Gators looking for Moore

It’s not often a player can excel on the football field if he’s unsure of what he’s doing. That was the dilemma senior receiver Carl Moore faced in 2008.

After being one of the top junior college players in the country while at Sierra C.C. in Roseville, Calif., Moore found himself struggling to pick up on Florida’s offensive playbook when he arrived last spring. It didn’t matter that he had two years of experience outside of high school. UF was different territory.

“Last year, I didn’t know anything that was going on,” Moore said. “I just ran out there to run. If you’re thinking and trying to play football, that’s not good. Those two can’t combine.”

Trying to force them together proved costly for Moore, who finished the season with just 18 receptions for 184 yards and a touchdown.

His most meaningful play of the year came in UF’s 26-3 win over Miami in the second week of the season. With the Gators leading 9-3 late in the third quarter and facing a third-and-9 at the Miami 33, Tim Tebow connected on a 28-yard pass to Moore down the right sideline. The play was originally ruled out of bounds, but was reviewed and overturned. UF later scored on the drive to go up 16-3.

Even though Moore put the Gators in great scoring position — suffering a hip pointer in the process — he didn’t have a catch longer than that the rest of the season and saw most of his time blocking for the likes of receiver Percy Harvin or running backs Jeffrey Demps and Chris Rainey.

This spring, however, Moore is being counted on to become one of UF’s offensive playmakers. He’ll be counted on to block, like all receivers in this offense, but his main duty is to catch passes in 2009.

So far, Moore has taken to that role. While UF’s offense has been shaky for most of the spring, Moore has been a consistent bright spot. He’s been a touchdown magnet for quarterbacks Tebow and John Brantley and has been able to display some of the speed he didn’t quite have in his first year.

But Moore isn’t satisfied just yet. He has showed flashes of brilliance on the field, but admits to regressing at times. If he stays consistent, Moore said he thinks he can become the playmaking receiver UF coaches are looking for.

“The coaches have always been coming up to me telling me I have to start making more plays and just start being more consistent,” Moore said. “They say day in and day out they’ll see me make plays and then I’ll come out and mess up on something.

“(Saturday), Coach said, ‘Just go hard, just try to be consistent on everything you do today.’ I went out there and tried to go hard. Now that I know the offense I can really run my routes a lot better and really use my speed a little bit more now that I know what I’m doing.”

Receivers coach Billy Gonzales said he’s pleased with how Moore has developed, but it’s still too early to tell if Moore’s spring results will translate this fall. The key, Gonzales said, is for Moore to forget all the little things that slowed him in the past and start moving his body naturally and leave the thinking for the sideline.

“He knows what he has,” Gonzales said. “Last year, he was kind of swimming around and fishing. He didn’t really know what his plays were. Now, he knows what his plays are. Now, he’s got the ability to play a little bit faster than what he did last year.”