After Lane Kiffin ended all the speculation about where he would be the head football coach in 2026, the college football coaching shuffle appeared to be ready to come to a halt. But the football gods decided to throw everyone a curve; and, yesterday, we learned that Michigan fired its head coach, Sherrone Moore, for cause. Here is part of the statement issued by the Michigan Athletic director on the matter:
“Sherrone Moore has been terminated with cause effectively immediately. Following a university investigation, credible evidence was found that Coach Moore engaged in an inappropriate relationship with a staff member. This conduct constitutes a clear violation of university policy and UM maintains zero tolerance for such behavior.”
The first thing that stood out to me about that statement is the directness and the specificity of the reason for the termination. Usually, such statements are much more carefully worded there is always some reference to “moving forward” and/or “institutional integrity” near the conclusion of the statement. Not so here. The university did an investigation; they found inappropriate conduct; they fired the person engaged in the inappropriate conduct. Next …
There is another wrinkle here that is out of the ordinary. Reports this morning say that Coach Moore was arrested by local law enforcement. And that throws a different light on the “inappropriate relationship” mentioned by the AD. When I read the statement for the first time, my interpretation was that Moore was doing the horizontal rhumba with a staffer. Well, if the two of them are “consenting adults”, that would not seem to involve the local gendarmes very much.
Naturally, I wanted to know how much money was left on Coach Moore’s contract that he would seem to have “left on the table” there as a result of being fired for cause. According to various Internet sources, that number is $13.9M. Obviously, Sherrone Moore will retain counsel who will try to pry some of that money loose for their client; so, this story is not over yet. The only thing that is certain now is that Michigan is in the market for a new head football coach and it jumped into that messy business very late in the cycle. This story is still in medias res.
Moving on … The MLB offseason – – the so-called Hot Stove League – – seems to have spun into action recently. The Phillies re-signed slugger Kyle Schwarber to a contract worth $150M over the next 5 years. Schwarber is about to turn 33 years old and his only real position on an MLB team is “DH”, so this is a lot of money spent on a position that normally commands half of that amount or less.
Schwarber hit 56 home runs in 2025 including one game where he launched 4 moon shots. That too is a special level of performance for a DH but the bump in salary still seems over the top a bit given that Schwarber is a career .231 hitter. However, it is also reported that the Orioles also offered Schwarber $150M to sign on in Baltimore, meaning the economic gurus in MLB seem to have placed a significant value on an intangible asset that Schwarber has.
And another power hitter made Hot Stove League news recently … Pete Alonso is no longer a Met; he will take his talents on a four-hour car ride south on Interstate-95 to be part of the Baltimore Orioles. Alonso turned 31 earlier this week; his deal is worth $155M over the next 5 years; he will average $1M per year more than Schwarber. This deal is a bit surprising to me:
- On one hand, the O’s are not known as a big-spending club.
- On the other, they are under new ownership.
- The O’s are in a tough division and finished 12 games under .500 in 2025. They do not seem to be “one piece away” from a meaningful playoff appearance.
- Is there more “spending” to come from the O’s to bolster the roster even further?
One thing Alonso brings to the table is reliability. He has been in the major leagues since 2019 and if you ignore the COVID-shortened season in 2020, Alonso has appeared in 152 or more games in every other season, and he has been an All-Star for the past four straight seasons.
The NY Post reports that the Mets did not make an offer to Alonso despite his performance in 2025 where he hit .272 with 38 home runs and 126 RBIs. It would be surprising to me to learn that the O’s outbid the Mets for a player; it is even more surprising that the Mets never entered the market to keep one of their own players. Very strange …
Finaly, these ironic words from former NY Governor, Eliot Spitzer:
“Don’t reward bad behavior. It is one of the first rules of parenting. During the financial cataclysm of 2008, we said it differently. When we bailed out banks that had created their own misfortune, we called it a ‘moral hazard,’ because the bailout absolved the bank’s bad acts and created an incentive for it to make the same bad loans again.”
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………