The decision by the former AAC Defensive Player of the Year ensures the Horns will have plenty of talent coming off the edge next season.
How low key is Trey Moore?
As a flurry of Texas Longhorns declared early for the 2025 NFL Draft and safety Michael Taaffe announced his return to the Forty Acres for his final season, the rising senior edge has been silent.
But with Moore not among the underclassmen who have reportedly declared for the draft, Horns247 confirmed on Thursday that the UTSA transfer will spend a second season at his dream school.
From the draft standpoint, it’s a decision that potentially reflects feedback from the NFL Draft Advisory Board, which grades players as a first-round pick, a second-round pick, or neither. Moore falls into the third category because of his lack of ideal height and length, but also had to make his decision with the understanding that rising star Colin Simmons will cut into his playing time in 2025.
Still, edge is a position that the Texas staff likes to rotate frequently and the dime package that defensive coordinator Pete Kwiatkowski installed this season features Moore and Simmons. Further sub packages in 2025 could also include one player as lined up as an inside linebacker as the Longhorns try to get their best 11 defenders onto the field.
An unranked recruit out of Smithson Valley north of San Antonio, Moore landed at UTSA, where he earned Freshman All-American honors in 2022 by starting all 14 games and breaking Marcus Davenport’s school record with 18 tackles for loss among 59 total tackles, 30 solo stops, eight sacks, six pass breakups, five quarterback hurries, two forced fumbles, and a fumble recovery.
As Roadrunners head coach Jeff Taylor publicly complained about other schools tampering with his players, it was Moore who was receiving back-channel interest, but he opted to remain at UTSA, earning AAC Defensive Player of the Year honors in recording 45 total tackles, including 30 solo stops, 17.5 tackles for loss, and a school-record 14 sacks, along with three pass breakups, three quarterback hurries, one interception, one forced fumble, and a fumble recovery.
Moore finally entered the portal in December 2023 after his redshirt sophomore season with Texas looming as the heavy favorite because it was his dream school growing up. The Crimson Tide also received interest from the 6’3, 245-pounder, but Moore ultimately decided to remain close to home, signing with Texas in December.
“He’s very twitchy,” Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian said during preseason camp. “Trey is not the biggest guy. He’s not small, but he’s not the biggest guy. He’s very twitchy. He has a unique ability to bend when he comes around the corner and get underneath tackles. He’s a very natural athlete.”
The production didn’t come quickly for Moore — by the eighth game of the season, he was only credited with a half tackle for loss. It wasn’t that Moore was failing to impact games, as PFF graded him as creating 15 pressures, including five against Oklahoma, three against Georgia, and four against Vanderbilt, he just wasn’t getting onto the stat sheet.
In late September, before Moore was even creating those pressures, Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian was happy with his play.
“He’s playing great. He really has probably exceeded expectations in his ability to defend the run, his versatility, dropping in coverage. He’s impacted the quarterback and has had some good rushes. We tend not to just look at sack numbers and let that dictate how well a guy’s playing for us. But the reality is that he’s playing good football for us,” Sarkisian said.
Sarkisian forecast a steady trajectory of improvement for Moore and that’s exactly what happened. Against Florida, Moore had two tackles for loss. The next week in Fayetteville, he recorded his first sack at Texas against Arkansas. By the end of the season, Moore had 10.5 tackles for loss, 6.5 sacks, and two forced fumbles with 3.5 tackles for loss, 3.0 sacks, two quarterback hurries, and a forced fumble coming in the three postseason games.
So there’s some real momentum for Moore heading into his second offseason on the Forty Acres after his strong finish to the 2024 season provided conclusive proof of his ability to perform at a high level against the best teams in college football.
Now Moore is going to run that back, quietly in public, but intensely behind the scenes, because that’s how he’s built.