What Kirby Moore Will Bring To Mizzou's Offense In 2023
Taking a seat inside Missouri's football complex for the first time since being hired, Kirby Moore produced a quick smile before questions began bombarding him one by one.
Moore, who signed a three-year deal to become the Tigers' next offensive coordinator on Wednesday, knows there are extensive expectations set in Columbia. Mizzou (6-7, 3-5 SEC) is coming off another less-than-stellar season in terms of offensive production. Key players are leaving via the transfer portal left and right. Stability is at an all-time low since fourth-year coach Eli Drinkwitz took over for Barry Odom following the 2019 season.
No one knows if Moore will be able to make the transition from Fresno State to Missouri. His older brother, Kellen Moore, went from being Dak Prescott's backup on the Dallas Cowboys to his quarterback coach within a season. A year later, he was promoted to offensive coordinator, so the pressure to make the jump from the Mountain West to the SEC with ease could be more so an ego thing between brothers.
Still, Moore has earned his shot at being the answer to Mizzou's woeful offense after his success with Fresno State. Now, it's all about implementing the proper game plan with the pieces in play.
"I think offensive football, first it's got to fit our personnel," Moore said during his introductory press conference. "And so that's one thing I got to dive into and our offensive staff and Coach Drink and we've got to figure out what our guys do well, and then do that over and over and over. I don't think you can just say, 'Hey, your offense is this.’ I think it comes back to what fits our personnel, what fits our quarterback, our running back, offensive line. And then at the end of the day, it comes back to we got to take care of the ball, you got to be explosive and we got to score more."
Moore, 32, spent the previous five seasons working his way up the ranks from receivers coach to offensive coordinator. Over the past two years, the Bulldogs have been one of the more consistent scoring units in the nation, largely due to quarterback Jake Haener.
Since Moore took over the play-calling duties in 2021, the Bulldogs have averaged roughly 430.3 yards and 32.5 points per game. The selling point for Drinkwitz on Moore being his guy? Passing offense. Fresno State ranked eighth (2021) and 27th (2022) nationally in passing while Haener led the program to back-to-back Mountain West title appearances.
Drinkwitz said that one of the more appealing facets of Moore's coaching was his ability to design offensive concepts built around throwing the football 30-plus times per game.
"You look at us offensively last two years, we weren't effective pushing the football down the field and throwing the ball," Drinkwitz said. "Kirby's a wide receiver at heart and so he's gonna always want to get the ball to those playmakers in space. Just watching him, I think he does a really good job of setting up the offense through the passing game, and that's something that we got to be better at."
The Tigers finished nationally ranked 66th and 91st, respectively, over the previous two years in terms of passing. Brady Cook, Mizzou's 2022 starter, finished with 14 touchdowns against seven interceptions and threw for under 3,000 yards.
Missouri has not featured a 3,000-plus-yard passer since Drew Lock in 2018. Lock, who was drafted in the second round by the Denver Broncos in 2019, also was the last Tigers' quarterback to throw for more than 20 touchdown passes in a season.
Moore wasn't brought in to change the offensive personnel. He wasn't planning to, either. The new OC spoke of providing more of a jolt to the current system, using words like rhythm, attack and tempo to describe his play-calling.
"I probably use the word tempo a little bit more (than Drinkwitz), so that's something that's going to be a big part of our offense," Moore said. "And we still want to attack on a consistent basis. In terms of my mindset as an offensive coordinator, they have to defend us."
Drinkwitz, who has called the plays in Columbia since being hired in 2020, said that change was essential moving forward. With the constant growth of NIL and the transfer portal, Drinkwitz stated his focus needed to be on more pressing matters rather than calling offensive plays.
Before hiring Moore, Drinkwitz said he was hesitant about bringing in an outsider to call the plays until after the season. Following a 27-17 loss to Wake Forest in the Gasparilla Bowl, Drinkwitz elected to "step away from the from the emotion of the season and really try to figure out exactly what we needed to do moving forward."
During that time, quarterbacks coach and internal candidate Bush Hamdan left the program to become the offensive coordinator at his alma mater Boise State. At that point, Drinkwitz knew bringing in
"I needed to hire somebody who could come in and understand the vision that we have for offensive football, the vision that we have for our program and then go score more points," Drinkwitz said, "because at the end of the day, we’ve got to score more points in order to be successful in this league."
Moore will also take over for Hamdan as the Tigers' quarterback coach. As for Drinkwitz, his duties will fall along the lines of a more CEO approach, working more behind the scenes on building relationships with recruits and boosters to benefit the program on the NIL front.
"You have to recruit everybody in your building, coaches, players. You've got to recruit boosters. You've got to recruit fans," Drinkwitz said. "So that's. [been] a large majority of my time, specifically in the last two years."
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