The recent bye week came at a perfect time for the Michigan Wolverines. Injuries have piled up in recent weeks, and the defending national champions needed an extended period of time to get healthy before the second half of the season.
Starters Derrick Moore, Dominick Giudice and Myles Hinton all missed the team's most recent game against Washington, one the Wolverines lost 27-17.
On Wednesday afternoon, Michigan running backs coach Tony Alford and defensive line coach Lou Esposito met with reporters to discuss how the bye week helped their players get healthy.
For Alford's position group, freshman running back Jordan Marshall has been listed as out on the availability report each of the last four weeks. The freshman back hasn't registered a carry yet this season, but he did carve himself out a role as the team's apparent starting kick returner early this season.
In three attempts this season, he's racked up 51 yards on kickoffs. Alford updated the freshman's status on Wednesday.
"He had a lower extremity, lower body extremity deal that was going on, and continue to rehab that," Alford said. "He's gonna be fine. Hopefully he'll be cleared here pretty soon, and we'll see where it goes from there."
Lately, Michigan has had Keshaun Harris returning kicks.
On the other side of the ball, Michigan was without one of its top two pass rushers in each of the last two games. Moore missed the road contest against Washington, and Josaiah Stewart missed the game the week prior against Minnesota.
Stewart, the newly named captain, was back for Washington and appears fully healthy. But Moore is "day-to-day," according to his position coach.
"He did some stuff [Tuesday], so it's day-to-day with him," Esposito said. "He looked good bouncing around [Tuesday], so we'll see. It's like anything else. Everybody's body is a little bit different. So, if he progresses, we'll see game day how it goes, but he did some stuff [Tuesday]."
So far this season, Moore has totaled 10 tackles, one pass deflection and half a sack. Moore's 2024 stats don't pop off the page, but Esposito knows his impact is far greater than what appears in the box score.
"You go back and look at every single sack we have. When he's on the field, he contributes to it. Every single one. And a lot of the guys' sacks are because of him. Because he's doing such a good job with a power rush or a hesitation or beating a guy around the edge, the quarterback flushes."
Head coach Sherrone Moore is also confident that starting offensive linemen Giudice and Hinton are trending toward playing on Saturday.
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