With added weight, USC’s Moore expects to make more than 100 tackles
Skai Moore, South Carolina’s junior middle linebacker, thinks he’s poised for a breakout season in 2015.
“From winter workouts until spring until now, I have put on a lot of muscle, gotten a lot faster,” he said. “It’s been a good offseason.”
Moore played at 215 pounds last year and currently weighs 227. He hopes the extra weight will help him build on what are already impressive numbers. He led South Carolina and was 10th in the SEC in tackles last year with 7.8 per game, and his 93 total stops were the most by a South Carolina player since Jasper Brinkley had 107 in 2006.
He has led the Gamecocks in tackles each of the past two seasons, becoming the first player to do that since Emmanuel Cook in 2007 and 2008. Tony Watkins (1992-1994) was the last player to lead South Carolina in stops three years in a row.
Moore, who has started 13 games and has 149 career tackles, wants to surpass 100 tackles this year and add “at least four or five interceptions and five or six sacks.”
“There is always something to prove,” said Moore, who is coming off a defensive MVP performance in the Independence Bowl. “My coach in high school always used to tell us, ‘The biggest room is the room for improvement.’”
Moore will play middle linebacker in new defensive coordinator Jon Hoke’s 4-3 defense, next to weakside linebacker and best friend Jonathan Walton.
“We became best friends the first day we stepped on campus,” Moore said. “We communicate great together. It’s almost like a race to the ball between us. We always talk before the snap about who’s going to get there first.”
Moore is comfortable in Hoke’s scheme and has improved his pass coverage thanks to Hoke’s tutelage, he said. Moore earned the team’s defensive big play award in the spring.
“He gave me insight on pass drops and reading the quarterback’s shoulders,” he said. “That’s really helped a lot because I made a lot more plays in the spring.”
Now, he wants to carry that to the fall.