Catching attention

Jeff Rice

You don’t see 6-foot-5, 190-pound tailbacks in college football. You don’t often see them in high school football, either, unless of course you watched any Rochester High School games from 2004 to 2006, and saw the long, loping strides of Derek Moye taking him out of the backfield and into the secondary.

CDT photo/MIchelle Bixby

Derek Moye, who was a PIAA Class AA champion in both the 200-and 400-meter dashes, has added more offensive knowledge to his speed in becoming one of the Big Ten’s most-explosive receivers.

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In Class A football, you find ways to get the ball in the hands of your best player as often as possible. Dimensions aren’t important.

“I was used to having the ball every play,” Moye said.

This season, Moye has been playing the position his body was built for. The redshirt sophomore wide receiver is in the midst of a breakout year, which continues at 3:30 p.m. today when Penn State hosts Ohio State in Beaver Stadium.

Moye no longer touches the ball every play, but he has made the most of his touches. He leads the team with 39 catches for 648 yards and has caught five touchdown passes. If he continues his current pace, he would finish the season with 56 catches, the second-highest single-season total in team history.

The high school track star (Moye won PIAA Class AA titles in the 200-and 400-meter races) has, not surprisingly, been able to stretch defenses with his legs and run clean routes, along with displaying solid hands and excellent body control. He has looked like he has played receiver his whole life — not for less than three years.

Moye did catch 40 passes — 14 for touchdowns — during his final two seasons at Rochester, where he was a three-time first-team all-state selection, but most of his touches came at tailback. He ran for 1,200 yards and 20 touchdowns as a senior.

“We threw maybe 10 times a game,” Moye said. “I ran fades and slants — that’s about it.”

Asked what it was like to throw his lanky frame — which carried about a dozen fewer pounds than it does today — into the piles again and again, Moye shrugged.

“My sophomore year I got beat up a little bit,” he said. “I learned how to run a little more, how to take hits, appropriate hits, then when I got a little older, I started lifting a little bit. I still wasn’t very big but I started realizing that I could give out some punishment some times. Obviously, not much, but a little bit.”

Carrying the ball in traffic also helped Moye learn to anticipate where defenders were coming from, which has helped him in the open field.

“It helped my vision in general,” Moye said. “I can see a lot of things that, if I hadn’t played running back my whole career, then maybe I wouldn’t see.”

Moye credits three people with turning him into the receiver he is today — wide receivers coach Mike McQueary, former Penn State receiver Deon Butler and Moye’s older brother, Jermaine.

McQueary, Moye said, likes to joke around with the team’s veteran receivers. But Moye can empathize with the rookie wide-outs, who are “getting yelled at for everything.”

That was him not so very long ago.

“The first two years (McQueary) kind of makes you feel like you shouldn’t be playing college football,” Moye said, laughing. “But it’s been working for him. He helped me out.”

Butler, who is seven inches shorter and played at about 30 pounds lighter than Moye, would take him aside from time to time and offer quieter advice and criticism.

“I would do something wrong, and he would say, ‘You did the right thing, kind of, but it’s something you have to adjust to in games,’” Moye said. “I’m starting to see that now, that everything that happens in practice doesn’t happen in the game. He always said that practice is going to be the hard part, the game is going to be the easy part, and that’s holding true.”

Jermaine, who is four years older than Derek, starred at Rochester and played for two seasons at West Virginia. He started as a safety but the coaches moved him to wide receiver, then linebacker, then back to safety and back to wide receiver. Frustrated, Jermaine transferred to Division II California (Pa.), where he starred at safety before being moved, once again, to wide receiver. He played recently in the Arena Football 2 League and currently works with disabled children in Youngstown, Ohio.

“He’s probably my No. 1 fan,” Moye said. “But he’s going to be my No. 1 critic, too.”

When Butler, Jordan Norwood and Derrick Williams departed after the end of last season, Moye pushed himself — and fellow receiver Chaz Powell, his summer weightlifting partner — knowing that he had a great opportunity to become a big part of the Nittany Lions’ retooled offense.

“I wouldn’t say that I expected to have a big year,” he said, “but I kind of put it on myself to go out and have a big year.”

He had to start with getting off the line. Moye initially struggled to beat jams thrown up by Penn State’s veteran defensive backs in practice, but has improved in that aspect of the game thanks to a little extra bulk and some refined technique.

“Early in his career, he just tried to beat people with his God-given speed,” Penn State cornerback A.J. Wallace said. “But he’s worked at it, and he’s definitely improved. He’s working in practice to see what works and doesn’t work, but most of the time he does stuff that works.”

It’s translated to Saturdays, too. Moye, who started the season behind Brett Brackett on the depth chart, has caught six passes in each of Penn State’s last three games. When defenses give him a cushion, he grabs short passes in the flat. When they play him tight or fail to help with a safety over the top, he beats them deep. Opponents are rolling more coverage his way, which is opening up the middle of the field for the rest of the wide receivers and tight end Andrew Quarless.

“I’m preparing the same way I always have — work hard, and be ready for anything they throw at me,” Moye said. “At the same time, if they’re focusing their attention more on me, they’re going to leave Chaz and (Graham) Zug open.”

Moye, though, has been Penn State quarterback Daryll Clark’s favorite target to date. The Buckeyes, who love to play press coverage and make aggressive breaks on the football, will give Moye plenty of attention.

“He’s definitely been a deep threat for us, a guy who moves the chains for us. Defenses would be foolish if they won’t make adjustments,” Clark said. “I expect Ohio State to do the same, and that’s why we have more than one receiver.”

It will be difficult, though, for the Buckeyes, or any other Penn State opponent, to keep the ball out of Moye’s hands entirely. The running back has become a legitimate receiver, and the Nittany Lions believe even more development lies ahead for Moye.

“He’s getting better all the time,” Penn State coach Joe Paterno said. “Which should happen as he has the kind of success he has been getting.”