UAB’s Michael Moore prepares for last game as a Blazer

By Steve Irvine

BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA - November 29, 2024

For the second consecutive week UAB linebacker Michael Moore will play catchup when he first gets on the football field on Saturday afternoon at Charlotte. He certainly has a blueprint for success after last week.

Moore missed the first half of last week’s win over Rice while serving a suspension for making contact with an official late in the loss to Memphis. Moore was credited with either a solo tackle or assist on the first four plays of the second half. By the end of the half, Moore had a team-high nine tackles to go with 1.5 tackles for loss, an interception with an 8-yard return and a pass breakup.

This week, in the season finale against Charlotte, the 6-foot-5, 245-pound redshirt senior will once again miss the first half. American Athletic Conference officials allowed Moore to split the suspension over two games so he could play in his final home game at UAB.

So, what did he learn that will be helpful in his second time facing this situation?

“The first half, I mean, it's long, man,” Moore said. “You got the TV timeouts and all that. I had to stay engaged and stay focused. But other than that, man, it just, it just felt really long, because you want to get back out there so bad. But you know you can’t until the second half. That anticipation is what keeps me going through it and seeing my teammates play.”

Moore said he went into the locker room with about three minutes left in the first half to start stretching and get ready for the second half.

“I still had (individual) goals in mind for the game,” Moore said. “It was just it was on my mind heavy to reach my goal.”

For the record, he came up one tackle short of reaching his goal for tackles. However, that was balanced out by the interception, tackles for loss and the win.

This week, his personal goal is easy to spot. Moore enters his final game nine tackles short of reaching 100 tackles for the season.  If he can pull it off, Moore will become the fourth UAB player since the return to reach triple digits in single season tackles, joining Noah Wilder (111 tackles in 2022), Kris Moll (104 tackles in 2019) and Tevin Crews (102 tackles in 2017). Moore also enters the final week fourth in the American in tackles.

No matter what happens this week, though, Moore is coming to the end of an improbable run through college football. The Pearland, Texas journey began at NAIA member Bethany College in Kansas and continued at Ellsworth Community College in Iowa before UAB was the lone FBS school to offer an opportunity. He’s faced injuries and doubts throughout much of that time. He’s moved from the inside linebacker to the edge and back to inside linebacker. Through it all, he kept working and he’s ending his college career playing at his best.

He’s averaged 10 tackles over the past six games, including a career high 13 tackles at Memphis. He also learned a valuable lesson that night. His suspension came when he was involved in the pushing and shoving amongst the players following Memphis’ touchdown in the final minute of the 53-18 UAB loss. Three players – two from UAB and one from Memphis - were assessed unsportsmanlike conduct penalties on the play with Moore being the lone ejection. 

“It just taught me that not everything needs a reaction,” Moore said. “I’ve thought heavily on that. If I could go back and change it, that's one thing I would change. I shouldn't have let them get me out of my game.”