“It just wasn’t the right fit for me you know, so I just had to get out.”
This time last year Florida offensive linemen Tyler Moore did not have a positive outlook on the game of football.
On August 11th, 2012 the head coach of the University of Nebraska Bo Pelini announced that Moore, the first offensive lineman in school history to start an opener as a true freshman, was transferring. Moore started four games in 2011 and played in nine. He is a Cornhusker legacy with a father, a great-uncle and a cousin that all played in the “Sea of Red” as well.
“Of course everyone wants more playing time, but I believe I should have gotten more playing time throughout the year, I was busting my butt all year practicing and trying to get some playing time and still only got a few plays here and there,” Moore said.
So he transferred to St. Petersburg College. It’s something many college football players do when leaving an FBS school. They transfer to a junior college so they can play immediately and then transfer back to the FBS without having to sit out a year.
There was one difference about Moore’s transfer to SPC however; the school doesn’t have a football team. In fact, in August of 2012 Moore, the No. 5 ranked offensive tackle in the 2011 recruiting class, was content never playing football again.
“At first I wasn’t even expecting to get back into it, I was expecting just to finish up college and I thought I would just be done,” Moore said. “After going to Nebraska I just hated the game so I wasn’t ready to go back to it.”
So what was it about Nebraska that made him dislike the sport so much? Moore gave no specifics beyond his discontent with a dwindling amount of playing time, but it wasn’t something that happened overnight.
“Little things that I had to deal with at Nebraska made me slowly hate the game after so much time being there,” Moore said. Whatever made him dislike the game in Nebraska changed in the span of a little more than a month. On September 20th, 2012 Moore informed head coach Will Muschamp he would be transferring to the University of Florida.
After a few months away from the game, his attitude towards the sport seems to have changed. He spent the entirety of spring practice at right tackle before moving inside to right guard, where he’s practiced every day except for one this fall.
“I’ll do whatever it takes, if they want me to play right tackle, right guard, whatever they need me to do, I’ll play.”
UPDATE: Head coach WIll Muschamp met with the media and had some comments on Moore.
“Well you know Tyler was a situation where he went to Nebraska and I think he was home sick and I think he wanted to get closer to home. He has a very close family. It’s a long way out there. I think that was the No. 1 deciding factor, he wanted to get closer to home. So you get in the process. I talked to Bo Pelini, he raved about him as a person, a player, what type of guy he was and their entire staff, I know a lot of guys on the staff there, and they all just really didn’t want him to leave Nebraska. But they understood the situation, so that was that situation,” Muschamp said.
He also elaborated on Moore as a contributor this season.
“He’s going to be a huge member of our football team as far as being able to contribute and a guy that’s a good football player, as well. He plays the game the way we want to play here at Florida,” Muschamp said.