Sherrone Moore trusts Michigan's development over returning production ratings

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Michigan football is No. 128 out of 134 teams in terms of returning production, according to ESPN’s reporting early in the offseason. But that doesn’t faze new head coach Sherrone Moore.

In terms of players who were starters a year ago, yeah, the Wolverines lost a lot. The entire starting offensive line, quarterback J.J. McCarthy, running back Blake Corum, both starting receivers, one of the two starting tight ends, both starting edge rushers, both starting linebackers and two starting cornerbacks. That’s a lot to replace.

But in their stead, you have at least three offensive linemen who started games in the past two years (Giovanni El-Hadi and Myles Hinton with Michigan, and Josh Priebe at Northwestern), two linebackers who have started in their careers in Ernest Hausmann and Jaishawn Barham, and a ton of other players who have experience — namely on last year’s national championship-winning team.

For Moore, he believes in the team’s development and what they’ve been able to do from that standpoint. And that’s not only given him confidence but it’s actually shown him in fall camp that there’s a lot of depth — many outside of Schembechler Hall may just not know about it yet.

“I think the No. 1 thing we’ve done here and we will continue to do is develop,” Moore said. “So you’re going to have a lot of depth. You know, those guys, a lot of those guys that are going to be starters on Saturday have played. Whether they’ve played here, they’ve played other places, they’ve all played in college football. So it’s not like we lack that much experience. It’s just they have to play together. And they’ve done that training camp, and we’ve started to build that synergy on offense and on defense. And you can start to see that take shape. So excited to see them on Saturday.”

Because many of these players have been around, Moore isn’t concerned about a letdown in the season opener. It’s always a possibility — just ask Florida State, which was ranked No. 10 in the country, how it’s feeling after a Week 0 loss to unranked Georgia Tech.

But with Michigan having a huge Week 2 contest hosting Texas — only the second meeting between the two schools who were both in the College Football Playoff last year — Moore is reliant not only on the depth, but the maturity of his group, as well.

“Our guys, we’ve got a really mature culture, and obviously the past few years we’ve done what we’ve done, but I think it’s all about really today,” Moore said. “You can’t be worried about two or three days from now because then you’re going to lose today, so you’ve got to get the advantage today on what you can do to get better, and we know they’re a good football team. Last year (Fresno State) went to Purdue the first game of the year and beat them at their place, so there’s no cakewalks anymore in college football. So wherever you play, you’ve got to be ready to go.”

Michigan opens up the season against Fresno State on Saturday evening at The Big House.