MOBILE, Ala. – When the mother of the University of South Alabama's Pat Moore passed away following an epileptic seizure in the middle of the 2012 season, it would've been very easy to just disappear.  As a junior-college transfer, he had been with the Jaguar program for less than a calendar year and had only played in six contests to that point.

On the field, the 6-foot-3, 260-pound native of Southaven, Miss., presents an intimidating presence.  Off it, however, the Jags' defensive end/outside linebacker carries himself with a quieter, more stoic demeanor.  One that might have led him to attempt to handle the stunning news on his own.

Little did he know the type of support he would receive from others within the program.

"In a situation like that — dealing with something so personal, so near and dear to your heart — there's not very much that you can actually do.  I just wanted to let him know that if he ever needed anybody I was there for him," explained senior defensive lineman Romelle Jones, whose mother had passed away just months earlier during preseason camp.  "Certain guys like to have their space, and some need a bunch of guys around them to keep them up; everybody deals with adversity in different ways.  I let Pat know that he was not alone.  And that I was not the only guy on the team who had experienced this, Clifton Crews and Anthony Harris have been through the same situation.  It's something that you never forget, and we wanted to let Pat know that he lost someone very close to him but his other family was still here for him — his brothers, his teammates.

"Ever since that time, Pat has been one of the closest guys to me on the team.  I knew if ever need anything or someone to talk to he would be one of the first guys I could turn to, and he knows it's the same for him with me."

It was an offer that Moore was grateful to accept.

"Romelle's mother had passed away during the season too, we bonded after we talked about it," he stated.  "The week before she had sent me a text message on Sunday about a powerful sermon and said she loved me.  But I just had to battle through it."


Family has always been important to Moore.  With two other brothers in the house — and a step-brother who joined the group after Moore's mother remarried — it was family that helped him start his involvement with football at the pee-wee level.

"We would go outside and throw the football around," he recalled.  "Then we found out there was a little league team around the block from us, so we joined and started from there."

Not only were the brothers playing together on the neighborhood team, they were pushing each other.  Particularly the youngest of the group, Marshall Vaulx, who was two years behind Moore.  "I wanted to compete a lot with my youngest brother because we used to always come up with some silly game and see who could win.  And when we started playing football, we always wanted to see who would have the hardest hit or the most tackles," Moore said.

He would eventually attend Southaven High, and even made the varsity squad as a freshman — though not in a position that Jaguar fans would recognize; standing 6-foot-2, 200 pounds at the time, Moore played wide receiver for the Chargers.  His first experience on defense was in the secondary, and three years later — after helping SHS qualify for the state playoffs his senior season — Moore was being recruited primarily as a linebacker/safety/tight end after growing an inch and adding 15 pounds.

The schools primarily recruiting Moore at the time were Mississippi and Memphis, with the latter school essentially offering him an opportunity to play at home.  But it was location — "I felt like I needed another place that fit me better, because Memphis is home for me and I was looking to experience something different," he stated — that led to Moore instead enrolling at Northeast Mississippi Community College.

Passing on an opportunity from an NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision program certainly was a risk.

"I was told it's hard to come out of junior college, so I needed to set my mind that I was going to go to a Division I program," Moore said of the decision to attend NMCC.  "I had to show my skills because I wanted to get to the next level."

First, there was another position change for Moore.  At NMCC, he moved to the defensive line for the first time.  "They said they wanted to try something when I got to junior college and it has just stuck," he explained.  "When I got to junior college I ate a lot.  I cared about my physique, I didn't want to be a little guy out there on the line."

Two seasons and 73 tackles later — not to mention 20 pounds heavier, now weighing 235 pounds — Moore once again went through the recruiting process.  Memphis was still interested in the hometown product, but now there were a pair of Sun Belt Conference schools as well.


"Everybody recruits a certain area and I had Mississippi junior colleges.  When I went up to Northeast Mississippi Community College their coaches told me about Pat," said Jaguar defensive tackles coach Brian Turner, who at the time also served as the program's recruiting coordinator.  "He played linebacker as a freshman and defensive end as a sophomore, we saw a lot of ability.  He was fast, athletic and strong, and he had the ability to strike; Pat was a tall, rangy kid we thought we really needed to have, that he was someone who could be a speed-rush guy."

Moore's size and skill set were what drew the attention of more than just USA.  Jerry Mack is currently in his second season as the Jags' wide receivers coach, but in the fall of 2011 he was part of the Memphis staff attempting to convince Moore to stay close to home.

"We had evaluated and recruited Pat ever since he was in high school, we knew he had the athletic ability," he remembered.  "When we saw his combination of size and speed, we felt like he was a guy who could stand up and play outside linebacker in a 3-4 system as well as come off the edge and rush the passer.  He was one of the top defensive ends on our board going into that recruiting season, and when he chose South Alabama we had to scramble to try and find somebody else with a similar skill set.  He was a really high priority that year."

At the time there was no way to tell that Moore would one day come to rely on members of the USA program as he did in the fall of 2012.  But after an early December visit, it was apparent that each party believed the fit was the right one for all involved.

"When I host a recruit I want to get to know them first, see where their mind is at and who they are; it's not all about their stats.  I want to get to know a person before getting into the athletic part of it," said senior Randon Carnathan, also a Jag defensive lineman, who was Moore's host on his official recruiting visit.  "If you're going to be a part of this team and be putting the work in, I want to know you as a friend first.  I got to know Pat, I met his brother and mother before I introduced him to teammates.  Of course I showed him a good time, but nothing illegal.

"I knew Pat was going to be an excellent fit here.  He got here late, I was on campus at The Grove and he was downtown at the Battle House, so I had to ask if he wanted to go out or stay in at the hotel.  He wanted to go out, so I drove down and picked him up and right away we were talking; honestly, Pat wasn't as quiet when I first met him.  He was laid back, I knew he was going to be a good fit with his personality — he was a humble guy."

By the end of the evening, Carnathan was able to send Turner a text congratulating him on gaining another defensive lineman to work with.

"I bonded easily when I first got here, it felt like I was just at home," recalled Moore.  "I saw this as a program on the rise where I could be a part of history, the ability to leave a legacy was big for me.  I could've gone to Troy and been a regular player, I could've gone to Memphis and been a regular player, but here people are going to remember me."


Moore wasted little time becoming an important fixture up front for the Jags, earning immediate playing time as a back-up to Anthony Taylor.  He started his second game at USA, a 9-3 victory in which he was credited with 3½ tackles for loss including 2½ sacks — both program records.  And when Taylor was lost for the season due to an injury suffered at Mississippi State two weeks later, it was Moore who stepped in to fill the role starting with a career-best six stops against the nationally-ranked Bulldogs.

Then came the stunning news that his mother had passed on.  In his first opportunity to play the following weekend, Moore blocked a pair of field goals while also recording three tackles — all for loss — to be named the Sun Belt Conference Special Teams Player of the Week, and after missing USA's next contest at Louisiana-Monroe to attend her funeral, he would go on to post 30 tackles his first year with the program.  That total included nine stops behind the line and 4½ sacks, which both ranked among the top three on the team.

But for Moore, it was another offseason of change as Kevin Sherrer became the Jags' defensive coordinator after Bill Clark departed to become the head coach at Jacksonville State.  And a new position coach as well, as part of head coach Joey Jones' reshuffling of staff duties featured Turner working with interior lineman and newly-hired Freddie Roach as the assistant in charge of defensive ends/outside linebackers.  It didn't take long for Roach to see an individual who could make an impact in the new staff's scheme.

"Pat has great size to be a 'Jack' for us, he runs very well," he said.  "I thought he had a lot of potential, and that when he played he could be somewhat of a bully who could dominate the game at that position.  As the year has gone on he has gotten better doing that."

It took little more than half the season for Moore to realize that potential.  In USA's first five games he never had more than two stops, but since then Moore has collected three or more tackles in three of the last four outings including a performance with three stops for loss at Texas State the final weekend of October.

It's a level of play both Moore and Roach believe he is capable of maintaining as the season winds down.

"All I'm thinking about is finishing strong for my team," said the former.

The latter added, "I think Pat has gotten a lot more comfortable — comfortable with the scheme, with the way he's being coached, with what we are asking him to do — and any time you become comfortable with something, you tend to do it a lot better.  That's allowed him to play with confidence.  He's stepped his game up and done everything we've asked him to do since day one; it may have been a little different than it was in the past, but he's taken the coaching and now it's showing up on game day."


Family remains an important aspect of Moore's life as his final season as a Jaguar is nearing an end.  He is slated to earn his degree in May, while there is potential to earn an invitation in the spring to a free-agent tryout camp with a National Football League team — the Buffalo Bills, Denver Broncos, New Orleans Saints and New York Giants have all discussed Moore with members of the USA coaching staff this fall.

Both those goals can be traced back to the influence of Moore's mother.

"My degree comes first, I have to get that because my mom wanted me to have it.  When I get my degree I'll be the first person in our family to earn one," he stated.  "But to prepare for the next level, I just have to keep working hard and see if there is a team that is interested in what I bring to the table; I want to play to my potential for her.

"Back in high school I moved around a lot — I played different positions — but it was always on my mind that I wanted to play at that level and make my mama proud," he continued.  "Every time we watched a game, she would ask 'What position are you going to be playing?  Will you be right there?'  I really just want to make her proud."

And in the spring Moore will look to start his own family as well.  He first met Sheneika "Mookie" Perry at Northeast Mississippi C.C., and they continued dating when she transferred to South Alabama as well prior to the fall 2012 semester.  The two are engaged to be married in the spring.

But in the meantime, Moore can always rely on the family he inherited when he arrived in Mobile nearly two years ago.

"I don't know about other schools, but here the defensive line is the closest-knit group on the team," Jones observed.  "We're like a big group of brothers — we're all different, we argue, we fuss, we may fight sometimes, but at the end of the day they're the only brothers I have besides my biological brother.

"When you come in here and join the defensive line, that's something that lasts forever.  It's like a fraternity, a brotherhood."

For more information about South Alabama athletics, check back with www.usajaguars.com, and follow the Jaguars at www.twitter.com/USAJaguarSports. Season tickets for all Jaguar athletic events can be purchased by calling (251) 461-1USA (1872).

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