While Michigan looks for a replacement for fired coach Sherrone Moore, the program will be led by a former hedge fund manager.
Moore was fired for cause on Wednesday after a school investigation found that he was in an inappropriate relationship with a university staffer. Associate head coach Biff Poggi will be the interim head coach for the Dec. 31 Citrus Bowl against Texas.
Poggi went 2–0 as interim coach earlier this season, while Moore served a suspension for the program’s sign-stealing scandal.
Poggi’s background is as unique as his name. The 66-year-old former offensive lineman co-owned a hedge fund with his father-in-law called Samuel James Limited, which was founded in 1986. Although Poggi’s exact net worth is not known, multiple outlets have reported that the hedge fund was worth “hundreds of millions” of dollars when he stepped away from day-to-day operations in the 2010s.
Somehow the Wolverines have Larry Ellison—one of the richest men in the world—cutting NIL (name, image, and likeness) checks and, for now, a head coach who could afford to pay for the roster himself.
Poggi coached high school football in Maryland for decades while running his hedge fund. He spent 20 years as the head coach of the Gilman School, worked for Jim Harbaugh for one year in 2016, and then returned to the Maryland high school ranks in 2017 to coach Saint Frances Academy. The school became a national powerhouse in his four years there, producing several NFL players and inspiring an HBO documentary. While at the school, Poggi poured his wealth into the team, funding 65 scholarships with his own money and investing $2.5 million into the program. Poggi then returned to Ann Arbor in 2021 to serve as Harbaugh’s associate head coach for two years.
“He’s kind of like the consigliere,” Seahawks head coach and former Michigan defensive coordinator Mike Macdonald said of Poggi. “He’s really the only guy that is willing to hash it out with [Harbaugh].”
In 2023, Poggi was hired to coach Charlotte but was fired after two seasons, having gone just 6–16. Moore, who had just replaced Harbaugh as Michigan’s head coach, quickly brought him back on staff as associate head coach.
Poggi has said he doesn’t want to be a head coach again, which takes him off the Wolverines’ hot board, even if he wasn’t a serious candidate. But even if he isn’t retained by the next coaching staff, he’ll be the rare coach who doesn’t have to lean on their buyout money while he figures out what’s next.
