The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1488967
26 THE WOLVERINE JANUARY 2023 BY CHRIS BALAS F or a few decades — and well before Michigan State's Mark Dantonio — nobody played the disrespect card better than former Michigan coach and legend Bo Schembechler. When he recruited, he often started with players from Ohio he knew were good enough to play in the Big Ten, but who had been overlooked by his own mentor, Woody Hayes, even though OSU might have been their dream school. One — linebacker Andy Cannavino — even ran to the Ohio State sideline after a Michigan 9-3 win in Columbus in 1980 to scream at the OSU coach- ing staff, "How do you like me now?" A U-M captain and linebacker, he'd played a huge role in holding the Buck- eyes without a touchdown in a Big Ten title-clinching win. Four decades later, another Buckeye state defector got his revenge on Ohio State for disrespecting him. Sophomore safety Rod Moore had already made his mark a year earlier with 9 tackles in a 42-27 win over the Buckeyes, one of the better performances by a frosh at any position in the series — not quite Charles Woodson in 1995, but outstanding. The following year, in front of family and friends (several of them OSU fans), he stepped up again with another big game. He was all over the field, and his 5 tackles, 2 pass breakups and outstand- ing overall play in the secondary helped hold the vaunted Ohio State offense to 23 points, only three in the second half. He skipped off the field with some words for the stunned OSU fans still in attendance, yelling (PG version), "This is my house!" "They didn't recruit me up until … I would say it was before signing day. They started coming to the school and kept telling me I would have to come to camp for an offer," Moore recalled with a wry grin. "I was like, 'I don't need to come to camp for an offer. Either you offer me or not.' "It was kind of a chip on my shoul- der. I was in their own backyard, and they didn't look to recruit me. I've said it before … I wouldn't have gone there. But it just would have been nice getting recruited by them." But if you can't join 'em — well, beat 'em. And that's exactly what he's done (twice now, in fact. And convincingly). When Moore arrived, the Wolver- ines were coming off a 2-4, COVID- 19-shortened season in which the cul- ture appeared to break. He decided early that wasn't going to happen on his watch. "I wasn't here, but I just felt like I owed it to everyone else — the upper- classmen — that we have to change this program and take it to the next level," he said. "They've always been up top. We have to bring it back to the top." Doing that, of course, meant going through his home-state Buckeyes, and he wouldn't have had it any other way. Few gave the Wolverines a shot to beat OSU last year, let alone win the Big Ten — 2 percent preseason odds on the latter — but Moore wasn't backing down. One of his name, image and likeness (NIL) prod- ucts, in fact, is a shirt with a picture of him facemask to facemask with an Ohio State offensive player, a lasting memory of a 42-27 win in the snow last year. To prove it was no fluke, he and his teammates added a 45-23 win in Co- lumbus in which Moore notched two perfectly timed pass breakups among his highlight-reel plays. Choosing the preferred win between them is like choosing a favorite child. This year's, though, was more an excla- mation point to last year's heroics. "It feels great, especially being from there. I have friends and family that are fans of Ohio State," he said. "To be able to rub it in their face feels good. "But I would say especially my fresh- man year, it was like highlight of my life. I don't know if I can even put one above the other because going back home and DOMINANT DEFECTOR Ohioan Rod Moore Has Become A Buckeye Slayer At Safety Moore, a consensus three-star player out of Clayton (Ohio) Northmont, is now a two-time Big Ten champion with two wins over Ohio State. PHOTO BY CHAD WEAVER