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"You Can't Pass Up the SEC" - why Kirby Moore came to COMO
Posted on: October 13, 2023 at 08:48:02 CT
El Zorro MU
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Nice article in the Columbia Missourian this morning - sounds like our conference was a big selling point for Kirby coming to Mizzou.
You can’t pass up the SEC’: How the mastermind behind Mizzou football’s offensive eruption found a new home in Columbia
BY BRANDON HAYNES
Kirby Moore had a difficult time saying goodbye.
Born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, Moore spent the first three decades of his life living on the West Coast, where he eventually emerged as one of college football’s up-and-coming offensive minds.
That changed Jan. 5, when Missouri football announced it had hired Moore as the program’s offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach, ushering in a new era of play-calling for the Tigers’ offense and a new home for Moore’s family of four.
“He really got to love Fresno and coach (Jeff) Tedford,” Tom Moore, Kirby’s father and former high school coach, said. “There’s some great people in that town, and it’s not Los Angeles. It’s not San Francisco. Fresno is a blue-collar, farming, agricultural, tough, hard-nosed (city).”
Moore spent six seasons in Fresno, California, building a foundation for both his professional and personal life.
A former Boise State wide receiver, Moore joined the Bulldogs’ staff in 2017 as wide receivers coach before he also became the team’s passing-game coordinator in 2020. His ascension at Fresno State continued in 2022 when he was named offensive coordinator, elevating the Bulldogs’ offense to the top of the Mountain West Conference.
Under his watch, former Fresno State quarterback Jake Haener emerged as one of the country’s most efficient passers. The New Orleans Saints recognized Haener’s potential and selected him in the fourth round of the 2023 NFL Draft, a nod to the impact Moore had in the young signal-caller’s development.
Three other Fresno State players joined NFL teams as undrafted free agents after the draft, including wide receiver Jalen Cropper, who joined the Dallas Cowboys. Operating out of the slot, Cropper recorded more than 1,000 receiving yards last season.
“Kirby’s one of those coaches that knows everything about the game of football,” Cropper said. “I was lucky enough to be able to be coached (by) him from a receiver perspective and then from an offensive coordinator, so I got the best of both worlds.”
Off the field, Moore established roots in California with his wife and high school sweetheart, Kayla.
The pair welcomed a daughter, Sutton, and son, Cohen, into their lives while in Fresno, giving Kirby a support system to fall back on and a place to step away from football at the end of the workday.
“At this stage of his life — and I think both of my kids literally are exactly the same in this aspect — they coach football and they’re with their families. That’s it,” Tom Moore said.
An emphasis on family has always been the recipe for success for the Moores, a trend that extends from generation to generation.
The Moore the merrier
The Moore family has known nothing but coaching for more than 70 years.
It started in the suburbs of Chicago in 1950, when Thomas “Bert” Moore began coaching basketball for Bloom Township High School following his playing career at Western Illinois.
Bert, Kirby’s grandfather, helped institute the coaching ideals that planted the seeds for what was to come for his own son.
“I grew up in his fields and in his gym,” Tom Moore said. “My kids grew up going to the gym for practice.”
Tom, who led Prosser High School to four Washington state championships and 21 league titles, started coaching the Mustangs in 1986, beginning an impressive stretch in which his team failed to win the league only twice.
Kirby and his brother, Kellen, the current offensive coordinator for the Los Angeles Chargers, played alongside one another for two seasons near the end of their father’s tenure at Prosser.
“We brought Kirby up for the playoffs his freshman year, and he caught 12 touchdown passes in four games,” Tom Moore said. “He had a national record of 95 touchdowns (in his prep career). One out of every three passes he caught was a touchdown.”
Tom resigned from Prosser in 2009, choosing to step away following Kirby’s graduation to prioritize watching his sons compete together at Boise State.
The pair, two years apart, were more like twins, and it showed through their intuitiveness on the football field. They always seemed to know what the other was going to do.
“Not many people get to play with their brother in high school, let alone in college,” Kellen Moore said. “We had a couple touchdowns his freshman year ... . It was so much fun, and obviously he had options as a player, so him coming to Boise was really special.”
The Moore coaching tree added a new branch when Kirby took a position with the College of Idaho as its receivers coach. The position offered freedom, too. The young coach sold medical devices during the day and coached in the evenings as he attempted to figure out what he wanted to do after his playing career.
Before long, the coaching side won out.
“When he got to coach at the College of Idaho his first year after playing, that was unbelievable,” Tom Moore said. “Sometimes a guy goes to coach at a big school as a young guy, (and) you don’t do anything. ... But here he goes to College of Idaho, and they only had like four coaches on their offensive staff. He was right in it.”
Learning from the best
Kirby has always been surrounded by coaching excellence.
From the prep scene with his father to his playing days under Chris Petersen at Boise State, the pieces that would create a budding coaching mastermind were in place.When injuries affected Kirby late in his Boise State tenure, he turned his vision toward coaching.
“I think coaching was always is in the back of his mind,” Kellen Moore said. “He tried a few other things, he had a few other interests, but coaching kept popping up.”
Kirby’s graduate assistant position at Washington introduced him to several emerging names in the coaching industry, further adding to his overall knowledge and experience of the game. The coaches that impacted Kirby most, however, date back to his time at Boise State and Fresno State under Kalen DeBoer, Tedford and Petersen.
“I know Kirby’s not too proud to continue those relationships and bounce ideas off of all of them,” DeBoer said. “He’s a low-ego guy, and those relationships are easy with him because he’s such a good all-around person.”
Those connections helped Kirby develop his own identity and confidence, which translated to Fresno State and now to Missouri. Tom said most of that started with Tedford, who had a lot of faith in Kirby from Day 1.
Trust in the Kirby-led offensive scheme is something that has since translated to the Tigers under coach Eli Drinkwitz, who relinquished play-calling duties to one of the newest faces to the coaching staff.
So far, the decision has paid off.
Quiet by nature; explosive by habit
Kirby is a man of few words, rarely raising his voice above a regular volume. He lets his players do the speaking for him on the field.
Under the direction of the Tigers’ first-year play-caller, the offense is averaging the fourth-most yards per game in the Southeastern Conference, including the third-most passing yards per game.
Junior quarterback Brady Cook ranks sixth in the nation in passing yards, while sophomore receiver Luther Burden III leads the country in receiving yards. Together, they’ve created one of the most formidable duos in all of college football.
It’s a connection similar to what Haener and Cropper established at Fresno State.
“I feel like everything I was able to do in terms of the play style — being able to run after the catch and then being a guy that could get open in routes (and) be a more versatile receiver — I felt was definitely something that Kirby helped me do,” Cropper said.
Whether Kirby would be able to find success in the SEC was never a question to Kellen and Tom, both of whom expressed excitement about the opportunity for Kirby to join forces with Drinkwitz.
However, the idea of Kirby trading the place he called home for a Midwestern college town with a family of four was one worth pondering. Before long, though, Kirby embraced the idea of saying hello to a new challenge and city he and his family could call their new home.
“Kirby had numerous offers to go take other jobs after Fresno,” Tom Moore said, “but you can’t pass up the SEC.”
You can’t pass up the SEC’: How the mastermind behind Mizzou football’s offensive eruption found a new home in Columbia
BY BRANDON HAYNES
Kirby Moore had a difficult time saying goodbye.
Born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, Moore spent the first three decades of his life living on the West Coast, where he eventually emerged as one of college football’s up-and-coming offensive minds.
That changed Jan. 5, when Missouri football announced it had hired Moore as the program’s offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach, ushering in a new era of play-calling for the Tigers’ offense and a new home for Moore’s family of four.
“He really got to love Fresno and coach (Jeff) Tedford,” Tom Moore, Kirby’s father and former high school coach, said. “There’s some great people in that town, and it’s not Los Angeles. It’s not San Francisco. Fresno is a blue-collar, farming, agricultural, tough, hard-nosed (city).”
Moore spent six seasons in Fresno, California, building a foundation for both his professional and personal life.
A former Boise State wide receiver, Moore joined the Bulldogs’ staff in 2017 as wide receivers coach before he also became the team’s passing-game coordinator in 2020. His ascension at Fresno State continued in 2022 when he was named offensive coordinator, elevating the Bulldogs’ offense to the top of the Mountain West Conference.
Under his watch, former Fresno State quarterback Jake Haener emerged as one of the country’s most efficient passers. The New Orleans Saints recognized Haener’s potential and selected him in the fourth round of the 2023 NFL Draft, a nod to the impact Moore had in the young signal-caller’s development.
Three other Fresno State players joined NFL teams as undrafted free agents after the draft, including wide receiver Jalen Cropper, who joined the Dallas Cowboys. Operating out of the slot, Cropper recorded more than 1,000 receiving yards last season.
“Kirby’s one of those coaches that knows everything about the game of football,” Cropper said. “I was lucky enough to be able to be coached (by) him from a receiver perspective and then from an offensive coordinator, so I got the best of both worlds.”
Off the field, Moore established roots in California with his wife and high school sweetheart, Kayla.
The pair welcomed a daughter, Sutton, and son, Cohen, into their lives while in Fresno, giving Kirby a support system to fall back on and a place to step away from football at the end of the workday.
“At this stage of his life — and I think both of my kids literally are exactly the same in this aspect — they coach football and they’re with their families. That’s it,” Tom Moore said.
An emphasis on family has always been the recipe for success for the Moores, a trend that extends from generation to generation.
The Moore the merrier
The Moore family has known nothing but coaching for more than 70 years.
It started in the suburbs of Chicago in 1950, when Thomas “Bert” Moore began coaching basketball for Bloom Township High School following his playing career at Western Illinois.
Bert, Kirby’s grandfather, helped institute the coaching ideals that planted the seeds for what was to come for his own son.
“I grew up in his fields and in his gym,” Tom Moore said. “My kids grew up going to the gym for practice.”
Tom, who led Prosser High School to four Washington state championships and 21 league titles, started coaching the Mustangs in 1986, beginning an impressive stretch in which his team failed to win the league only twice.
Kirby and his brother, Kellen, the current offensive coordinator for the Los Angeles Chargers, played alongside one another for two seasons near the end of their father’s tenure at Prosser.
“We brought Kirby up for the playoffs his freshman year, and he caught 12 touchdown passes in four games,” Tom Moore said. “He had a national record of 95 touchdowns (in his prep career). One out of every three passes he caught was a touchdown.”
Tom resigned from Prosser in 2009, choosing to step away following Kirby’s graduation to prioritize watching his sons compete together at Boise State.
The pair, two years apart, were more like twins, and it showed through their intuitiveness on the football field. They always seemed to know what the other was going to do.
“Not many people get to play with their brother in high school, let alone in college,” Kellen Moore said. “We had a couple touchdowns his freshman year ... . It was so much fun, and obviously he had options as a player, so him coming to Boise was really special.”
The Moore coaching tree added a new branch when Kirby took a position with the College of Idaho as its receivers coach. The position offered freedom, too. The young coach sold medical devices during the day and coached in the evenings as he attempted to figure out what he wanted to do after his playing career.
Before long, the coaching side won out.
“When he got to coach at the College of Idaho his first year after playing, that was unbelievable,” Tom Moore said. “Sometimes a guy goes to coach at a big school as a young guy, (and) you don’t do anything. ... But here he goes to College of Idaho, and they only had like four coaches on their offensive staff. He was right in it.”
Learning from the best
Kirby has always been surrounded by coaching excellence.
From the prep scene with his father to his playing days under Chris Petersen at Boise State, the pieces that would create a budding coaching mastermind were in place.When injuries affected Kirby late in his Boise State tenure, he turned his vision toward coaching.
“I think coaching was always is in the back of his mind,” Kellen Moore said. “He tried a few other things, he had a few other interests, but coaching kept popping up.”
Kirby’s graduate assistant position at Washington introduced him to several emerging names in the coaching industry, further adding to his overall knowledge and experience of the game. The coaches that impacted Kirby most, however, date back to his time at Boise State and Fresno State under Kalen DeBoer, Tedford and Petersen.
“I know Kirby’s not too proud to continue those relationships and bounce ideas off of all of them,” DeBoer said. “He’s a low-ego guy, and those relationships are easy with him because he’s such a good all-around person.”
Those connections helped Kirby develop his own identity and confidence, which translated to Fresno State and now to Missouri. Tom said most of that started with Tedford, who had a lot of faith in Kirby from Day 1.
Trust in the Kirby-led offensive scheme is something that has since translated to the Tigers under coach Eli Drinkwitz, who relinquished play-calling duties to one of the newest faces to the coaching staff.
So far, the decision has paid off.
Quiet by nature; explosive by habit
Kirby is a man of few words, rarely raising his voice above a regular volume. He lets his players do the speaking for him on the field.
Under the direction of the Tigers’ first-year play-caller, the offense is averaging the fourth-most yards per game in the Southeastern Conference, including the third-most passing yards per game.
Junior quarterback Brady Cook ranks sixth in the nation in passing yards, while sophomore receiver Luther Burden III leads the country in receiving yards. Together, they’ve created one of the most formidable duos in all of college football.
It’s a connection similar to what Haener and Cropper established at Fresno State.
“I feel like everything I was able to do in terms of the play style — being able to run after the catch and then being a guy that could get open in routes (and) be a more versatile receiver — I felt was definitely something that Kirby helped me do,” Cropper said.
Whether Kirby would be able to find success in the SEC was never a question to Kellen and Tom, both of whom expressed excitement about the opportunity for Kirby to join forces with Drinkwitz.
However, the idea of Kirby trading the place he called home for a Midwestern college town with a family of four was one worth pondering. Before long, though, Kirby embraced the idea of saying hello to a new challenge and city he and his family could call their new home.
“Kirby had numerous offers to go take other jobs after Fresno,” Tom Moore said, “but you can’t pass up the SEC.”
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"You Can't Pass Up the SEC" - why Kirby Moore came to COMO - El Zorro MU - 10/13 08:48:02
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