Sherrone Moore not happy with ejection, but makes strong statement on Michigan Wolverines linebackers beyond Jaishawn Barham
Coach Moore doesn’t agree with Big Ten on critical targeting call, but does believe in his LBs
The Michigan Wolverines took care of business in Week 1 as they defeated the New Mexico Lobos 34-17, but their success came at a price. Yes, Bryce Underwood handled his first start smoothly, flashing some of his five star upside, gelling some new weapons along the way. New running back Justice Haynes absolutely dominated in the run game.
Unfortunately, the one bit of bad news coming out of Week 1 is that one of Michigan’s best defensive players will now be forced to miss the first half of the Week 2 game against the Oklahoma Sooners. Jaishawn Barham, the star linebacker who was set to have a huge impact this season, was ejected for a controversial targeting call early in the 3rd quarter.
The good news? Sherrone Moore sounded confident in all his other linebackers, making a strong confident statement on the state of that room regardless of what happens with Barham.
Sherrone Moore upset about Jaishawn Barham targeting call, but considers trio of Michigan LBs “starters” as well
The Michigan Wolverines always have good linebackers. In fact, the Maize and Blue have been so good lately at developing the position that they’ve seen ten of their linebackers selected in the NFL Draft since 2019 alone. It shouldn’t come as a surprise to hear that Sherrone Moore is confident in that room–even if Jaishawn Barham will be missing time soon–but he was extremely happy with all three of the linebackers beyond just Barham:
“We feel very strongly about [the linebacker] group. You know that–we’re going to talk about the ejection when we get to that point with the Big Ten and handling that because we don’t agree–and we’ll handle it from there…Overall Ernest [Hausmann], Jimmy [Rolder], Cole [Sullivan], those guys we look at as starters as well. We play them every single day and those are moving fast. Cole Sullivan has put in a lot of work. I said this at Big Ten Media Days. How I thought [Cole] would really step up and it wasn’t really a surprise to watch him do what he did today. And to watch Jimmy play like he did wasn’t a surprise either. We’ve got a really good group of linebackers.”
Most Michigan fans are quite familiar with Ernest Hausmann since he’s been a long-time staple of the defense, contributing significantly three years in a row now for the Wolverines. However, it’s nice to hear that Jimmy Rolder and Cole Sullivan have been building towards something special as well. Both linebackers have seen plenty of praise this offseason from the Michigan staff, and not just in response to the upcoming Barham first half suspension against Oklahoma.
In case you somehow missed it, this was the play (in post below) that got Jaishawn Barham ejected, and the reason that Michigan will need to lean on some other linebackers against an extremely tough Week 2 opponent in the Sooners.
Regardless of what Sherrone Moore had to say about believing all three linebackers are “starter” worthy players, losing Barham will be a big deal against Oklahoma. Barham has nearly 40 games of experience now (over 600 snaps just last year) as he begins year four of his college career.
Meanwhile, Jimmy Rolder and Cole Sullivan logged just barely 200 snaps between them both in 2024. One of those two will have to emerge as a potential star alongside Ernest Hausmann to begin the game against Oklahoma. If they can’t do that, Michigan may find themselves in a hole to start their second game of the year.
We’ll be back with more Michigan Wolverines coverage here at A to Z Sports soon! Follow me (@FF_TravisM) and A to Z Sports (@AtoZSportsNFL) on X for all the latest football news!
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