The 27-game starter will be part of one of the key matchups of the night as Michigan’s secondary looks to shut down Washington quarterback Michael Penix Jr. and one of the nation’s best groups of receivers.
“I think it’s just the opportunity to be great just in the back end and throwing off the quarterback,” Moore told reporters at Michigan’s media day in Houston, Texas, on Saturday. “He’s a really good quarterback. I think it’s the best quarterback we see all year. He’s on time with every throw he throws and we just have to give him different looks and do what we do the best.”
Moore has 137 career tackles and six interceptions. He made 34 tackles, two interceptions and three pass break-ups this season and was a third-team All-Big Ten selection.
He had five tackles and broke up one pass as the Wolverines beat Alabama in a national semifinal in the Rose Bowl on Jan. 1.
“I’m excited to do it just like I was excited last week,” Moore said. “Everyone said it was a challenge with Alabama and their deep threats. It’s the same thing in a different way. They have a different offensive attack, especially with throwing the ball, they spread the ball out a lot more.
“So I think there’s going to be a money game just for the back end.”
He is already a three-time Big Ten champion and part of the first class of Michigan players to beat Ohio State three times since the group that entered school in 1995.
Moore, who said he was an Ohio State fan until about ninth grade, snuffed out Ohio State’s comeback attempt with a last-minute interception in November, preserving a 30-24 Michigan victory, something he called “an unreal feeling.”
“I’m from Ohio,” he said. “When I was getting recruited by Michigan and I came here, everybody told me we would never beat Ohio State.”
According to a database maintained by the University of Michigan’s Bentley Historical Library, the only players from the Dayton area to be a member of a national championship team for the Maize and Blue are Cyle Young of Springfield in 1997 and Dayton native Robert Matusoff in 1947.
Young, a defensive lineman who went to Shawnee, is an author, literary agent and video game streamer with nearly 300,000 followers on TikTok.
Matusoff, who attended Fairview High School, went to Harvard Law after graduating from Michigan and was regarded as “one of the stronger (meaning smarter) attorneys in the city” of Dayton according to his 2011 obituary.
He served as a board member of the Dayton Art Institute and chairman of the Dayton Performing Arts Fund, which became Culture Works, and was on the board of directors for Ponderosa, Philips Industries and Zimmer Homes.
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