It seems like Sherrone Moore believes in the divide-and-rule policy! The Michigan Wolverines head coach is poaching from the Ohio State Buckeyes coaching roster. Back in March, the Wolverines hired the Buckeyes’ running backs coach Tony Alford. While Ryan Day was still figuring out the loss, Moore landed yet another prize possession.

This time, they managed to earn the trust of Ohio State’s assistant athletic director for football recruiting and events, Erin Dunston. Did this plan come into Moore’s mind when he had a short interim head coaching experience with the Wolverines in 2023 when Jim Harbaugh was suspended?

Moore finds Dunston’s trust to boost Wolverines’ recruiting edge

Day’s Buckeyes’ last hurrah was on November 30, 2019. They have had a dry spell in the 2020s, when they failed to establish their power. Now that Moore is replacing the coaching stalwart, he will ensure to make some master moves to carry on the legacy, and what better way to hunt the coaches before the players? It’s time for Dunston to switch sides. While she joined Ohio State as a recruiting staff in the spring of 2021, her ranks gradually rose as the program’s director of on-campus recruiting.

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The Buckeyes never finished lower than fifth nationally and currently rank as the top overall class in 2025. Courtesy goes to Dunston on the staff: she recruited four straight top-five recruiting classes. Now after Jim Harbaugh’s departure, many players followed in his footsteps, lacking trust in Moore. Dunston’s strategies may help the Wolverines make big wins in the recruiting trail and fill in the gaps. She is not the first coach to fall under Moore’s radar. Earlier it was Alford.  

Moore returns the favor to Day through coaching swaps

Coach swaps are common between the archrivals, Ohio State and Michigan. When Day upgraded from interim head coach to head coach, while taking over the Buckeyes, he changed the coaching roster. The Buckeyes HC took a step further by stealing away two coaches from the Wolverines, Greg Mattison and AI Washington. But the tables soon turned as Moore also got promoted from an interim head to coach to the head role of the Wolverines. How could he just let go of the opportunity to return the favor? 

Hence, he poached running backs coach Alford from OSU. Wondering what made Alford stand out and catch the attention of Moore? Having spent nine years at Ohio State and with a long track record of coaching running backs in his career, the coach added a different perspective. Since it differed from that prevalent in Ann Arbor, Moore was convinced that this change would ensure that the team and staff do not get too comfortable and challenge themselves every single day.  

In Dunston’s case, few know that her sister, Jillian, is in her second year as a member of the coaching staff of the Wolverine’s women’s basketball team. Is it only the family connection that mattered or the longing to gain the trust of Moore to overturn the impact of Harbaugh’s departure, the mass exodus that propelled her to take the role?