Grading Michigan's football coaches through four games

Head Coach: Sherrone Moore

Sherrone Moore's grade is a hard one to assign given the suspension for the last two games, which also happen to be Michigan’s most impressive two games of the season so far. The first thing I want to give him credit for is how he's added talent to this roster over the last calendar year. He built a really competitive roster that is fully capable of winning the Big Ten and making the playoff. The second thing I think he deserves credit for is he’s hired two coordinators who’ve been fairly good thus far as well. Chip Lindsey has done a nice job so far this year and Wink Martindale is a very savvy defensive coordinator as well.

However, I do ding him a little bit for how he played the Oklahoma game so conservatively. Between his 4th down decision making and with his timeout use at the end of the first half, I thought it cost his team chances to make that into a more competitive game than it turned out to be. It was especially concerning because it continued a bit of a trend from last season where Sherrone thus far has misplayed his use of timeouts at the end of halves and the fourth down decision-making in several games between the last season and two games he’s been at the helm of the Michigan football program for this season. If he wants to win at the highest level in CFB, he’ll need to figure out how to play those types of situations better and it will give his team a better chance to win every game he coaches in.  

Overall I'd give Sherrone Moore a B+ though four weeks because I like the roster build of this team and his offensive coordinator hire from this off season but I want to see him improve his timeout use at the end of halves and be more aggressive on 4th downs when the analytics say to go for it.

Ofensive Coordinator: Chip Lindsey

For Chip Lindsey, I’ve been fairly impressed with how he’s handled Bryce Underwood thus far. He’s eased him into the offense slowly and also set his young QB up for a fair amount of easy completions via screens and in the quick passing game in every game so far.

The one area I’d like to see him progress as the season goes along is the passing game in the intermediate and deep parts of the field. For Michigan to have a good offense, they don’t need to be able to sling it all over the place, but you do need defenses to at least feel threatened in the intermediate and deep parts of the field. As the schedule picks up and they face better defenses in conference play, you will need to get those safeties backed up, or else we’ll see a lot of defenses creep those safeties up in the box like Oklahoma did all game, and it’ll make it really difficult to have a good, consistent run game. Given that the team has run the ball at a near-elite clip though, and that I liked how he’s eased Bryce Underwood into the offense slowly, I’d give Chip Lindsey a A- through four games. 

Defensive Coordinator: Wink Martindale

With Wink Martindale being in his second year at Michigan and all the returning talent, I was expecting this defense to be top 5-10 in the country for this 2025 season. Given that they’re not performing at a top 5-10 type level right now, it’s hard for me to be super favorable on what Wink’s done coaching-wise through four games. 

This roster is loaded at DL and at LB and has a rather talented but inexperienced secondary, so if it were my defense, I’d let my defensive front seven do its work and do as much as I can schematically to protect the young back end from being overexposed. I don’t think Wink has done enough of that; instead, he’s turned up the pressure with his front seven and sent too many blitzes for my liking, given the youth he has to work with on the back end. Now, this is still a top 20 defense, but I think the ceiling is there for more, and I hope to see Wink play more zone as the season goes on to help protect the secondary from having too many 1-on-1 situations as they progress throughout the year. If he makes that slight tweak of playing a lot of man pressure into playing a lot of zone with pressures mixed in, I think this defense would play even better than they have thus far, and it could be the thing that moves them into that top 5-10 of defenses in college football.

I also didn’t like how often they were caught off guard by the QB run game at Oklahoma. The Sooners repeatedly busted that out in important situations and Wink never really adjusted for it, and I thought it cost them several big plays in that game. They were clearly caught off guard by how much Oklahoma ran John Mateer in that game and that's something that falls on the defensive coordinator to address.

All things considered, I’d give Wink Martindale a C through four games for using too much man pressures and being caught off guard in the QB run element of the Oklahoma game. He has all the pieces to turn this around and make it a top 5-10 defense in the country, he just has to make those tweaks before I'll give him a better grade for it.

More From Michigan On SI:

• Defensive report card: Jaishawn Barham bolsters grades through 4 weeks
• Offensive report card: How Michigan's Bryce Underwood grades through 4 weeks
• How Michigan plans to fix the drop issues hindering its offense
• Assessment of Bryce Underwood through his first four games