Moore seeks to regain his edge with Red Raiders

Few Texas Tech position groups took a bigger hit at the end of the 2021 football season than the linebackers.

Colin Schooler and Riko Jeffers, first and third on the team in tackles, ran out of eligibility, as did backup Jacob Morgenstern. Brandon Bouyer-Randle, another depth piece, decided to transfer.

Krishon Merriweather returns, but beyond him, it's a largely unproven cast.

Enter Dimitri Moore, who has proven he can play and be a difference maker at the power-five level — provided he can be that guy again. Moore stood out early in his career at Vanderbilt, racking up 84 and 99 tackles, respectively, in 2018 and 2019 while making a combined 19 starts.

In part because of injuries, the 6-foot-3, 230-pound senior has not approached those numbers in the past two seasons — 2020 at Vanderbilt, 2021 at Missouri State — but the Cedar Hill graduate says he's refreshed by returning to his home state and playing for his old high-school coach.

"It's good to just be back with a man that I trust and be back in my home state," Moore said. "My body is good. I feel better than ever.

"I'm eating differently. I've completely changed my body this year. It just feels like the year for me."

When Tech hired Joey McGuire in November, Moore decided to rejoin his old coach. McGuire served as head coach at Cedar Hill from 2003-16, and Moore was a senior for the Longhorns on the 2016 team.

"What's really cool is the last time that I was a head coach, Dimitri and I were on the field together," McGuire said. "And so the first time being the head coach at Texas Tech and practice, Dimitri and I are back on the field together.

"The good thing, too, is he knows me. I'm a different person whenever we step between the lines. It's business, nothing personal. I'm going to stay on their tail (and be) very demanding. He knows that, so it's really easy for him to say, 'Don't take it personal, man. He's just going to be extremely demanding to make sure you're doing things right.' "

Moore was a consensus state top-100 recruit coming out of high school and played like one early in his career. He made the SEC all-freshman team as a redshirt freshman in 2018 and led Vanderbilt in tackles the next year, piling up five games with double-digit tackles totals.

Then his career got derailed. Moore played in only five games in 2020, when Vanderbilt finished 0-9, and played in only six games and got credit for 11 tackles last season, when Missouri State went 8-4.

One of Moore's grandfathers died in 2020 from COVID-19. Moore initially opted out of that season in August, then reconsidered a week later. He wound up leaving the team with two games left to have his name entered into the NCAA transfer portal.

Moore said the onset of the pandemic, his grandfather's passing and a series of injuries, especially hamstring problems, set him back the past two years.

"That weighed down on my mental (game) a lot," he said. "I went through some adversity. That pushed me down a little bit.

"But being here just feels like a different type of year, different type of season. I feel like this is the year that I get to be me again."

Moore attracted scholarship offers from 20 programs when he was coming out of high school. After spending the first five years of his college career outside of Texas, Moore is remembering the comforts of being back in the state where he grew up.

"I loved the idea of going out of state and seeing things and experiencing new things," he said, "but it's actually a really good thing to be back in your home state. It's a feeling of home and what you're used to and a lot more people who are just like you, around you.

"I think that brings more success, because you build more bonds with people who are just like you and it builds more chemistry. I'm a Texas boy, I've always loved it and it's a really good feeling."

Tech hired McGuire on Nov. 8, and it was only 16 days later that Moore committed to the Red Raiders as a transfer. Moore said McGuire didn't need to make an long, in-depth recruiting pitch. They know each other so well, and Moore was well-versed and comfortable with McGuire's ways of running a program.

"It's a great feeling being back with him," Moore said. "A lot of the same things I'm seeing are similar to high school, and it's great. He's an awesome coach. He's still an awesome coach, same guy he was back then, but even wiser. He's the same guy every day. I love playing for him."

Now the objective is for Moore to stay on the field and play every game this season for McGuire and the Red Raiders. He was thought to be on his way to becoming an NFL draft pick after his redshirt freshman and sophomore seasons at Vandy.

McGuire says that player is still in there.

"He has really good length," McGuire said. "He's got some legitimate NFL measurables. The two other things: He loves football. He loves football, and he is a very intelligent student. He graduated in 3 1/2 years, and he is a very intelligent student when it comes to football."

This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: College football: Dimitri Moore seeks to regain his edge with Red Raiders