{"id":684698,"date":"2026-01-17T18:12:20","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T18:12:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/684698\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T18:12:20","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T18:12:20","slug":"michigan-football-pulls-in-lb-from-michigan-state-in-transfer-portal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/684698\/","title":{"rendered":"Michigan football pulls in LB from Michigan State in transfer portal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just 12 hours after sealing the deal on one Moa brother, Michigan football<\/a> has landed another.<\/p>\n

Incoming freshman Salesi Moa pledged to join the Wolverines<\/a> live at the Polynesian bowl in Hawaii on Friday, Jan. 16. By the time Saturday rolled around, his older brother, linebacker Aisea Moa, announced on social media<\/a> he too would be on his way to Ann Arbor.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Aisea spent last season at Michigan State, largely in a reserve role as he recorded 12 total tackles, one for loss in the season opener against Western Michigan. He played a career-high 180 snaps on defense, including 110 in the box, 57 on the edge and 13 at slot corner (though that may have been just a flexed out edge or a spin down linebacker).<\/p>\n

He added another 89 snaps on special teams, playing in every unit including kick return, punt return, kickoff, punt and field goal\/extra point blocks. While joining his brother was likely a key reason for his pledge to Ann Arbor, he has other ties to the staff.<\/p>\n

\"Michigan<\/p>\n

Michigan State’s Evan Boyd WR Aisea Moa, left, tackles Boston College’s urbo Richard during the third quarter on Saturday, Sept. 6, 2025, at Spartan Stadium in East Lansing.<\/p>\n

Aisea previously played three years at BYU (2022-24) where Jay Hill<\/a>, now Michigan defensive coordinator, held the same position in Provo. Aisea took an official visit to Ann Arbor last week, and has one year of eligibility remaining.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Aisea should have a spot to compete for playing time at a position that lost all four players atop the depth chart from the 2025 season: Cole Sullivan (Oklahoma), Ernest Hausmann (medical retirement), Jimmy Rolder (NFL) and Jaishawn Barham (NFL) are gone, and the program whiffed on its top-two candidates in the portal in Rasheem Biles (Pittsburgh to Texas) and Cade Uluave (Cal to BYU).<\/p>\n

Aisea is the 18th transfer portal commit to join new coach Kyle Whittingham in Ann Arbor.<\/p>\n

[ MUST LISTEN:\u00a0Make\u00a0“Hail Yes!”<\/a>\u00a0your go-to Wolverines<\/a> podcast, available anywhere you listen to podcasts (Apple<\/a>,\u00a0Spotify<\/a>) ]\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tony Garcia<\/a>\u00a0is the\u00a0Wolverines\u00a0beat writer for the Detroit Free Press. Email him at apgarcia@freepress.com and follow him on X at\u00a0@RealTonyGarcia.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan football adds Aisea Moa, Michigan State LB transfer<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Just 12 hours after sealing the deal on one Moa brother, Michigan football has landed another. Incoming freshman…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":684699,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2026],"tags":[5572,973,60565,18654,7,9104,18656,97414,957,580,343,1135,520,38670,51,3983],"class_list":["post-684698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-ann-arbor","tag-byu","tag-cole-sullivan","tag-ernest-hausmann","tag-football","tag-hawaii","tag-jaishawn-barham","tag-jimmy-rolder","tag-michigan","tag-michigan-football","tag-michigan-state","tag-oklahoma","tag-pittsburgh","tag-rasheem-biles","tag-texas","tag-wolverines"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115911797536793186","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=684698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684698\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/684699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=684698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=684698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=684698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}