{"id":370,"date":"2025-03-20T11:22:36","date_gmt":"2025-03-20T11:22:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2025\/03\/20\/michigan-football-embracing-team-over-me-motto-ahead-of-season\/"},"modified":"2025-03-20T11:22:40","modified_gmt":"2025-03-20T11:22:40","slug":"michigan-football-embracing-team-over-me-motto-ahead-of-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2025\/03\/20\/michigan-football-embracing-team-over-me-motto-ahead-of-season\/","title":{"rendered":"Michigan football embracing \u2018team over me\u2019 motto ahead of season"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Spring ball means assimilating freshmen and transfers to a team\u2019s ways, getting an idea of personnel on both sides of the ball and just simply getting out there and shaking off the rust after months without live action. For the Michigan football team, it also means establishing \u2014 really, re-establishing \u2014\u00a0the team-centric mindset that\u2019s defined the program for decades.<\/p>\n<p>It starts from the top, and it starts with a message that coach Sherrone Moore delivered to the players on the very first day of spring practices.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCoach Moore has done a very great job of just rallying Team 146 under a motto: \u2018team over me,\u2019 \u201d senior linebacker Ernest Hausmann said Wednesday. \u201cDeveloping that standard, (that) mentality upon everybody here, new guys, transfers and returning players understand that every single thing that we\u2019re going to do is with a \u2018team over me\u2019 mindset. That right there is going to be a really big difference.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That \u2018team over me\u2019 mentality is everywhere you look in the Wolverines\u2019 program, from the letters plastered in the stadium tunnel reading \u2018The TEAM, The TEAM, The TEAM,\u2019 to Michigan\u2019s practice gear which features the word \u2018TEAM\u2019 intentionally above the word \u2018ME.\u2019 It\u2019s the brand, the main message \u2014 and for the Wolverines, it\u2019s what matters most.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-1    \">\n<style><![CDATA[@media ( min-width: 300px ){.newspack_global_ad.scaip-1{min-height: 250px;}}@media ( min-width: 728px ){.newspack_global_ad.scaip-1{min-height: 90px;}}]]><\/style>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Even when asked about his personal goals, Hausmann diverted \u2014 choosing to focus on everyone but himself.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI like to keep that stuff to myself,\u201d Hausmann said. \u201cAs leader of this unit, this whole team, the goals as a whole unit are the only things that matter. All I\u2019m focused on is getting the team ready to go for game one.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a mentality that, coming off of a year without nearly as many stars as the one before it, may be even more crucial this season given the buzz a certain freshman quarterback is bound to attract. Most of that is out of Michigan\u2019s control. What the Wolverines can control \u2014\u00a0and what they decidedly are controlling from the start of spring ball \u2014 is the mentality with which the team plays.<\/p>\n<p>But Bryce Underwood, the former high-school phenom who\u2019s drawn a massive amount of attention since his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/sports\/football\/bryce-underwood-flips-commitment-to-michigan\/\">commitment<\/a>, has already adopted that mentality.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s a team-first guy,\u201d offensive coordinator Chip Lindsey said Monday. \u201cIf you ask the older guys on our team right now, I think they would tell you that they love his approach . Really, that whole room I\u2019ve got in there right now, they\u2019re all the same way, they\u2019re all wired that way, or (they) probably wouldn\u2019t be at Michigan.\u201d<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-2    \">\n<style><![CDATA[@media ( min-width: 300px ){.newspack_global_ad.scaip-2{min-height: 250px;}}@media ( min-width: 728px ){.newspack_global_ad.scaip-2{min-height: 90px;}}]]><\/style>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Regardless of position, the \u2018team over me\u2019 mindset is one that translates to every player, from Underwood to Hausmann. The same goes for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/sports\/football\/tj-guy-shows-ability-to-fill-in-as-starting-edge-rusher-against-minnesota\/\">TJ Guy<\/a>, the senior edge rusher who, after a strong junior year totaling 32 total tackles and 5.5 sacks as a rotational player, claims he isn\u2019t too concerned about his anticipated starting role.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m not really thinking too much personally about how my role is going to change,\u201d Guy said. \u201cMore about the impact I have on my teammates, my young teammates, my new teammates, and being a good example for them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Moore hopes that type of selflessness will spread across his team, pushing everyone to be better as a result. When the \u2018team over me\u2019 mentality extends to the field, it looks like a cohesive defense, one that moves a singular unit on the line and contorts and constricts together in coverage. It looks like an offensive line worthy of the Joe Moore Award, or the quarterback zipping passes to his receivers without hesitation.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>None of that can happen without every single player in tune. By emphasizing a \u2018team over me\u2019 mindset on day one, Moore is making sure the Wolverines are on the same page.<\/p>\n<aside>\n<div class=\"newspack-popup-container newspack-popup hidden  newspack-inline-popup      \" role=\"button\" tabindex=\"0\" style=\"background-color:#FFFFFF;color:#000\" id=\"id_162162\" data-segments=\"\" data-frequency=\"0,0,0,month\">\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">Please consider donating to The Michigan Daily<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p><h3 class=\"jp-relatedposts-headline\"><em>Related articles<\/em><\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Spring ball means assimilating freshmen and transfers to a team\u2019s ways, getting an idea of personnel on both sides of the ball and just simply getting out there and shaking off the rust after months without live action. For the Michigan football team, it also means establishing \u2014 really, re-establishing \u2014\u00a0the team-centric mindset that\u2019s defined [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":371,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[314,311,223,222,313,315,312],"class_list":{"0":"post-370","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-ahead","9":"tag-embracing","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-michigan","12":"tag-motto","13":"tag-season","14":"tag-team"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=370"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":372,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370\/revisions\/372"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}