Duke football receiver looks to make history
By Hugh Straine
Duke football wide receiver Jordan Moore has been on a tear through the first two games of his senior season at Duke, and is in position to cement his name in the Blue Devil history books.
He currently leads the Blue Devils in catches with eighteen and yards with 233 over the first two games of the Duke football season, to go along with a touchdown catch at Northwestern in overtime last Friday night.
Duke's last 1,000-yard receiver was Jamison Crowder in 2014. Crowder sits second at Duke all-time in career receiving yards with 3,641 and third in touchdowns with 23. He also holds the single-season receptions and yards records when he recorded 108 catches for 1,360 yards in 2013.
Few Duke receivers have been able to even sniff those records put up by Crowder, yet Moore finds himself in a position to realistically make it happen.
In 2023, Moore finished with 62 catches for 835 yards, going for at least eighty yards receiving in six different games. In 2024, Moore is well ahead of those numbers and is on pace for a special season.
Through the first two games of the season, Moore is averaging nine catches for 116 yards. In order for him to eclipe the 1,000-yard mark, Moore will need to average around 77 yards receiving per game (or around 70 if Duke makes a bowl game). If Moore can stay healthy, it seems more and more likely by the week that he will cross that threshold, especially with recent injuries to Duke running back Jaquez Moore and tight end Jeremiah Hasley, which will give him an even more prominent role in the offense.
Beyond that, there is serious potential that Moore can etch his name in the Duke record book, surpassing what Crowder did in Durham a decade ago.
Moore would need to average about 113 yards receiving per game (or about 102 if Duke makes a bowl game) to break Crowder's single-season receiving record. He is also on the way to breaking Crowder's catch record as well, as Moore would need to average about nine catches a game to get to the mark set in 2013.
The way Moore has been utilized as sort of a deep threat that can really run routes anywhere on the field, offensive coordinator Jonathan Brewer has shown he, along with fellow receiver Eli Pancol, will be the focal points of the offense behind Brewer's quick moving air-raid type of scheme. If Moore can keep this production up and stay healthy, there's a chance his name will be written in the Duke history books.