Rod Moore's return will give Michigan football's defense what it desperately missed

Rod Moore’s return will give Michigan football’s defense what it desperately missed

Posted by author February 2, 2025 Football

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The clips were compiled from Michigan football’s recent golden age.

They included interceptions, pass breakups and lunging tackles in open space. Together these highlights were cut and spliced into a reel Rod Moore tagged to an Instagram post in late January announcing his return to the team for a fifth year.

Missing from the montage were any plays made this past season, when the Wolverines went 8-5 and Moore didn’t appear in a single game after tearing the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee last March.

The injury not only altered the future of Moore, a two-time All-Big Ten selection projected by a prominent scouting service as a potential third-round pick in the 2025 NFL draft, but also recalibrated the trajectory of Michigan’s defense. Through September and October, it struggled to absorb the loss of its cerebral team captain as it adjusted to new coordinator Wink Martindale.

Until a sudden surge in November when Martindale simplified his playbook, the Wolverines crumbled under the weight of complex gameplans that might have been executed better if Moore had been on the field.

Soon after Martindale arrived in Ann Arbor last winter, he envisioned the senior safety as the main conductor of his aggressive scheme, which was a variation of an NFL system that Michigan had been running since 2021 — the year Moore arrived on campus. With 27 college starts under his belt, Moore not only had plenty of experience; he had the necessary football IQ to orchestrate Martindale’s version of the defense, which featured a large catalog of alignments, camouflaged looks and pressures originating from all three levels.

“He realized I was smart,” Moore recalled last August. “As soon as he came in, we kind of hit it off.”

Martindale became so enthralled with Moore that he compared him to former All-Pro Eric Weddle, a safety the 61-year-old DC described as one of the most intelligent he ever coached during his 20-year run in the NFL.

“That’s exciting to me,” Martindale said last March. “Because there’s a lot of checks that have to be made on the field. … And (Moore) is that smart.”

That comment would reverberate many months later, when Martindale’s defense looked like a disjointed mess during a disappointing 4-3 stretch when the Wolverines fell out of contention for the College Football Playoff.

Breakdowns were frequent throughout that period, as the secondary was overloaded with assignments.

Look no further than Michigan’s 31-12 loss to Texas in Week 2, when safety Makari Paige lined up at 14 different spots across the field and was one of five defensive backs sent to pressure Longhorns quarterback Quinn Ewers, according to Pro Football Focus.

As he moved all around — from his perch on the back end, down toward the line of scrimmage, into the slot and even out wide — Paige conceded three catches on four targets and received his worst coverage grade of the year as Ewers carved the Wolverines for 246 passing yards.

Paige’s usage that afternoon was a reflection of Martindale’s ambitious approach. Even with Moore out of commission, Martindale forged ahead with his plans and implemented a shape-shifting scheme that defensive backs coach LaMar Morgan described as “positionless.”

“We kind of made things overcomplicated sometimes and came to find out the players didn’t live up to the expectation from a preparation standpoint to produce more complicated gameplans,” safety Quinten Johnson, who has declared for the NFL draft, told the Free Press last week.

So, Martindale eventually relented and decided to streamline his system after soliciting feedback from Johnson and his teammates. The result was fewer moving parts and a pass rush largely concentrated within a defensive front that featured two elite interior tackles, Mason Graham and Kenneth Grant, as well as a pair of outstanding edge defenders, Josaiah Stewart and Derrick Moore.

“That was a collective thought process and effort,” said TJ Guy, a backup to Stewart and Moore.

The goal, according to cornerback Aamir Hall, was to eliminate communication mishaps and play at top speed without hesitation.

“That was honestly the biggest thing,” said Hall, who became a starter late in the season. “Not throwing too much at us but throwing enough at us and just allowing us to play fast.”

The adjustments helped galvanize Martindale’s sagging defense and sparked a team-wide resurgence in the Wolverines’ final three games against Northwestern, Ohio State and Alabama in the ReliaQuest Bowl.

During that span, Michigan went undefeated and allowed an average of 161.3 passing yards — a figure that would rank among the nation’s best if extrapolated over the entire season.

A shocking 13-10 victory over Ohio State, the eventual national champions, captured the essence of the turnaround Martindale had negotiated. Martindale called blitzes on only nine of OSU quarterback Will Howard’s 34 dropbacks, and Michigan’s entire secondary was involved in just one pass-rush snap.

With the exception of a few plays, the outside cornerbacks stayed out wide. The safeties almost exclusively rotated between the box and the deep halves. Paige, operating in the slot, rarely moved beyond his designated position — lining up at nickel on 50 of his 57 snaps.

The result was a more cohesive and less error-prone defense. On the way to beating Ohio State for the fourth consecutive season, Michigan intercepted Howard twice and limited him to a 57.6% completion rate.

“Towards the end of the year,” Johnson said, “we jelled a bit more and went out and played lights-out.”

The late-season spike in performance restored optimism in Michigan’s ranks, even as Grant, Graham and star cornerback Will Johnson were among six defensive starters set to turn pro. In spite of those losses, Martindale told reporters in December he believes the “future is bright.”

It looks even better now that Moore is rejoining the fold.

“It’s going to be fantastic,” Quinten Johnson said. “Rod is a vet. He’s not only a vet but a returning captain. He is a leader and a vocal leader of that defense. … The sky’s the limit.”

At the very least, the ceiling should be higher. Yet the bullish expectations are tied to the assumption that Martindale is returning as well.

In late January, there was trepidation he could jump back to the NFL after interviewing with the Atlanta Falcons and Indianapolis Colts for their vacant coordinator positions. But those jobs went to other candidates and similar openings have been filled elsewhere, narrowing the chances Martindale will leave as the league’s coaching carousel goes through its final spins.

If fate intervenes on Michigan’s behalf, Martindale could soon see his original vision for the defense materialize with Moore making the calls from the back end and delivering the kind of impact plays featured in his highlight reel.

As Martindale would probably attest, it’s better late than never.

Contact Rainer Sabin at rsabin@freepress.com. Follow him @RainerSabin on X.