Michigan fires football coach Sherrone Moore over inappropriate relationship
Aaron McMann | amcmann@mlive.com
~4 minutes
- Updated: Dec. 10, 2025, 5:45 p.m.
- Published: Dec. 10, 2025, 4:51 p.m.
Michigan Wolverines head coach Sherrone Moore as Michigan football hosts Wisconsin at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor on Saturday, Oct. 4 2025.Jacob Hamilton | MLive.com
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The Sherrone Moore era at Michigan is over.
Less than two years in, the football coach has been fired by the school “with cause, effective immediately,” Michigan announced on Wednesday.
A statement from Michigan said school officials found “credible evidence” that Moore, 39, had engaged in an “inappropriate” relationship with a staff member.
“This conduct constitutes a clear violation of university policy, and U-M maintains zero tolerance for such behavior,” athletic director Warde Manuel said.
Staffer Biff Poggi has been named interim head coach for the Wolverines, who are preparing to play Texas in the Citrus Bowl on Dec. 31 in Orlando.
Further details of the dismissal were not immediately disclosed.
Moore’s tenure in Ann Arbor comes to an abrupt end after taking over for Jim Harbaugh in January 2024. He finished 16-8 as head coach, leading the Wolverines to a 9-3 record in 2025, but became embroiled in two separate NCAA investigations.
He served a one-game suspension as an assistant coach in 2023 for recruiting violations, then missed the first two games of the 2025 season for lying to NCAA investigators over a deleted text thread with Connor Stalions, the former Michigan staffer at the center of the program’s advanced scouting ring.
Moore was also set to serve a one-game suspension in 2026 as part of the text chain fiasco, and faces a two-year show-cause order that would make it difficult for another school to hire him until 2027.
Moore signed a five-year contract in January 2024 that paid him a guaranteed $5.5 million in base salary and added compensation and a built-in 2 percent raise. He also received a $500,000 retention bonus for every year he stayed at Michigan.
Per terms of the deal, Michigan had the right to terminate Moore’s contract for cause over conduct “which offends against public decency or morality” or could result in “material injury to the reputation, interests or obligations of the university or the program.”
A noted recruiter, Moore arrived at Michigan in 2018 as a member of Jim Harbaugh’s staff. He began coaching tight ends, then moved to the offensive line and helped coordinate the offense in 2021. Two years later, as part of the Wolverines’ national championship team, he was given play-calling duties as Michigan’s sole offensive coordinator.
When Harbaugh left for the NFL after that 2023 season, he gave Michigan a ringing endorsement of Moore, calling him a “rising star.” Manuel, the athletic director, bypassed a national search for a replacement and hired Moore two days later.
