Michigan has its recruiting power back. Can Sherrone Moore raise the bar for Jim Harbaugh?

Sherrone Moore didn’t get the honeymoon a new head coach might expect at a program that just won a national championship.

Moore took over from Jim Harbaugh at Michigan in late January and had to deal with an exodus of assistant coaches, including Michigan’s strength coach and the entire defensive staff. Safety Rod Moore, one of Michigan’s best players, suffered a knee injury during spring practice. Two staff members – defensive line coach Greg Scruggs and assistant director of player personnel and former star quarterback Denard Robinson – left the program after drunken driving arrests. Michigan had two NCAA cases on its hands and was denied new players for more than two months.

Based on early trends, one could wonder if Moore and Michigan were headed for a rocky transition. Today, Moore looks like a coach who has found his stride, and Michigan looks like a program that has regained its pride.

Michigan was one of the big winners of June’s recruiting competition, signing 10 players and climbing more than 40 spots to No. 11 in the 247Sports Composite rankings. The Wolverines just traded away one of the best players in Notre Dame’s class, top-100 safety Ivan Taylor, and went to Penn State’s backyard to take four-star tight end Andrew Olesh. Fears of a post-Harbaugh identity crisis have evaporated, at least for now.

Nothing embodies the cycle of “it’s so over” and “we’re so back” better than recruiting. When Michigan was outside the top 50 in the recruiting rankings in early June, opposing fans were quick to recognize the signs of vulnerability. A month later, Michigan is closing in on a top-10 class and winning the recruiting battles a program of Michigan’s caliber should win.

For all of Harbaugh’s accomplishments, there were periods during his tenure when Michigan was underperforming in recruiting. That seemed to be a problem when the Wolverines were losing to Ohio State every year, and not as much of a problem when they were in the midst of winning three consecutive Big Ten championships.

Last year’s team was the pinnacle of Harbaugh’s creativity in roster construction. The Wolverines had five-star talents like JJ McCarthy and Will Johnson at premium positions, four-star recruits like Blake Corum and Roman Wilson who developed into stars, and unknown talents like Mike Sainristil and Michael Barrett who became cornerstones. The Wolverines went 15-0, won the national championship, and sent 13 players to the NFL Draft with a blue-chip rate of 54 percent, well behind programs like Alabama, Georgia, and Ohio State.

It’s worth nothing to call Michigan’s team a unique phenomenon last year. The extra year of COVID-19 eligibility, the willingness of star players to postpone the NFL, some timely additions from the transfer portal and a number of exceptional player developments helped Michigan have a season its fans had only dreamed of.

Some aspects of that formula can be replicated, but others cannot. If Moore wants to keep the Wolverines on top, he’ll have to do things a little differently. The obvious place to start is to tap into Michigan’s untapped potential in recruiting, which Moore appears to be doing.

Based on the 247Sports Composite rankings, Michigan has signed one top-100 prospect in the last two recruiting periods: running back Jordan Marshall, the No. 78 player in the class of 2024. The Wolverines have signed three top-100 players for 2025 – defensive end Nate Marshall (No. 46), Taylor (No. 54) and safety/nickel Kainoa Winston (No. 91) – as well as a top-100 prospect for 2026 in quarterback Brady Hart.

The top-100 ranking is an arbitrary selection based on non-scientific rankings of the best high school prospects in each class. It shouldn’t be taken as gospel. But it is a solid indicator of which programs are landing the prospects everyone wants, those four- and five-star recruits who can go pretty much anywhere in the country.

Taylor, the son of former Steelers cornerback Ike Taylor, is a prime example. Michigan gave Taylor his first scholarship in April 2022, before his sophomore season at West Orange High School in Winter Garden, Florida. Taylor ultimately chose Notre Dame in December, beating out Michigan, Florida State, USC, Wisconsin and others.

Michigan’s personnel was hit hard by Harbaugh’s coaching hires with the Los Angeles Chargers, but at least one of those decisions ultimately worked in Michigan’s favor. Harbaugh hired Chris O’Leary, Notre Dame’s safeties coach, to coach the same position with the Chargers. O’Leary was a major factor in Taylor’s decision to join Notre Dame, and his departure opened the door for a major recruiting coup for Michigan.

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Lessons from Michigan’s June recruiting boom: A 2026 QB and rising optimism for 2025

It’s never wise to overreact to a week of recruiting, but this week was a good one for Michigan. It’s a week that offers a realistic look at Michigan’s potential and where the Wolverines might fit in the bigger picture. Michigan won’t recruit as consistently as Ohio State or Georgia, programs that typically sign the largest share of the top 100 players in each class. But there’s no reason the Wolverines can’t compete with programs like Notre Dame and Penn State, stock up on players at the upper end of the four-star scale, and sign classes that rank in the top 10.

That would be a small but measurable improvement over the results Michigan has typically achieved under Harbaugh, with the last two classes finishing just outside the top 15. If Michigan’s coaching and player development remains at a high level, that’s a recipe for competing for the College Football Playoff virtually every year.

Prepare for public opinion to flip a few more times before we get a real assessment of where Michigan is headed under Moore. If the Wolverines lose to Texas on Sept. 7, many people will be ready to proclaim the end of Michigan’s Big Ten dynasty. If the Wolverines beat Ohio State for the fourth straight year, prepare for the collapse of all collapses in Columbus. Moore will have good weeks and bad, and it will take some time to realize what it all means.

For now, Moore is doing what he needed to do to stabilize Michigan after a rough start to the offseason. The Wolverines are still the reigning national champions, and Moore is making sure no one forgets that.

(Photo by Sherrone Moore: Junfu Han / USA Today)