Sherrone Moore is not surprised by early offensive struggles

Since the start of the 2023 college football season, the Michigan football rushing attack has not been what many fans are used to seeing. While Blake Corum has been getting better, Donovan Edwards and the offensive line are yet to impress — something that second-year offensive coordinator Sherrone Moore had a chance to comment on yesterday afternoon.

Michigan football offense off to an up-and-down start to the season

JJ McCarthy — Michigan’s elite junior quarterback — has been nothing short of phenomenal thus far; in fact, his QBR of 95.3 is the best in the nation right now. That said, the rushing attack — especially the offensive line — has not lived up to expectations to this point. Sherrone Moore, who will be the Wolverines’ head coach against Bowling Green this weekend, is not surprised by these woes.

“No (he is not surprised) — I mean, when you have new guys in there, that’s something that’s going to happen,” Sherrone Moore said on Monday afternoon. “Positive is — I mean, we’re fourth in the country in negative plays. We’ve only given up three total. We haven’t given up any sacks in protection. So that’s been positive. And obviously, people respect us in the run game. So we just have to do different things to help us and help the players as well. So it’s not just the players, it’s the coaches as well. Like I always tell them, we do this all together. So I’m not just gonna put blame on them or say it’s just the player. So as coaches, we got to do a better job executing the plan that we have and then planning the right way. And we’ll attack that this week.”

What about Donovan Edwards and his struggles so far?

What about Donovan Edwards? He has also had a slow start to the season, though perhaps not all of his struggles can be pinned solely on him. Still, many expected more of the junior running back to this point, so his early season woes have been a strange sight, to say the least.

“I think it’s just when you have two really good backs and great backs, they’re gonna get a multitude of carries, and we’re also using him in other positions,” Sherrone Moore said of Donovan Edwards. “So he’s doing different things where he might have a carry, now he gets a reception. So some of those things are happening, and as the games go on, I think that those stories will develop even more, and he’ll get more touches in different places, and we’ll just see how he’s working.

“… It just takes — like Coach Harbaugh said — just got to continue to hit it and trust it,” Moore continued. “And they (Edwards and Corum) will, they take a lot of pride in their elite talents. So they know what they have to do to keep working for us to be better as a team. So I think he can do just as much as Blake can.”

Sherrone Moore ready for head coaching role against BGSU this weekend

As I mentioned, Sherrone Moore will be the head coach for Michigan football this weekend against Bowling Green — the final game of Jim Harbaugh’s three-game suspension. Against BGSU, it would be nice to see Donovan Edwards and the offensive line have a breakout performance before starting Big Ten conference play the following weekend against Rutgers.

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