Michigan will play in one final football game in 2025, as the Wolverines will take on the Texas Longhorns in the Citrus Bowl on New Year’s Eve (3 p.m., ABC).
The team will be without at least three players, as Derrick Moore, Jaishawn Barham and Giovanni El-Hadi are all skipping the game to prepare for the NFL Draft. Speaking to the media on Monday, interim head coach Biff Poggi didn’t think anyone else on the team would opt out of the game. However, his tune changed quite a bit just two days later,
as he speculated on a Texas-based podcast called “The Stampede” that he may be down even more guys than that.
Players on the team were sent home to be with family for Christmas earlier this week, but Poggi doesn’t know how many of those players will come back on Friday when the team is slated to leave for Orlando.
“I think there’s a really good chance that we’re going to have many more opt outs for the game, unfortunately, because we’re in such a stat of flux,” Poggi said. “And when they get to the business side of it, they think, ‘Well, we don’t have a coach,’ or, ‘We’ve had this situation with our former coach, there’s investigations and all these things, I don’t know who’s going to coach me. Why do I want to play in that game?’ So I can see some of that happening, too. And I would tell you on (December) 26th, we’re probably going to have a significantly different roster than we had yesterday when we sent them home.”
Poggi also mentioned how he thinks “most of the guys opting out need to play … they need the film, and they need to play well,” and that “team the way you and I knew it is gone now. And now it is strictly a financial and a business decision, and the head coach and the position coaches really are not players in that discussion.”
In other words, the decisions the players are making are based on what their families and agent are telling them, and they are not consulting with their coaches one bit. And in other words — players are doing what’s in their best interest.
As a former hedge fund manager, Poggi should understand risk management and trying to generate the best returns possible. That’s why Poggi said he doesn’t want to “be the guy that talks them into (playing a bowl game), and then something happens.” So while he understands why the players are doing what they are doing, he isn’t exactly onboard with how the decisions are being made.
There’s a lot to digest in this podcast, and I think the main takeaway for me is that Poggi is not made to be a head coach in college football. And that’s fine — he’s been very successful and has made a lot of money doing other things. And if he wants to continue making an impact in the lives of young adults, he can still do that, but he should by no means be doing that in the position of head coach at the University of Michigan.
And if you need one more quote as far as why Poggi should not be considered any longer for this position — and this is a real quote, by the way — here you go:
“I would ask one thing, and I’m being very serious — you need to pray for us,” Poggi said. “Because we are going through things that no young kid should have to go through … just when you hit your knees tonight, you don’t have to pray that we win, I know that ain’t gonna happen, just pray that the good lord will give me the right wisdom to do this the way it needs to be done.”
With it being the holiday season, Coach Poggi, I will give you what you are requesting and I will pray for you and the players to get through this. You’re right — no young person should have to endure the things that they have endured over the last couple weeks. I can’t imagine being in college and having all that happen at once.
However, to throw in a self-jab like that and seemingly have zero confidence in your ability to coach this team to victory, regardless of who you have on the field on New Year’s Eve, is absolutely inexcusable. You are the leader of these young men that you are asking for prayers for. Now — whether you realize it or not — you have given the players that are on the fence a reason to not come back for the bowl game (and beyond that).
Mack Brown and the others thought the comment was funny, and perhaps you meant for it to be funny since you were the only Wolverine on the podcast. But to make that comment regardless of the circumstances is absolutely ridiculous, especially considering Warde Manuel is doing something he really doesn’t have to do — he’s giving you a shot at the full-time head coaching job.
If this didn’t eliminate Biff from consideration, I don’t know what will. But under no circumstances should he be legitimately be considered for this job any longer.
Merry Christmas, and thank God for Dusty May, Kim Barnes Arico and Brandon Naurato.
