ANN ARBOR — Last Monday, Sherrone Moore laughed with Michigan football beat writers about what he was wearing. A black Nike block ‘M’ jacket instead of the blue-collar work one he’d chosen for previous press conferences. He stood and smiled, taking questions about Michigan’s upcoming bowl matchup and highly-ranked recruiting class.
By the end of the week, the next time reporters would see Moore, he was appearing on a live video feed from the Washtenaw County Jail wearing an all-white, prison-issued uniform. Seated in a small cell with his hands folded on his lap and a blank expression on his face, Moore looked like a shell of the man who led college football’s winningest program for two years.
How did it come to this? And could it have been prevented?
Talking with a handful of Michigan athletics employees from a variety of different departments over the past several days, Moore’s firing because of an inappropriate relationship with a staff member was not a surprise. Think about that. The most well-known employee at the university had an ongoing extramarital affair with a subordinate, and it was not a secret.
One staffer told me they saw the tweet announcing Moore’s firing, minutes before the school sent the official release that listed the reason, and they immediately assumed it was because Moore had been sleeping with a particular colleague. (Note: The woman has not been named by the police. Her identity will not be revealed here.)
That staffer who spoke to me was not in a position to advise Moore on his poor choices. The same goes for the reporters, this one included, who’d heard rumors or witnessed curious interactions. What could be done with no proof?
The same can’t be said for many others within the department who surely knew — or at least had good reason to believe — something was going on.
It seems Moore kept his affair from many friends and former teammates. “He was always the guy that talked teammates out of trouble,” one told me. “I’m beyond shocked.”
A high school friend who has kept in touch with Moore over the years used the same word, “shocked,” having never witnessed any behavior remotely like what came out last week.
Several wondered whether the pressures of being Michigan’s head football coach were too much. After all, Moore is only 39. He was an assistant at Central Michigan as recently as 2017. Separate scandals within the Michigan football program eventually paved the way for Moore’s ascension, with Jim Harbaugh skipping town after winning the 2023 national championship amid controversy.
Maybe it was too much, too quickly, for Moore. If that was the case, “Michigan has great resources (for mental health),” one staffer pointed out. “I wish (Moore) had utilized them.”
Another person theorized the Michigan culture may have influenced Moore’s behavior. Last week was not the first time in recent years that a Michigan coach has simultaneously been covered by ESPN and CNN.
Ultimately Moore is responsible for his actions. It’s one thing to sleep with a subordinate and get fired for it. It’s another to handle that news by allegedly showing up at that person’s place of residence and threatening to kill yourself. “The totality of the behavior is highly threatening and highly intimidating,” Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Kati Rezmierski said during the arraignment. “She was terrorized.”
Where were the guardrails?
A law firm hired to investigate the culture of Michigan’s athletic department may try to find the answer to that question and many more. Athletic director Warde Manuel has to be feeling some heat. Per reports, he fired Moore in a room that included just the two of them. That’s either a blatant violation of protocol or Michigan’s protocols need revising.
This writer, chatting with one Michigan athletics employee this weekend, suggested it may time for a woman to lead the department. Sure, the employee said, or a man who didn’t hire awful people.
As previously mentioned, Moore’s friends were shocked by the revelations, proving it’s hard if not impossible to truly know another person. But from Moore to Juwan Howard to Mel Pearson — three head coaches of the school’s biggest sports — to assistants and support staffers like Matt Weiss, Connor Stalions and “Shemy” Schembechler, Michigan has made a recent habit of hiring men who’ve disgraced the university.
Moore is married with three young daughters. What transpired last week is heartbreaking for them. Seeing him appear on screen during his arraignment on charges that included a felony count of home invasion was surreal. On Monday he was talking with reporters about the Citrus Bowl in Florida later this month. By Friday a judge was telling him he can’t leave the state of Michigan without the court’s permission and would have to wear a GPS tether to help enforce that restriction.
Moore’s predecessor, the man who hired him and recommended he get the head-coaching job in January 2024, was flawed. Harbaugh didn’t seem to view himself that way. I remember asking him, at the height of the sign-stealing scandal in 2023, about Michigan alums who were embarrassed or at least disappointed seeing their alma mater dragged through the mud.
“I don’t have a message right now,” Harbaugh said at the time, essentially dismissing the premise. “As I said, everybody is welcome to their opinion. I think the people that know us the most think the most of us.”
In reality, the more we get to know many of these so-called “Michigan men,” the less we think of them.
