BOULDER — If the Buffs’ plan is to replace their whole offensive line with transfers, James Moore knows what his dad would probably say to Deion Sanders about that one.
“That’s a big mistake,” Moore, son of the late offensive line coach and blocking guru Joe Moore, told The Denver Post last week when asked about CU. “My opinion: You’ve got to have somebody (who’s a veteran) in that room. … If you can build it, that’s not how I would build it.”
Moore’s father, Joe, was the longtime offensive line coach at Pitt and Notre Dame, a football icon in western Pennsylvania and Mr. Miyagi to blocking senseis from Iowa’s Kirk Ferentz to Jimbo Covert and Russ Grimm.
Joe Moore was a tough cookie, old-school, a contemporary of Mickey Andrews, the former Florida State defensive coordinator and one of Sanders’ spiritual mentors. A demanding son of a gun. A “we” guy and not a “me” guy.
So much so, in fact, that the national trophy presented to the best offensive line unit in college football — The Joe Moore Award — is named in his honor. So is the offensive line camp James Moore runs outside Pittsburgh every year.
“I watched (CU) at the beginning of the year, and obviously (the Buffs’) offensive line is not very good right now,” the younger Moore said of the Buffs, who gave up the most sacks per game (4.67) of any Power 5 program this season and saw star quarterback Shedeur Sanders taken down 52 times in 11 appearances.
“But do they have a guy or two who could be ‘the guy’ in that (offensive line) room and have guys that come in the transfer portal and go through spring ball (that can help)? I don’t know.”
And there’s the rub. The Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) and Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) transfer portals open for business Monday, and CU is expected to burst through those front doors like it’s a Black Friday midnight sale.
Coach Prime’s stated methodology — still unique, and controversial, after a 3-0 start sank to 4-8 over his inaugural season in Boulder — is to devote 80% of his available roster slots to undergraduate transfers or grad transfers in any given recruiting cycle.
CU’s starting left tackle this fall, Gerad Christian-Lichtenhan, reportedly entered the portal this past Friday. Sanders said after allowing seven sacks at UCLA that he wanted new offensive linemen for 2024, a season that will see sons Shedeur and Shilo play their final year of collegiate eligibility together. It’s also expected to be the last hurrah at CU for sophomore two-way star Travis Hunter, who will become eligible for the NFL Draft after the ’24 campaign.
Can a Big 12-quality offensive line be built, or rather re-built, strictly through transfers? And can it jell in just eight or nine months together? Can a position group that traditionally requires time and preparation, like a roasted turkey, be microwaved like a pizza and still hold up?
“Yes. The answer is yes,” CBS Sports analyst and ex-CU Buffs football coach Rick Neuheisel told The Post. “Yeah, you can. And I think there are going to be a lot of people intrigued with the idea of Deion being there after all that publicity and at a time of the season (September) when it’s absolutely gorgeous (in Boulder).
“When (transfers) are thinking about Deion, they’re thinking about that time of year. … He’s going to have entrée to many a living room.”
Selling is the part of the job where Sanders excels — especially when it involves selling himself. But patience? That’s less of a strong suit, especially when so many of CU’s chips are expected to be pushed to the middle of the table for the 2024 season.
Shopping-by-portal has proven to be a sound method for plucking singular, elite, plug-and-play “free agents” at positions such as quarterback, tailback, wide receiver, cornerback or pass-rusher. But the offensive and defensive lines, bedrocks of a program’s foundation, are less about the individual and more about the collective — chemistry and cohesion that can take months, if not years, to master.
Also, the truly great ones, to paraphrase Coach Prime, are traditionally hard to find on the transfer market. From Black Friday through Dec. 1, 43 wideouts entered the portal, according to the 247Sports.com database. Only 20 offensive tackles and 30 interior offensive linemen put their names in the hat over that same eight-day window.
“It’s such a developmental position,” offered Cherry Creek offensive lineman Hayden Treter, a senior who committed to play college ball at USC last June. “Rarely do you see a guy come out of high school or (from a smaller) school, transfer up and enroll and he’s just a star.
“I think, you know, there’s only really (a few) exceptions, such as Kadyn Proctor in Alabama, or the right tackle in Miami (Francis Mauigoa). But it’s rare, because it’s unit-based. You’ve got to know the guys for months and months and months and months. And even those (standout) dudes are struggling a little bit.”
Of the offensive line units that were picked among the semifinalists for the 2023 Moore Award, three hailed from the Pac-12 — Oregon, Washington and Oregon State. And collectively, the Ducks, Huskies and Beavers started only one first-year transfer up front.
Experience matters. Of the four FBS teams that allowed the most sacks per game this season, all but one, Wake Forest, opened the season among the bottom 25 programs in the nation in the category of most career offensive line starts.
“It (stinks) for them,” Treter said of the Buffs’ offensive line struggles. “It’s hard to watch sometimes. … You know they’re going to get there eventually. But with offensive line, you need time. You can’t take a guy and teach him three years worth of technique in half an offseason. It’s almost impossible.”
As a player, Sanders excelled at what conventional wisdom said was “impossible.” But as a coach, when it comes to building a Power 5-worthy offense line in a hurry, he might be battling against forces too strong for even his charm, willpower and work ethic to overcome.
Moore says Sanders would be wise to seek out a friend of his family, Mike Munchak, who has loved ones in Colorado and served as the Broncos’ offensive line coach from 2019 to ’21.
“To me, it’s more about attitude and everything (taught) in that (offensive line) room,” Moore said. “You look at Iowa’s offensive line, right? If they weren’t very good at the beginning of the season, they got pretty good. They’re doing better. That’s typical (Ferentz). That’s why he’s 11-1 (over Iowa’s last 12 games) in November. That’s getting better.”
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