When the Nebraska football team takes on Michigan this fall, the Wolverines will be doing it without head coach Sherrone Moore. Such is the latest fallout from Jim Harbaugh allowing his coaches to formulate the biggest and weirdest cheating scandal college football has ever seen.
On Monday morning, Michigan announced it was suspending Moore for two games in the upcoming season. Oddly, they won’t be the first two games on the schedule. Instead, Moore will coach against New Mexico and Oklahoma and will sit out his team’s third and fourth games on the schedule against Central Michigan and Nebraska.
Michigan suspends Sherrone Moore for Nebraska game as fallout from scandal continues
So why suspend Moore against the Nebraska football team and Central Michigan rather than the team’s first two games. The reasons make some sense but are also quite strange.
The first is that it would seem the Wolverines want Moore to be able to coach against his alma mater in the Sooners. There’s also the fact that Central Michigan and Nebraska are two of the teams that were directly used when Connor Stallions was busy hiding on the sidelines or in the stands and scouting teams in a way no other program has done before or since.
UM fans who simultaneously claim they don’t care about this while complaining endlessly about it, have been quick to point out that the Wolverines are having Moore suspended for the two most winnable games on the early schedule.
That of course ignores that New Mexico is almost certainly the worst opponent on their schedule. It could also be a “best of both worlds” situation for the Wolverines as they make this move hoping to head off any more punishment from the NCAA.
Jokes about Nebraska being an easy win aside, it’s Moore’s squad’s Big Ten opener. It’s not given the Maize and Gold will win the game since it’s in Lincoln and the Huskers are looking to take the next step in the Matt Rhule era.
For the Nebraska football team, it’s an opportunity they now cannot miss out on. Win and the Huskers are 1-0 in conference in a pivotal season. Lose and there will be unending ridicule coming out of Ann Arbor. That is of course, if one grants the notion that Moore is a good enough coach for him not being on the sidelines to be a real loss, something that definitely hasn’t been proved yet.