The Duke football team will enter 2024 with a different starting quarterback and a new offensive coordinator, but the Blue Devils passing attack won’t be entirely reinvented. Everything still runs through wide receiver Jordan Moore.
Moore ended the 2023 season with 62 receptions and 835 yards, leading the Blue Devils in both statistics, and he hauled in eight of the team’s 14 passing touchdowns. Last November, he caught three touchdown passes against North Carolina before surpassing 100 yards in each of the next two games against Virginia and Pittsburgh.
The former three-star prospect came to Wallace Wade Stadium with the intent of dominating the team’s passing game. Just from the other end of it. Moore committed to the Blue Devils as a top-50 quarterback prospect in the Class of 2021 but changed positions ahead of his sophomore season. He found massive success and found it immediately, and according to his teammates and coaches, there’s no secret to his breakthrough beyond hard work and preparation.
After four years at Loyola Blakefield, Moore started the 2021 season as one of six quarterbacks on the Duke roster. Despite the depth at the position and his status as a freshman, he still found the ball in his hands routinely. He ran the ball 44 times for 221 yards and completed nine of his 19 attempts for 95 yards. He scored four touchdowns, three with his legs and one with his arm.
With fellow quarterback Riley Leonard on the roster, however, an opportunity for expanded playing time seemed unlikely. Mike Elko came to Durham as the head coach ahead of the 2022 season, and Moore started practicing at wide receiver.
He hasn’t thrown a pass since.
Moore established himself as a receiving threat from the opening bell during his sophomore campaign. He caught six passes for 77 yards and a touchdown against Temple in the season opener, and he found the end zone in each of the next two games as well.
The 2022 Pittsburgh game elevated Moore from a promising young wideout to one of the best weapons in the ACC. The Blue Devils trailed by 14 points with 10 minutes left on the clock before Leonard found a wide-open Moore over the top of the defense for a 49-yard touchdown. The Panthers held on for a 28-26 win, but Moore caught 14 passes for 199 yards.
He ended that sophomore season (again, his first playing wide receiver) with 60 catches for 656 yards, the second-most on the roster in both categories, as well as a team-high five touchdowns.
[autotag]Grayson Loftis[/autotag], who broke out as a freshman last season after a handful of promising starts, spoke about his teammate during the ACC Football Kickoff on Wednesday. Part of what makes Moore so good, he said, is that same positional background he left behind two years ago.
“As a quarterback, he knows every detail about a play,” Loftis said during an ACC Network appearance. “He knows coverages, he knows techniques.”
It’s clear Loftis felt some immediate trust in the now-veteran wideout. That three-game streak from the top of the story, with three touchdowns against the Tar Heels, started once Loftis took over the offense. The duo combined for 311 yards and four touchdowns in their first three full games together.
Just when it felt like the ground under Moore’s feet started to settle, however, the foundation shook again. Elko left for Texas A&M last winter, bringing Manny Diaz to Durham as Moore’s third head coach in four years. Diaz, in turn, brought in former Texas quarterback [autotag]Maalik Murphy[/autotag] from the transfer portal to compete with Loftis for the starting job. Even the playcalling changed with former SMU quarterbacks coach Jonathan Brewer now running the offense.
Murphy and Loftis talked about how Brewer’s offense emphasizes a fast tempo and pushing the ball downfield, something very different from the football Loftis and Moore played last season. With such a constant cycle of new teammates and coaches, how does a player like Moore ever find success in a new position, much less sustain it? The answer sounds more straightforward than one might expect.
“He’s just continuously asking questions,” Loftis said. “He wants to know everything about how you prepare for a game, what you’re looking for, how you want everything run.”
While Loftis focused on praising Moore’s mental prowess, Diaz started off his admiration for the wideout on much simpler terms.
“He just wills things to happen with his work ethic,” Diaz said in an ACC Network appearance of his own later that morning. “He is, if you asked our players, probably the hardest worker on our football team.”
The first-year Blue Devils head coach hinted that, despite Moore surpassing 60 receptions in each of the last two seasons, the senior’s workload could increase yet again in 2024.
“That shouldn’t be that easy, going from quarterback to wideout,” Diaz said. “And he’s made it look easy.”
Moore’s third season in the Duke wide receiver room gets underway on August 30 against Elon.