Michigan football names interim coach during Sherrone Moore's suspension

Michigan associate head coach Biff Poggi, left, talks to running backs coach Tony Alford during the second half of the spring game at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor on Saturday, April 19, 2025.
Michigan associate head coach Biff Poggi, left, talks to running backs coach Tony Alford during the second half of the spring game at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor on Saturday, April 19, 2025. | Junfu Han / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

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Michigan head coach Sherrone Moore has named the interim coach who will take over the team when he is suspended for the Wolverines' Week 3 and 4 games against Central Michigan and Nebraska.

When meeting with reporters on Monday, Moore announced associate head coach Biff Poggi will serve in the head coach role when Moore is serving his suspension. Poggi is in his third stint in Ann Arbor, first coming to Jim Harbaugh's program as an analyst in 2016. In 2021 and 2022, Poggi served as the associate head coach under Harbaugh before taking the head coaching job at Charlotte in 2023.

At Charlotte, Poggi posted a 6-16 record and was relieved from his head coaching duties following a challenging two seasons with the 49ers. This offseason, Moore brought Poggi back on staff to serve in the same role as he was under Harbaugh in 2021 and 2022.

Michigan self-imposed a two-game suspension for Sherrone Moore in the offseason as part of the Connor Stalions in-person scouting investigation from the NCAA. Moore's suspension ties back to his deletion of a thread of 52 text messages with Stalions in October of 2023, on the same day media reports revealed Stalions was leading an effort to capture signals from Michigan's future opponents.

The texts were ultimately recovered and Moore subsequently produced them to the NCAA. While the text messages did not reveal Moore had any knowledge of Stalions' scheme, the NCAA docked Moore for a Level II violation and added an additional game suspension for Moore, which he will serve in 2026.

Moore's suspension begins at 12:01 a.m. EST on Saturday, Sept. 13 and ends at 11:59 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 20. During the suspension period, Moore is prohibited from all coaching activities, meaning he will miss this Saturday's game against the Chippewas and the week of preparation leading up to the team's Big Ten opener against Nebraska the following Saturday.

That means Moore will still be with the team at practices this week as the they prepare for Central Michigan, as the Wolverines look for a bounce back after a poor showing at Oklahoma this past weekend.

Sherrone
Michigan head football coach Sherrone Moore is pictured before the college football game between the University of Oklahoma Sooner and the University of Michigan Wolverines at the Gaylord Family Ð Oklahoma Memorial Stadium in Norman, Okla., Saturday, Sept. 6, 2025. | SARAH PHIPPS/THE OKLAHOMAN / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

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Seth Berry
SETH BERRY

Seth began writing on Michigan athletics in 2015 and has remained in the U-M media space ever since, which includes stops at Maize N Brew and Rivals before coming onto Michigan On SI in June of 2025. Seth has covered various angles of Michigan football and basketball, including recruiting, overall team coverage and feature/analysis stories relating to the Wolverines. His passion for Michigan sports and desire to tell stories led him to the sports journalism world. He is a 2020 graduate of Western Michigan University and is the former sports editor of the Western Herald, WMU's student newspaper.

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