ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT: Moore Travels A Long Road To Find A Home At UConn

By Rick Cassano

Braedyn Moore’s collegiate football path hasn’t exactly been a straight shot.

The Badin High School graduate has landed at the University of Connecticut after playing two seasons at Wisconsin and one at Toledo, and he’s excited about coming home to Southwest Ohio this weekend.

Moore, a senior defensive back for the Huskies, is expecting a sizable number of family and friends to be on hand Saturday when UConn (2-1) squares off with Miami (1-2) at 3:30 p.m. inside Yager Stadium.

“I’m still trying to collect all the tickets right now,” Moore said Tuesday evening during a telephone interview from Storrs, Conn. “I’m ready to come home and show everybody what I’ve been working on for the past four years.”

The 6-foot-1, 211-pound Moore – who graduated early as a member of Badin’s Class of 2023 — figures to get his fourth straight start as UConn’s boundary safety Saturday. He’s been part of 12 tackles (six solos, six assists) this season and collected his first career interception last Saturday in a 48-20 win at Southern Mississippi.

Moore didn’t get a great deal of playing time in his first three years at the collegiate level, so he’s thrilled to finally get an opportunity to shine.

UConn is loaded with newcomers in 2026. The season began with two home games, a 56-7 triumph over Lafayette and then a 38-14 loss to Maryland, before the trip to Southern Miss.

“We have maybe 85 new players this year, so that was one of the adversities we had to handle,” Moore said. “I would say 85 guys is an insane number. Twenty less than that is probably the new college football. But I think we’ve handled it pretty well. Everybody became close-knit pretty fast.

“I’m pretty happy with the season so far. Our first game was a good game to get our feet wet. I could’ve done better against Maryland. I let up a touchdown inside to a slant and I wasn’t really happy with that, and there was a lot of tackling issues with the defense as a whole. Individually, I really cleaned up some things against Southern Miss.

“Overall, I’m pretty happy and satisfied with my strides this year. I’m going to keep stacking games.”

Moore has high hopes for himself and the team this season. UConn is one of only two NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision independents (Notre Dame is the other).

“Coming into the season, I wholeheartedly expected to win all of our games,” Moore said. “That was just the confidence I had in the team and the confidence I had coming out of fall camp. We fell to Maryland and honestly, we needed that. We hadn’t faced real adversity on the field until Maryland. Now we’ve got a full head of steam.”

He’s not expecting anything but a challenge from Miami, which is coming off a heartbreaking 35-31 loss to Cincinnati.

Moore said he was recruited by RedHawks coach Chuck Martin.

“I did visit Miami once or twice early on and had a game visit against Akron,” Moore said. “I’ve been watching Miami for a while since I grew up in that area and I played them last year at Toledo. I know they’re a hard-nosed team. They’re going to play all four quarters, and they’re not going to lay down for anybody. They always will be a good team.”

Moore had one tackle in Toledo’s 24-3 triumph at Miami last year. Badin coach Nick Yordy was in attendance that day and said he’d like to watch Moore this season, but he’ll be heading for Cleveland on Saturday to watch his son Zach play for Case Western Reserve.

“It’s neat to see a guy you helped coach on TV or on the field at a college game,” Yordy said. “B-Moore was a special player for us. You could tell when he was here as a freshman that he was going to be pretty special. Some people maybe think they can’t get recruited out of a smaller school, but he’s an example of how guys can do that.”

Yordy felt the 2021 Division III state championship game at Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium in Canton gave Moore’s recruiting a big boost. The Rams lost to Chardon 21-14, but Moore – then a junior cornerback and wide receiver — had three catches for 33 yards and five tackles while returning three punts for 38 yards and two kickoffs for 48 yards.

“I think that game really helped put him on the map at the college level,” Yordy said. “That following year he kind of blew up with offers.”

Moore admitted he doesn’t recall a lot of details from that game.

“I lost a total of three times in high school and the games that I lost, I was so emotionally out of it that I don’t remember much,” Moore said. “I do remember a couple key moments like me making a tackle on a third down on the quarterback. I remember a big catch I had on the sideline. I also remember the first possession one of their wide receivers went for a big post and scored.”

Moore originally committed to Cincinnati to play under Luke Fickell, but when Fickell was named head coach at Wisconsin on Nov. 27, 2022, Moore decided to go with him.

As a freshman, Moore played in four games on special teams and ultimately redshirted. As a sophomore, he played in seven games – mostly on special teams – and got in on defense twice, collecting two tackles against Rutgers.

Moore then decided to leave Wisconsin and enter the transfer portal. His time with the Badgers was a little complicated. He said in some ways it was a tremendous learning experience. In other ways, he felt like he wasn’t getting enough of a shot to play.

“Being a young college athlete coming out of high school after being the guy on my team, it was very humbling … and I think I needed that,” Moore said. “It was a long way from home for me, so as a man growing up and living on my own and figuring everything out, that helped a lot.

“I feel like those coaches up there have a pretty old-school style of coaching, so the way they do things, not a lot of people like it. But it definitely gets you in a great mind-set of what it takes to win college football games.

“I’ll never regret or disregard any coaching or experiences I had up there. I’m very appreciative. I got to Toledo and UConn and it was just second nature for me to work hard and don’t look back regardless of the results I have.”

That was the good side. The not-so-good side had Moore frustrated with his lack of playing time.

“I think my whole 2023 class left after that second season,” he said. “It was just a lot of miscommunication from player to coach and coach to player. A lot of guys just weren’t seeing eye-to-eye with their position coach or the head coach, and we really weren’t fans of how things were operated around there. I feel like none of us were really given a fair chance to show what we could do on the field.

“I began to lose my love for the game there. I knew it wasn’t time for me to lose my love for football. I will never lose it, so I just knew something wasn’t right. So I had to be on my way.”

Moore said Toledo assistant coach Perry Eliano, who’s now at Syracuse, reached out to him in the portal. That’s how his commitment to Toledo began.

Jason Candle was the Rockets’ head coach and directed his squad to an 8-5 record in 2025. Moore played in every game and made six tackles, but special teams still dominated his time on the field.

Moore said the secondary was “very elite” with guys like Andre Fuller, Emmanuel McNeil-Warren and Avery Smith, who are all now affiliated with NFL organizations.

“Toledo was actually pretty eye-opening too,” Moore said. “That was probably the closest, funniest team I’ve ever been a part of. I had never been part of a team so close-knit to each other.

“I played all four special teams all year and made a couple appearances in games, but it was pretty awesome to be behind a group of guys like that and see how they operate and how close they were and their love for football. I went there looking for that love of the game again, and I got that.”

Moore wasn’t unhappy at Toledo, but when Candle chose to leave the Rockets and become the head coach at UConn, Moore made the decision to head to Connecticut.

The decision wasn’t a difficult one for Moore. He feels that Candle, the winningest coach in UT history, believes in him and knows how to win.

“Candle is an awesome guy to play for,” Moore said. “He has a real relationship with the majority of the team if not all the team. That makes you want to go harder and win.”

Moore’s goal of playing professional football down the road hasn’t wavered. He’ll graduate from UConn with a bachelor’s degree in general studies next spring, then return in the fall to play one more season with the Huskies and work on a business-related minor.

“I’ve transferred so many times that a lot of my credits went out the window,” said Moore, who turned 22 in June. “I want to play pro ball, and the football knowledge at the collegiate level in even these past three games has been tremendously helpful to me. I see a lot more things that I didn’t see before. That just excites me. Finally getting the chance to be on the field and be trusted by someone goes a long way.”

Moore said man-to-man coverage is the area of his game that still needs the most work. He said he needs to be “more patient and stickier in coverage.”

“I’m always flashing to the ball no matter where the ball is at,” Moore said. “I like to be very aggressive and physical in anything, whether that’s fighting off blocks or tackling or fighting through the hands to the ball.”

Moore didn’t play safety at Badin, but he knew that would be his position in college. He grew up in Hamilton and gets back to his alma mater from time to time.

“I’ll visit or go lift in the Badin weight room or go up to the new, beautiful field that I wish I had and work out,” Moore said. “I think about Badin because honestly that’s the player I want to get back to. Those coaches trusted me a lot, and I think that helped me from a confidence standpoint. I want to have that mind-set of being a standout player.”

He said being at UConn is good for an athlete because Storrs doesn’t provide a lot of distractions.

“I love the football piece, but there’s not much on campus,” Moore said. “If you want to get some good food, you’ve got to drive 35, 40 minutes. I live in downtown Storrs and it consists of literally a block. That’s the whole downtown.

“Besides that, I’m loving it. It’s awesome here. It’s nothing but football, and that’s all I need.”

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