Alabama commit Dylan Moses poised for success after time at IMG

TUSCALOOSA — Five-star Alabama commit Dylan Moses doesn’t say much. To be fair, the 6-foot-3, 235-pound linebacker hasn’t ever had to — his numbers have always spoken for him.

There’s No. 8, which is where Moses sits nationally, according to the 247Sports Composite rankings. It’s also the grade he was in when he received his first two college offers from LSU and Alabama.

No. 1 is where he ranks among outside linebackers. There’s 125, the amount of tackles Moses recorded during his senior season at IMG Academy and 4.56, his time in the 40 this summer during Nike’s The Opening.

Fresh off of signing his financial aid papers with Alabama this past Sunday, Moses is poised to enroll early next month as one of the Crimson Tide’s most anticipated recruits of the 2017 class. While he isn’t taking interviews until after he participates in the Under Armour All-American game on Jan. 1, Moses has had the college football world talking for quite some time.

Dedicated to success

It was obvious Moses was going to be a football star long before the college offers started rolling in. Always the biggest kid in his class, Moses steamrolled over the smaller opponents at running back while chasing them down as a linebacker.

However, it wasn’t until junior high that his mother, Tomeka Murray, knew her son had the dedication to make football his future. Murray said she first realized her son’s potential in football when she learned she could use the sport as a threat. If Moses wasn’t willing to focus on his studies in the classroom, he wouldn’t be allowed to participate on the field.

When Moses entered the eighth grade at University Lab School in Baton Rouge La., Murray implemented a 3.0-and-over rule. In order to play for his team, Moses would now have to maintain a 3.0 grade-point average.

Murray held true to the rule later in the season, as Moses came home with a report card that read 2.987. With three games left, Murray turned to her son and told him he was going to miss the next game.

Upon hearing the news, Moses’ junior high coaches were in disbelief, figuring that Murray would eventually cave due to how closely her son missed out on the goal. However, to the surprise of everyone on the team, Moses showed up the following week with his mother and watched the game from the stands.

“I remember it like yesterday,” Tomeka recalled. “All the parents were asking, ‘Is Dylan hurt, why isn’t he playing?’ I said, ‘Grades. I told Dylan he needed to get his grades up.”’

Still in shock, one of Moses’ coaches then butted in, urging Murray to tell the other parent’s her son’s GPA.

“They were like, ‘What?,’ ” Tomeka recalled with a laugh. “This was the thing, I told him he had to make a 3.0. If I back down, he’ll back down.”

The drive Murray instilled in Moses carried over into high school and is a big reason he elected to transfer to IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., for his senior season. Not only is IMG Academy an established hotbed for Division I recruits, the school also allowed him to graduate early, something he knew would come in handy at the next level.

Breaking down the wall

It took thousands of sprinkles and an entire spring under the hot Florida sun to break through Moses’ self-imposed wall of trust. However, once IMG Academy linebackers coach Tommy Langford was able to get inside, the wait was well worth it.

Langford said he’s only seen one other player come to IMG as athletically gifted as Moses, and that was Alabama sophomore running back Bo Scarbrough. However, with the star linebacker’s physical traits came a guarded personality. Determined to play professional football, Moses keeps his circle of friends tight, associating himself only with people who can help him achieve his goal.

“I can honestly say I’ve never seen a more driven kid,” Langford said. “This is his plan, this is how he’s going to get to the National Football League, and he lives his life like that. If he’s not doing school or football, he’s sleeping.”

Langford said he was finally able to get Moses to open up during IMG’s military training over the summer. The training session is a 36-hour camp ran by Major Jeremy Tannahill in which athletes are subjected to lack of sleep and high-intensity physical activities.

One of Tannahill’s more infamous drills involves dumping sprinkles across the football field and having players collect and bring back 1,000 of them before they can complete the task.

Somewhere between the 36 hours and countless sprinkles, IMG Academy coaches were able to break down Moses’ wall.

“He really opened up to everybody on the team and the coaches, it was pretty special,” Langford said. “You had to be there because his wall broke down and he opened up to everybody. That’s when he truly became an IMG Ascender.”

Each task at the camp had a team leader whose job was to direct his teammates throughout the drill. If a leader wasn’t performing up to standard, he was quickly fired by Tannahill. While “firings” were almost a given for every player, Langford said he doesn’t remember Moses getting sent down once during the 36 hours.

This past season, Langford said Moses carried over his leadership abilities onto the field, taking a more vocal role with his team.

“He became such a great teammate after that training,” Langford said. “Kids saw a side of him, and he took charge leading from the front.”

A new home

The attacks came as swiftly and viciously as expected. However, Moses didn’t bat an eye.

After committing to Alabama on Oct. 2, Moses instantly heard about it from the LSU fans in his hometown of Baton Rouge, La. The jabs continued Sunday, as he posted on his Twitter account that he had faxed over his signed financial aid papers to Alabama. Moses was called a traitor, an enemy and was told never to return home.

“He does an unbelievable job of laughing it off,” Langford said. “He has this whole attitude of, ‘Go ahead and say that, and we’ll see what happens.’ ”

Moses committed to LSU in 2013 before decommitting last year. Murray said the decision was a tough one for her son, who grew up rooting for the Tigers and played most of his high school ball on LSU’s campus. In fact, Moses even took an official visit to LSU last week, two days before tweeting out that he had faxed his financial aid papers.

Murray said part of the reason her son chose to go to Alabama is the firing of longtime LSU head coach Les Miles. Moses grew up dreaming of playing under Miles, who gave him his first offer when he was in the eighth grade. The star linebacker even played high school and junior high ball with Miles’ sons.

“A lot of people don’t believe that, but that’s exactly what it was,” Murray said of her son’s decision. “Dylan plays for coaches. That’s not always a good thing, especially in college ball today. Coaches change quite frequently, but it’s hard not to get attached to the coach you’ve seen since the age of 10.”

With Miles out of the picture, Murray said her son’s decision came down to one major factor: playing under Alabama head coach Nick Saban.

“Dylan said if he couldn’t play for Coach Miles, he wanted to play for the best coach in college football,” Murray said. “Hands down, Coach Saban has that.”

Alabama’s success putting linebackers into the NFL was also a big factor as well. Moses earned this year’s high school Butkus Award given to the nation’s top high school linebacker. Next year, he will compete at Alabama to replace linebacker Reuben Foster, who earned the Butkus Award at the college level this season.

“I will not be surprised if Dylan takes Reuben Foster’s spot next year,” Langford said. “I would compare him to Reuben. They are both explosive guys, and they get to the ball in a hurry. It seems like when they make contact, they come with bad intentions.”

Whatever happens, Moses is poised to make a lot of noise at the next level, even if he doesn’t say much about it.

This story was originally published December 16, 2016 at 4:59 PM with the headline "Alabama commit Dylan Moses poised for success after time at IMG."