The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1540586
NOVEMBER 2025 ❱ THE WOLVERINE 19 BY JOHN BORTON M i c h i ga n h ea d coa c h Sherrone Moore drew toward the close of his p os t -Wi sco n s i n re - marks to the media, hailing Rod Moore's sterling performance, highlighted by an interception. As he was speaking, the grad safety ambled in, next up at the interview table. The head coach lit up, and took the op- portunity to expand upon his praise. Af- ter all, it's not every player that secures the game-sealing interception over Ohio State in a national championship year, spends well over a year healing from two knee surgeries, and makes it back for an encore pickoff at Michigan Stadium. "His impact is something you can't re- ally describe," Sherrone Moore said. "He's a coach on the field, he's a coach in the meeting room. You just feel his energy when he's on the field. It's different. It's special. Guys like him don't come along much. He's made plays here for a long time. The last time he had a pick here in The Big House was against Ohio State in '23. He comes across the field like a laser and picks it off today, and stops the re- verse. "I'm so proud of him, and what he's done, and how he continues to fight, what he's done with his body and how he's got- ten better. He feels like he's faster now than he was before. It's great to have him back." Rod Moore acknowledged it was great to hear those words, given the long road he traveled back to the field. "It was pretty cool," the veteran safety acknowl- edged. "He's seen me going through it firsthand. H e a r i n g about the d e ta i l s that you didn't know he paid attention to, and expressing it, made me feel really good." The good feelings have been tough to come by, ever since Moore gathered in the pass that sunk the Buckeyes in Michigan's 30-24 win in November 2023. The grad student gets frequent reminders of the feat from friends in his native Ohio. "It was excitement, and pure joy, in a big game like that," Moore said. "I'm from Ohio, and I have a lot of friends who are Ohio State fans. Just to be able to kind of rub it in their face after that, and do the thing that I did for my team, with the year we were having and what we were trying to do. It came down to the wire, and we were driving toward the natty. If we lost that game, we might not have had that chance. We won, went to the Big Ten [championship], and it went on from there." After the national championship, ev- erything seemed to go off the rails. Moore recalls special teams drills in spring prac- tice of 2024, going downfield as a gunner, trying to stop and feeling his leg buckle backwards. He didn't feel pain, but he knew something was amiss. Hoping it was a hyperextension of his left knee, he attempted to get to his feet and walk off the practice field. He couldn't manage it without help, and the knee began to swell up. That night, a doctor delivered the grim news: an anterior cruciate ligament tear, with meniscus damage on both sides of the knee. For Moore, the 2024 season was gone, and he hoped to gear up for a strong performance at the NFL Combine. In- stead, he required more surgery to repair the meniscus damage in December 2024, causing him to look for another year in a Michigan uniform. Even then, through many months of rehab, he wasn't ready to go at the start of the 2025 season. He realized in fall camp that the pain in his leg wasn't going to let him appear in Michigan's opener against New Mexico. "I kind of wanted to shoot for Game 2, because that was a big game," Moore said of the showdown with Oklahoma. "There were times I was in some pain, and I started wondering if it was ever going to get better. There were people here talking to me, saying, 'You're going to have some ups and downs, especially having two sur- geries.' I just let everything do its thing and finally got to play that game at Nebraska." FINDING THE FIELD AGAIN Moore found himself on a strict snap count when he first returned, for caution- ary reasons. He still exulted in stepping back on the field, and experiencing his first contact in live game action for nearly two years. "It was real emotional," he said. "It's been like 16 months since I'd played foot- ball. I was a little nervous. I had the jitters and the shakes. But I had a tackle on the second play, so it kind of went away. It was real fun." He'd felt a difference in the lead up to Michigan's Big Ten opener, one that opened the door to the field once again. "The first three weeks, it was just get- ting back into football," he said. "I really wasn't ready to play in the game yet. I think after Week 3, I warmed up and I felt really good. I went through the Nebraska week, and I just had a good day every day. The weeks before, I would have a good day and I'd come back super sore, and I couldn't finish the week out. Nebraska week just kind of cleared out. I woke up Saturday morning and I was ready to go, so they let me go." Asked about the sort of milestone that would signal he's fully back, Moore re- sponded: "I still don't know when that will be. I'm still working back from it. It's not like I'm 100 percent. I'm still waiting on that. It will probably be when I get my first interception." MOORE TO ACCOMPLISH Veteran Safety Rod Moore Seeks A Strong Finish