Although the big rivalry win over Michigan State toned down the mood a bit, there’s still a large segment of the Michigan fan base that isn’t entirely happy with the current coaching staff – including head coach Sherrone Moore.

Some of the criticism of Moore has to do with the poor performance we’ve seen from Michigan quarterbacks throughout much of the 2024 season. These critics often argue that Moore should do They pursued a quarterback in the transfer portal during the offseason. Although the jury is still out on whether Moore wanted a QB in the portal before the season, the end result was that he settled on several unproven options already on the roster.

Moore opted to start the year with senior Davis Warren after winning the battle in fall camp. But Warren struggled early in the season, committing six turnovers as a starter in three games, leading to Moore switching to young QB Alex Orji. Although Orji largely avoided committing costly turnovers, his passing attack was virtually non-existent through two and a half games. As a result, Moore once again made a quarterback switch to seventh-year senior Jack Tuttle. Tuttle’s early results looked promising, but his failure to protect the ball proved costly in two of Michigan’s three losses on the season.

Following the Week 7 loss against Illinois, Moore once again faced a difficult decision regarding his quarterback. As we now know, the decision was to return to where he started the season and give senior Davis Warren the start against Michigan State. While the passing attack looked far from “electric” on Saturday night, it did look consistent and most importantly, there were no turnovers.

Even if we had modest success in the air against MSU, we all know this makeshift offense is nowhere near where it needs to be. Michigan can’t find itself in this situation again, and there’s no doubt Moore will have to look to the transfer portal for a quarterback in the near future. While there are certainly questions about how we got here, there’s one thing we can’t question about Sherrone Moore at this point in the season: willing to try.

We all knew Moore had to make a QB change after Warren threw his sixth interception against Arkansas State in Week 3, and Moore did. We all knew Moore had to make a QB change after it became clear he wasn’t working with Orji, and Moore did that. After what happened against Illinois, we all knew Tuttle wasn’t the answer, and Moore saw it too. Making four quarterback changes in eight weeks is never an ideal situation, but it signals a head coach willing to make the tough decisions necessary to give his team the best shot.

We discuss all of this and more in the final section. Winged Helmet podcast:

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