hard work finally paid off — Jim Harbaugh and his team hoisted the National Championship trophy in Houston, Texas for all to see.
Four days before the new season begins, and you will notice that a lot has changed. Harbaugh is back in the NFL, and his righthand man Sherrone Moore is now in charge of the program. Moore hired a completely new defensive staff to replace guys like Jesse Minter, Mike Elston and Steve Clinkscale, who all followed Harbaugh to Los Angeles. Other faces of the program — like J.J. McCarthy and Blake Corum — are also now in the pros.
With new players and coaches set to debut this weekend, here are the biggest takeaways from the 2024 offseason.
Moore is keeping the culture intact while being his authentic self
Before Moore was hired as Harbaugh’s replacement, many fans and pundits questioned if the culture at Michigan would carryover to the next regime. Fans and players alike — like Zak Zinter, for example — were publicly advocating for Warde Manuel to hire Moore to be the head coach, and a big reason for that is probably because it would help keep the positive culture intact.
That’s not to say Moore will run things exactly like how Harbaugh did. He is going to do things his way, while taking some of the things he learned under Harbaugh and applying it to his program.
“I can’t be coach. I can’t be Jim Harbaugh and I never will be. So, for me, I just go as I go,” Moore said in July at Big Ten Media Days.
This is key — you’ve seen Bill Belichick disciples fail time after time in the NFL because they try and act too much like Belichick. Taking certain aspects of Harbaugh’s coaching style is much better than being a carbon copy of Harbaugh. It wouldn’t be authentic, and that probably wouldn’t work for Moore.
Hiring Wink Martindale is key for continuity on defense
It isn’t the sexiest hire of all time, but bringing in NFL defensive coordinator Wink Martindale to keep the ship afloat was a solid move. Martindale was the architect of the defense that Michigan has been running since 2021, first under Mike Macdonald and then Minter. Martindale will certainly have his own spin on it, but it won’t stray too far away from what the Wolverines have been doing the last three years.
It was especially important for Moore to make this hire for his first season as head coach for a few reasons. 1) Wink is a veteran coach he can lean on and grow from. 2) Having superstars like Mason Graham and Will Johnson be coached by a longtime NFL coordinator will do wonders for their development and, thus, increase the overall play of the 2024 defense. And 3) every player will gain another year of experience under this defensive system and be set up for success, both short-term and long-term.
Obviously, it’s been a long, long time since Martindale has coached in the college ranks, so it’s completely valid to question how well this will work. But Moore couldn’t have done much better to keep continuity defensively.
Alex Orji is Michigan’s best shot at success
He hasn’t been named the starting quarterback just yet as of this writing, but it’s clear from spring ball to now that redshirt sophomore Alex Orji is the best player for this season for the Wolverines to have their best chance at repeating as champions.
I say “this season” for a couple reasons. He has the experience in big time situations that a veteran like Jack Tuttle doesn’t have. He also has the dual-threat ability that guys like Davis Warren doesn’t have — although Warren is able to move around a little bit in the pocket.
But above all else, Orji has the highest ceiling of all the quarterbacks currently in Ann Arbor. And with a generational defense with players like Will Johnson, Mason Graham and Kenneth Grant, you can’t waste a season with the “safe” option. Orji isn’t necessarily the safe option, but he does possess all the traits a high quality quarterback would have. Obviously, he is not there yet, but it’s not out of the realm of possibilities that he turns into a high quality player this year.
Not to take anything away from the other quarterbacks competing for the starting job, but going with the high-risk, high-reward player is, in my opinion, the best bet for this year.