A special new piece of hardware arrived in the weight room of Schembechler Hall this week. It’s massive and immovable, befitting an offensive line. Draped with a cloth, Michigan’s offensive linemen were called to the weight room after practice Tuesday. The cloth was slipped over the top of the new piece, and underneath was a sculpture of five offensive linemen about to set before a play. The wooden base of the trophy looks like you could open it up and house a full buffet set to feed the whole offensive line room. With that, it was official: Michigan had beaten out Air Force, Kentucky, and Oregon State for the Joe Moore Award as the most outstanding unit in college football.

Winning the award may have been a bit of a surprise, but the existence of it and the desire to bring it to Ann Arbor was nothing new. Offensive line coach Sherrone Moore, currently in his fourth year with Michigan and his first as offensive line coach, created a PowerPoint presentation for his players. The goals for the unit are a key part of the presentation, and, according to offensive tackle Andrew Stueber, there were four goals: beat Ohio State, win the Big Ten championship, win the Joe Moore Award, and win the national championship. Check, check, check, to be determined.

To realize the impact of the award, one has to look back 11 months to the state of the offensive line when Moore inherited it. Looking at a chart of starters along the offensive line in 2020 is, like so many things from that year, a jumbled mess. Injuries ravaged the room, necessitating a lack of cohesion. Left tackle Ryan Hayes was asked why this unit is playing so well late in the season, when past teams haven’t seen that same late-season development. “We just are learning so much because this is the first year a lot of us have played the entire year, so I think just the experience helps too, just going through that and you know what you're going to see.”

Stueber said players looked around the room after the dust of the 2020 season had settled and decided the group of people left in the building were the only ones that would believe in this team. Though it’s a bit corny, ‘Michigan vs. Everybody’ resonated with the players.

“We built a belief system. We worked internally a lot and we just kind of focused on ourselves. I think that that culture and that energy has really built a bond with this team and I've never been closer with a group of men in my five years here than this team right here. I love everyone on it, I'm comfortable going up to everybody and talking to them, so that kind of culture really built up throughout the offseason and transitioned into the season as well,” Stueber said.

Beyond the belief system, the players also received a boost in the form of Moore. Stueber explained the importance of Moore’s promotion this week. “I think the new defensive coordinator was huge for us, just kind of a fresh, new, young perspective and I think the same happened with the offensive line. I'm not knocking any of the coaches previously, they're all great coaches, but I think at that time it's what we needed. We needed kind of a fresh perspective, a new look, some new energy, some could say.

And so I think that was a huge part of our success and coach Moore brings energy every single day. He pushes us to our limits. He really has done a great job of building up the young guys, too. You can see that in who's gotten in for some games this year. It was just the right time for a new perspective, bringing in new energy. He's done a great job.”

In addition to the goals set in the slideshow, Moore preached energy to the players. He told them that the offensive line sets the tone in practice and in games, and he demanded the players bring it every time they stepped on the field. “We're always competing out there. Because whenever we're having like a down practice or start off practice, he lets you know right away. He lets us know that's unacceptable,” Hayes said.

Stueber tied the team’s success to that increased focus on practice performance. “We tried to bring as much energy as we could to practice every day and just kind of set the tempo because when the o-line is firing on all cylinders it's really easy for every other position to fall in place and so an o-line is a great testament to how good the team's gonna be and so that doesn't surprise me at all.”

As the offensive line found success, so did the team. A quick look through Pro Football Focus shows a general trend of the starting five offensive linemen grading better as the season wore on, and as the season wore on Michigan found new ways to win. On the road, backs against the wall, against their archrival; this Michigan team played together, played physical football, and put points on the scoreboard. That all came to a head in Michigan’s first opportunity to achieve one of the goals set out months before in Sherrone Moore’s PowerPoint presentation. Michigan gained almost 300 yards rushing against Ohio State, averaging 7.2 yards per carry and allowing zero sacks to a quality Buckeyes defensive line.

“To kind of see it all come to fruition and kind of see how well the game--not only the offense played but the offensive line and the defense played, it was just a perfect colliding of everything,” Stueber said. “It's what we've worked for so hard. We've come such a far way since the 2020 season and it was just pure joy.”

Michigan’s offensive line turned in another dominant performance in the Big Ten championship game, helping gain 211 yards rushing on 6.2 yards per carry and allowing a single sack. “I think the last few years have been building up,” said Hayes. “We're just getting better and better and this year with coach Moore, he just brought us together as one and we've just kind of been exceling throughout the year and I think we're playing our best football now at the end of the year. Feels pretty good.”

Though they've accomplished many of their goals and won a prestigious award, there's still the matter of one unchecked box from Moore's PowerPoint slideshow. Michigan gets a chance to take one of the final two steps toward winning a national championship when they meet Georgia in the College Football Playoff semifinal on New Year's Eve.

"I think they're really well coached, they're really well conditioned and everything like that but just make sure we don't play scared, we don't play timid, come off the ball, play Michigan football," Stueber said. "What has gotten us here to this success so far is playing Michigan football and being able to not change who we are."

In the span of 11 months, the offensive line has found exactly who they are--and they have the hardware to prove it.

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