Texas football is a brand as big as, well, the state of Texas.<\/p>\n
The scrutiny, excitement and pressure that comes with playing for the Longhorns is a combination rarely topped by any college football program outside the SEC. Yet Colorado under Deion Sanders might be one of them.<\/p>\n
DeAndre Moore Jr. is more than ready to find out.<\/p>\n
Drawn to Colorado in part by the allure of Sanders\u2019 program, along with a previous relationship with Buffaloes offensive coordinator Brennan Marion that ended before it truly began, Moore is aiming to play a key role for a Buffs attack breaking in a new look with Marion\u2019s Go-Go offense.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Prime Effect,\u201d Moore said of his decision to join the Buffs after three seasons at Texas. \u201cI went from one brand to a really big brand. Every single day there\u2019s going to be cameras on you. There\u2019s going to be lights on you. That\u2019s just another great way for me and my teammates to go showcase what we can do.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd also, the environment. Not too many places around the country you can go into a building and be yourself. Sometimes you gotta walk on eggshells around certain coaches, or certain people won\u2019t talk to you. It\u2019s not like that here. It\u2019s a real family, a real brotherhood, a real bond. The coaches are men building men, and so they\u2019re going to treat us as such. That\u2019s what I love about being here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Marion spent just one year at Texas, serving as the Longhorns\u2019 receivers coach and passing game coordinator in 2022. Marion moved to UNLV following the season, but not before forging a relationship with Moore as he was being recruited out of Bellflower, California.<\/p>\n
Moore played in nine games as a true freshman in 2023 and showed his potential the following year, finishing the 2024 season with 39 receptions for 456 yards and seven touchdowns. Moore posted similar numbers last year, recording 38 receptions for 532 yards and four touchdowns.<\/p>\n
Moore described the Go-Go offense \u2014 which, when operating optimally, combines a versatile power run game with a vertical, big-strike passing attack \u2014 as \u201cbackyard football.\u201d Moving from a team that has one of the top quarterbacks in the nation in Arch Manning to the Buffs and their talented but unproven redshirt freshman quarterback Julian Lewis certainly is somewhat of a gamble.<\/p>\n
Moore\u2019s reunion with Marion got off to an uneven start, as an injury kept Moore out of spring practice. As CU\u2019s preseason workouts shift from Fountain-Fort Carson back to Boulder, San Jose State transfer Danny Scudero has emerged as a leader among the Buffs\u2019 receivers. And Moore is battling for playing time alongside fellow transfers Kam Perry (Miami Ohio) and Ernest Campbell (Sacramento State), as well as a cast of returning players that includes Joesph Williams, who was CU\u2019s second-leading receiver last year with 37 catches for 489 yards and four touchdowns.<\/p>\n
\u201c(Marion) is like an uncle, man,\u201d Moore said. \u201cI\u2019ve known the guy since I was about 16-years old. He was recruiting me to Texas and we was playing cards and I was beating him in speed all night.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy role is just however I can help the football team win. That\u2019s what I\u2019m here for, bro. If I\u2019ve gotta go down on punt and make an impact, that\u2019s what I\u2019m going to do. If I gotta go stick my nose in and block for (my teammates), that\u2019s exactly what I\u2019m going to do. Whatever I can do to help the team, that\u2019s my job.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Texas football is a brand as big as, well, the state of Texas. The scrutiny, excitement and pressure…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":404472,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,51965,51966,60288,261,416,943,944,16309,3607,251,223,154],"class_list":["post-404471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-boulder","tag-boulder-county","tag-buffzone","tag-college-football","tag-college-sports","tag-colorado","tag-colorado-news","tag-front-range","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=404471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404471\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/404472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}