Cal Football: 3* DE Ieremia Moore Joins the 2021 Class
Another DL. Always need more DL athletes.
Cal adds another piece to the defense. After the lackluster depth in 2019/2020 on the DL, I became a fan of adding more players into the position, and with Wilkins, Calhoun, and Williams joining in 2021 there is even space for a project DL.
What is worth noting that right after the Cal offer, UCLA tried to swoop-in—but failed to change Moore’s mind.
The 6’3”, 265-lb defensive end out of St. John Bosco is rated as a 3* recruit on 247Sports and Rivals. He hovers around being rated the 100th-best player in California this cycle.
Moore is originally from New Zealand and played rugby there for most of his life. In spring 2020, he decided to move to the United States to pursue a football dream after St. John Bosco offered him a roster spot.
Although Moore has yet to play in a competitive game, at the SoCal National Preps Showcase in November 2020, he took home DL MVP honors. For those in-the-know about Cal recruiting, players at this showcase also included 2022 5* RB Raleek Brown and former Cal RB target Johnathan Arceneaux.
Simply put, Moore is difficult to evaluate since he has zero game film to study. Furthermore, his height and weight are in that perfect zone where he could play more as an EDGE (a-la Cam Goode/Patrick Hisatake) or more as an IDL (Zeandae Johnson/Akili Calhoun), depending on how much the Cal staff want him to bulk up. Since Moore’s primary recruiter on Rivals is listed as Andrew Browning, I’m going to assume that the Cal staff, at least for now, are bringing in Moore to play as an IDL.
Again, since Moore has zero game film, I’m going to look at his “fall practice film” that Moore posted on Hudl (he’s not wearing pads or a helmet in this film).
From this film, I can see why the Cal staff want Moore on the roster. He has some great natural instincts and looks fluid moving from the line into the backfield. He’s able to slide his hips past the tackle without losing any ground on his run. He also shows a willingness to get down low and earn the leverage necessary to move lineman back. I also enjoyed the play at :50 seconds where the running back sees Moore running straight at him and makes a business decision to back up. I like seeing that running backs in practice already knew to fear Moore when he’s rushing the passer. I also think at 1:25 seconds he’s able to stiff-arm a whole lineman?!
But the lack of film (limited by Bosco’s practice regimen) means that I didn’t get to see Moore against a standard run, so I don’t know whether he has the physical strength to shove off linemen to get to the ballcarrier. All I saw in film was him beating linemen either by design or by pure physical speed through getting around the corner. Also, because of his agility and speed, I didn’t see what Moore can do in terms of technique.
Overall, Moore is raw. He’s probably the rawest recruit Cal football has taken in many years. He has the potential to become a game-changing player on the defensive line, but he could easily fall off the map and lose his scholarship after four years. To succeed, Moore needs to devote himself to football for a couple years. He needs to get into the weight room and the nutrition hall whenever he’s told. He needs to spend extra time before and after practice working on the little things like new hand moves and perfect leverage technique. He needs to travel with the team on away games in order to get used to just being in competitive football games. If Moore does all of that, he’ll become the star of what was already an extremely talented defensive line class for Cal in 2021.
Welcome to Cal, Ieremia!
Ieremia Moore
6'4" 268 lbs
St. John Bosco, c/o 2021
A major project, but a very, very high ceiling.
Ethnic mixed race Samoan/Caucasian with a bit of Chinese and Maori, who may appreciate the diversity of Cal.
He played American football at the club level in New Zealand, but has never played in the US due to Covid. Thus, there's very little tape on him. One camp tape, plus a few twitter snippets. However, I can see what Coach B sees in him. Pure, raw power on the short camp tape that he has. Powerful lower body as an engine, explosive for an undertrained kid who is 270 pounds. His tape focused on outside shoulder rush, an occassional bull rush and inside counter. And his wins included not just "I tapped the cone first", but straight up destroying his opponent. Come in angry.
A surprising amount of weapons for a guy who hasn't been at it long. This kid is the real deal. Coach B found a unpolished gem. Where are we going to put all these beasts we've got in the box?
Very good Subtitle. Knowing what we know about the 2020 season, we can never have enough D Lineman, notably at the NG position.