A common refrain heard around the Oklahoma locker room and team hotel on evenings before game days: “Ask Sherrone.”

Long before succeeding Jim Harbaugh to become Michigan‘s head coach, Sherrone Moore was a backup guard for the Sooners. He never started a game, but Moore proved to be a beloved, sought out and, ultimately, valued member of Oklahoma’s 2006 and 2007 Big 12 championship teams. Even then, those Sooners say now they saw a future head coach.

“He was incredibly bright, a great communicator … a team guy, and that matters,” recalled Bob Stoops, Oklahoma’s head coach at the time. “Everything about him was fantastic.”

Moore, 38, is less than two weeks away from his debut as Michigan’s permanent head coach. He faces the enormous task of replacing Harbaugh, as well as 13 key players from last year’s national championship team selected in the NFL draft; no program lost more draft picks this year.

Moore is also under scrutiny after the NCAA implicated him in the sign-stealing operation allegedly orchestrated by former Michigan staff member Connor Stalions. According to a draft of the NCAA’s notice of allegations to Michigan that ESPN obtained, Moore could face a suspension and other penalties for allegedly deleting a thread of 52 text messages with Stalions in October 2023. According to the draft, Moore’s texts later were recovered and he turned them over to NCAA enforcement staff. Moore said last week that the school is fully cooperating with the NCAA infractions process; of the Stalions text thread, he added: “I look forward to them being released.”

Moore, however, showed last season as offensive coordinator and later, interim head coach, that he could weather a storm and lead the Wolverines to success with a cloud hanging over the program. While Harbaugh served suspensions, Moore went 4-0, with wins over Penn State and Ohio State, as Michigan finished undefeated on its way to the national title.

During that stretch, Moore’s former teammates said they saw the same passion they remembered from his time at Oklahoma.

“When they won that [Penn State] game and he cried in the interview and people was giving him a hard time, I was like, ‘That’s because y’all don’t know the type of person he is, the type of love he has for his teammates, the school he’s at, the kids he’s coaching,'” said former Oklahoma All-American defensive tackle Gerald McCoy, who was a six-time Pro Bowler with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. “He’s very loyal. And he’s going to be the biggest cheerleader.”

During his two years in Norman, Moore was Oklahoma’s biggest cheerleader from the sidelines. Moore grew up just outside of Wichita in Derby, Kansas. After a stint at Butler (Kansas) Community College, he joined the Sooners as part of a star-laden signing class that included McCoy, San Francisco 49ers All-Pro left tackle Trent Williams, former Dallas Cowboys Pro Bowl running back DeMarco Murray and 2008 Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Sam Bradford.

Tulsa head coach Kevin Wilson, who was then Oklahoma’s offensive coordinator, recruited Moore out of junior college to replenish the Sooners’ depth up front not long after Moore’s father was sent to Iraq to work as a field manager for an oil company. Immediately, Wilson was impressed.

“A rock-solid guy,” Wilson said. “I truly didn’t think when he was young, ‘OK, this kid’s coaching.’ But you go back and [think about] how great a teammate he was, watch the multiple positions he played and adapted easily, he showed a lot of those coaching traits as a young kid.”

On a loaded Oklahoma offensive line that paved the way for an offense that broke several FBS records, Moore wound up backing up two-time All-American left guard Duke Robinson.

Moore rarely played. But, as Stoops noted, Moore was always ready to go.

“A lot of people don’t handle that situation the best,” Stoops said. “And he did. He always had a great attitude. That’s what I mean by being a great team guy.”

Moore didn’t get many opportunities to help the Sooners on Saturdays. Instead, he focused on trying to help those that did reach their potential. Robinson especially relied on Moore for advice in practice, solidarity in summer workouts and, along with the rest of Oklahoma’s players, encouragement in games.

“He definitely could’ve played elsewhere. It just so happened that we had an elite offensive line,” Robinson said. “But he came in a dog, and fit right in. He was so smart, he helped me and other guys when it came to understanding certain plays and why the play went this way and why certain calls were made. He saw things that we didn’t see. And he helped us out when we made a mistake or missed an assignment.”

McCoy and the Oklahoma defenders would often grow frustrated during preseason practices because Moore would know what the defense would be doing leading into every snap.

“You try to move all over the place to try and not give away what’s happening,” McCoy said. “But he’s calling out all the blitzes. He knew whether we were running a stunt game, he knew all our calls, all our checks, he knew everything. He knew everybody’s job. He could play any position. … Some teammates are just far advanced when it comes to knowing the game of football and Sherrone was always that guy.”

Despite his football acumen, Moore wasn’t Oklahoma’s most athletic offensive lineman. During summer workouts, strength and conditioning coach Jerry Schmidt had players do an hour on a StairMaster for every second they missed off their goal time in shuttle runs. They would also have to run the shuttles again.

“Usually me and Sherrone [would] be the last ones, and we’d have the entire team rooting for us to finish,” Robinson said. “We’d be literally just falling over each other, stumbling. We really needed each other, like, ‘Damn bro, we better make this time because I ain’t doing this s— over again, I’m not getting on that StairMaster, either. None of that, bro.'”

Moore didn’t always make his time. But unlike other exhausted teammates, Moore never stopped running, even if he knew he wouldn’t make it in time.

“There were much better athletes in much better shape than Sherrone was, but Sherrone wouldn’t give up,” recalled former Sooners All-Big 12 center Jon Cooper, now Mississippi State’s tight ends coach. “He might be a couple seconds late. But he would go on and finish late rather than quit.”

Trent Ratterree, an instate walk-on tight end, remembered Moore taking him under his wing going into Ratterree’s freshman year. The two had a mutual friend in Wade Weibert, who played with Moore at Butler before going to Kansas State. Weibert had asked Moore to look out for Ratterree and he did just that, becoming a “big brother type” to him.

“When I got to OU the workouts were shocking,” Ratterree said. “I would throw up because I was so anxious. Sherrone picked up on that and coached me through it. … I always looked up to him because I thought he was an extremely nice person. He would lift people up. It was just good to have him around for morale purposes.”

That was especially true in tough and key moments during games. Moore developed a reputation for being first on the field between possessions, slapping teammates on the shoulder pads while offering advice and lifting spirits.

“He was always Mr. Positive,” Cooper said. “He was always about the guys, always talking to us, always trying to spread positivity.”

Cooper recalled during the 2007 Big 12 championship game when Moore’s positivity helped Oklahoma overcome a slow start offensively. The Sooners trailed No. 1 Missouri 3-0 after the first quarter. At halftime, the game was tied.

“We’d be coming off [the field], and he’d be out at the numbers every time like, ‘Hey, y’all got this,'” Cooper said. “You could see that look in his eye and it was contagious. He was like, ‘Just keep doing what you’re doing — it’s about to break.'”

As Michigan’s co-offensive coordinator in 2021, Moore had another similar moment. After a grinding first half against Washington, Moore repeatedly uttered, “Smash,” along the sidelines. The Wolverines embodied that mentality and steamrolled the Huskies in the second half, rushing for 343 yards (#smash is now on Moore’s X bio).

In that Big 12 title game 14 years earlier, Moore kept reminding the Oklahoma offense that it was “about to break.” Then, it did. The Sooners scored three straight touchdowns in the second half en route to their second straight Big 12 championship.

Following the Big 12 title victory the year before over Nebraska, Moore was up front dancing to wide receiver Malcolm Kelly’s famed victory rap.

After the Missouri win, Moore was the first one dancing again.

“He was very high hipped with skinny legs and — I don’t know how to explain this dance — but he had this dance anytime we won a big game,” Cooper said. “And everybody would be cheering him on because he was that kind of guy on the sidelines.”

Moore’s infectious personality and relentless positivity carried over off the field, too. In a locker room that could be cliquey by position, Moore was friendly with almost everyone, from the freshman walk-on tight end to the punter. Teammates called him “the connector” who players could confide in if they were struggling with a problem. As a result, Moore’s house became the unofficial hangout off campus for the entire team, whether he or roommate D.J. Wolfe, an Oklahoma defensive back, were there or not.

“If there was a group of people laughing, you could bet your money Sherrone was somewhere nearby,” McCoy said. “That’s the type of person he is, he brought so much joy and love. … As soon as practice was over, you want to talk about the life of the party.”

Yet when it came to football, Moore was all business. Before every pregame walkthrough, each player had to turn in a written test on that week’s game plan. Inevitably, several players would wait last minute to fill them out.

“They’d be in the locker room hurrying, trying to rush, pages would be all ripped up, just looking a mess,” McCoy said. “And if they didn’t know the answer, it was always, ‘Ask Sherrone.’ Everybody would go to Sherrone. Because he’s going to know.”

After Moore graduated from Oklahoma, Stoops said he wanted to hire him. But he didn’t have a vacant spot on his staff. Instead, Moore went to Louisville, where he began his rapid ascension up the coaching ranks — all the way to Michigan.

“When you take a person that intelligent about the game of football, with that type of passion, it’s hard to keep him from becoming a head coach,” McCoy said. “Sherrone’s a natural born leader.

“He was born to be a coach.”