It was Clayton Moore’s second chance. Last week, the Louisville High School (Miss.) quarterback made an unofficial visit to Syracuse. After having his scholarship reneged by Mississippi, Moore’s college search was suddenly reset.

Amidst the snow he was seeing for the first time in his life, Moore said the school buildings at SU were ‘pretty,’ and the campus, ‘beautiful.’ He even bumped into someone who might be his future go-to receiver, Mike Williams, who re-enrolled Monday.

But naturally, something had to go wrong for Moore. It’s been that way for a while.

‘My highlight film didn’t work, my tapes were blank,’ Moore said. ‘I don’t know what happened, but my tapes were blank. So I had to come home and mail my film, and they were going to give me a call.’

Moore’s still waiting for Syracuse to call. Months after committing to the Rebels, Moore is unwillingly back on the market.

Ole Miss revoked its scholarship offer after a verbal dispute with his high school coach at halftime of a playoff game on Nov. 28. After the game, Moore’s coach informed Ole Miss about the incident and the Rebels pulled his scholarship. Since then, other schools once interested in Moore have backed away, leaving SU in the mix. Ole Miss told Moore he could walk onto the team and earn a scholarship next semester, but the 6-foot-2 quarterback is now fielding other offers.

As Syracuse implements a new offense, it may need a new quarterback like Moore to push the buttons. A three-star recruit on Scout.com, Moore wants to join the fray. If SU offers Moore a scholarship, he has less than two weeks to enroll late.

He expects to hear back from Syracuse any moment.

‘Maybe they’ll call tonight,’ Moore said via telephone interview Tuesday. ‘If not, I guess I’ll just move on. I really don’t have a top school. I’m just waiting on an offer. Whoever offers is definitely my top school, but I haven’t got one yet.’

For Moore, the bridge to Syracuse is offensive coordinator Rob Spence – through football and family. Moore attended Spence’s summer camp at Clemson, and his aunt and uncle attend the same church as Spence in South Carolina. Moore said he likes how Spence adjusts his offense to the personnel. Clemson finished in the top four of the 12-team Atlantic Coast Conference in rushing, passing and total offense during Spence’s three full seasons.

‘In my mind, I can fit into any system,’ Moore said. ‘I ran the spread in high school and ran a lot, but I’m a thrower before I’m a runner. Whether I’m under center or in the gun, I really don’t have a preference.’

It has been a year to forget for Moore. After passing for 3,046 yards, running for 840 yards, scoring 40 total touchdowns and winning a state championship, Moore was ‘on top of the mountain’ as a junior. He had scholarship offers from 17 schools in May, according to Scout.com.

‘I had a lot of expectations coming into my senior year,’ said Moore, who graduated from high school early. ‘It started off well, and I just spiraled downward. I went from the top to the bottom in five seconds.’

Moore takes full responsibility for his altercation in the playoff game. But that argument with his coach was merely the tip of a very deep iceberg, he said.

It all started in July. Moore suffered a stress fracture in his lower back while doing squats in the weight room. He didn’t know it at the time. Moore figured his back was just sore from sleeping in awkward positions in his new bed. Confirming his suspicion, a doctor diagnosed it as nothing but a muscle spasm. So Moore continued lifting. The pain worsened.

It got so bad Moore said he couldn’t even throw a football. One week before the season started, Moore visited the doctor again. He had a stress fracture. Rather than sit out six weeks as suggested, Moore played. In the third game of the season – while carrying the ball 16 times for more than 150 yards – Moore injured his back again. This time, he needed to sit out.

And so the rift began. Moore said his high school coached pulled him into his office after sitting out his fourth straight game.

‘The doctor told me not to play and my coach thought I should,’ Moore said. ‘He thought I was trying to protect my (scholarship) offer and things like that. That’s how it all started and we got mad at each other.’

Fundamentally, Moore understands Mississippi’s decision to revoke the scholarship offer. If Ole Miss head coach Houston Nutt ignored Moore’s coach’s complaint, it could’ve sent a damaging ripple effect through the entire state.

‘If they go against what my coach says and keep the offer, not only does that make my coach mad, that makes 30 of my coach’s best friends mad in Mississippi,’ Moore said. ‘Especially with coach Nutt being new to this area. You need to be friends with everybody and everybody needs to like you, because next year if Randy Moss comes through my high school and my coach doesn’t like Ole Miss, more than likely that’s not where that player is going to end up. So I can see where they’re coming from.’

But…

‘They know the story as well as I do. That’s what kind of made me mad.’

Louisville was Moore’s instant Plan B when Ole Miss stripped his scholarship. He said the Cardinals were on him ‘real hard’ and had offered him a scholarship before he committed to Mississippi five months ago.

There was a silver lining through this whole mess after all.

‘Louisville said they were still looking for a quarterback when I de-committed,’ Moore said. ‘I got in touch with them and they were ready to pull the trigger.’

The decision was so close, one quarterback even de-committed from Louisville amid the Cardinals’ newfound affection for Moore. But he hadn’t escaped his past quite yet. Over the phone, one Louisville coach asked Moore for his high school coach’s phone number.

Moore never heard from Louisville again.

He isn’t sulking. Moore said the entire ordeal has made him a stronger person.

‘I could’ve quit football, not walked on anywhere and just got an education,’ he said. ‘Or I can man up and become stronger. That’s what I’ve done.’

So now, Clayton Moore plays the waiting game. Pittsburgh was a possibility until another quarterback committed there. The ball’s in Syracuse’s court. Moore just hopes the new highlight tapes he sent Syracuse work this time around.

‘They have my film now, unless they were blank again,’ Moore said. ‘That could be a possibility. But I’m pretty sure it worked.’

thdunne@syr.edu

Published on January 13, 2009 at 12:00 pm