SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Aaron Henry knew the type of player he was going to coach when he arrived at Notre Dame in the winter.
Leonard Moore spent his first two seasons in South Bend, Ind., rising to national prominence.
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The 6-foot-2, 197-pound cornerback had been a three-star high school recruit ranked between No. 38 and No. 100 in the state of Texas, depending on the recruiting outlet. By the end of his sophomore season for the Irish, he was a unanimous All-American after totaling five interceptions, seven pass breakups and 31 tackles in 10 games.
Henry saw on film the physical talent that made Moore elite, the combination of length, speed and instincts that allowed him to stay glued to receivers and the ball skills to make plays.
But when Henry arrived from Illinois to be Notre Dame’s defensive backs coach and co-defensive coordinator, he realized that the way Moore prepares, understands and helps others with the game was also special.
“The guy is really, really talented. We all know that,” Henry said. “But when you take him off the field and you put him in a classroom, that’s where the magic is with that young man.
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“He’s a student of the game. He understands splits. He understands how to finagle the quarterback. I mean, he’s as gifted and as savvy as any legit DB I’ve ever been around.”
It’s fitting that Moore be praised for what he does in the classroom. A native of Round Rock, Texas, he grew up with parents who worked in higher education at the University of Texas at Austin. He said they taught him how to lock in when it comes to academics and football.
“I’ve always been a great student, somebody who’s been able to pay attention and learn things quickly, and then on the football field it translates,” Moore said. “I don’t need to see something too many times to learn it.
“And then also, I’m a one-and-done type of guy on the football field. Like if I make a mistake once, that’s all I need to learn from that. I’m not going to make the same mistake again.”
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Those traits have fueled Moore’s growth into a player touted as a potential top-10 NFL draft pick for an Irish team ranked No. 3 in the nation entering Saturday’s game against Michigan State at Notre Dame Stadium (6:30 p.m., NBC).
Moore reached this point thanks to a humble mindset focused on improving, a mature perspective shaped by his parents — and a lot of prayer as he and his family managed a frightening childhood disease.
Dr. Leonard Moore and Thaïs Bass-Moore were on the Texas campus when they received the news from their son’s preschool, which was 45 minutes away. The children were playing in the gym, and Moore suddenly started shaking and lost consciousness. When they arrived, he still was coming to, not aware of who or where he was.
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They were sent to a neurologist, and after Moore had more minor seizures, he was diagnosed with epilepsy.
Most of the seizures were short, but the family also had harrowing experiences. One night when Moore was about 4, the family was going to sleep when Dr. Moore heard strange noises. They found their son seizing on the floor. Paramedics administered valium, but that didn’t stop the seizure, nor did another dose.
The family had been told that seizures lasting longer than 30 to 45 minutes put Moore at risk of brain damage or death. He seized the entire way to the hospital, which was 30 minutes away. Bass-Moore prayed the whole time for God to watch over him.
When Moore regained consciousness at the hospital, he was groggy and didn’t know what was happening. He eventually recovered, but the experience stays with his family.
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Looking back on that time, Moore believes his family mostly protected him from how scary it was.
“It’s something that my parents did well shielding me from because I never remember when I would have seizures,” Moore said. “I was just a kid having fun, and thankfully God delivered for me from that.”
The Moores used a lot of attentiveness — and prayer — to protect their son.
They knew a child who had died while having a seizure in the bathtub, so they never let Moore take a bath or swim without being right next to him. One potential side effect of the medication he took to manage his epilepsy was that he could lose his desire to live, something Moore didn’t know until he was older. So every time Bass-Moore gave him the medicine, she prayed that her son, who had such a zest for life, wouldn’t be affected that way. He never was.
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“We believe that Jesus has the power to heal, but we also believe in CVS, as one of my friends said,” Dr. Moore said. “So whenever my wife would give him the medication, she would always pray over him: ‘Let the medication do his body good and not harm.’
“We are just thankful that God has healed him … and we’re thankful that we had a great neurologist and all of that stuff to get him through that period.”
By the fourth grade, the annual EEGs that Moore underwent showed that the unusual electrical activity in his brain had stopped. That meant the seizures also should stop, and they did.
Moore had played flag football until the sixth grade because his parents didn’t see value in tackle football before then. Even though the seizures had stopped as he began playing tackle, Bass-Moore said she still had reservations about his playing a game that’s accompanied by hits to the head. That fear makes her body tense up with every violent play.
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But she also believes football is part of a great journey for her son.
One time, while praying for their families at her home, a friend told Bass-Moore that God was going to do something amazing in her son’s life, whether it be in football or an academic endeavor. Before the Texas A&M game during his freshman season, a pastor who’s a friend of former Irish cornerback Benjamin Morrison‘s father said something similar to Moore.
“He was like, ‘I need you to stay close to God. I need you to journal. I need you to stay committed because God is going to use you.’ And he said, ‘Football is just the beginning of it,'” Bass-Moore said. “I remind Leonard, ‘Remember what that man told you and stay close to God because there’s going to be so many things coming at you to tear you down and pull you down. But God is trying to use you to do something greater than football. It’s just the conduit.’ “
Bass-Moore recalled her son’s preschool graduation. He was athletically gifted from a young age, so when the kids were called on stage to say what they wanted to be when they grew up, Moore said he wanted to be a professional basketball player.
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It was cute. But also Moore was a Black child at a predominantly white school.
“We’re like, ‘Don’t say that! Say you want to be a scientist! Say you want to be a doctor! Don’t feed into the stereotype,’ ” Bass-Moore said with a laugh.
The Moores had glimpses of what their son might become in football. There was the time a coach told him to take a knee after fielding a punt, but he shook his head, caught the ball and took off, scoring a touchdown to the crowd’s delight. There was the jaw-dropping interception as a high school sophomore when Bass-Moore turned toward her husband and said, “Leonard, was that our son?”
They saw his excitement as he laid out his jersey and cleats the night before games. They saw how he studied film and his football notebook, his dedication to understanding how to read opponents’ body language and formations. They observed the even-keeled mindset that helps him on the field, a calmness that almost never breaks except when he plays video games or talks about LeBron James, whom he worships.
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But they also didn’t build their lives around their son’s football career.
The Moores heard of other families in Texas who held their sons back in school to gain an advantage or moved into apartments so they could go to specific high schools. They didn’t do that, and Dr. Moore said the only football camps their son went to were at Harvard and Princeton.
He heard people say his son was underrecruited out of high school. But he also didn’t grow up with pressure from his parents about needing to take a specific path.
“Leonard never worried about stars,” Dr. Moore said. “He never worried about, ‘Well, I want to go to this school.’ His thing was like, ‘Wherever I end up, I’ll just go and do my best.’ “
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Part of Moore’s story is that his family isn’t just about football.
Dr. Moore is the George Littlefield Professor of American History at Texas. Bass-Moore, now an actress and playwright in New York, worked in community engagement at Texas and was the co-founder and director of the university’s Fearless Leadership Institute. The program aimed to help in the academic, professional and personal development of Black and brown women, until it was eliminated in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion cuts two years ago.
Every year, the family — which includes Moore’s two older sisters who are also athletes — traveled with Texas students in a study-abroad program to places such as Cape Town, South Africa; Dubai, United Arab Emirates; and Beijing. Moore had been to six continents by the time he was 16.
The Moores believe spending that time around college students helped their children mature and see life differently.
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“When you have this global perspective, you see the world differently, and that’s what makes them well-rounded,” Dr. Moore said. “And we were never parents like, ‘You better bring home all A’s.’ Our thing was, ‘I’d rather you get a C in a class where you learn a lot than you get an A in a class where you learn nothing.’ “
Dr. Moore founded the Black Student-Athlete Summit in 2015 because he understood that athletes need to be developed beyond what they do on the field. He taught many student-athletes over the years who were praised for their athletic accomplishments but struggled after their careers were over. The four-day conference has connected thousands of athletes and industry leaders.
His son participates in the summit each year, and through those connections Moore funded the construction of a basketball court in Dakar, Senegal, this summer. Last year he also founded Tackle Attendance in South Bend, a mentorship program aimed at battling chronic absenteeism in local schools.
On the lengthy list of Moore’s 2026 preseason honors, there are several that recognize his off-the-field work. He was named this month to the watch list for the Jason Witten Collegiate Man of the Year Award and is one of 22 players on the Allstate AFCA Good Works Team, which honors commitment to community service.
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“They taught me how to be a good son, a good man in general,” Moore said of his parents. “They’ve helped me grow into the person I am today.
“They’ve also taught me, having that academics background, to be locked in on both sides because football and school can sort of bleed into one another. Because I wouldn’t be at Notre Dame if I didn’t handle business in high school.”
Moore has video evidence of how far he has come.
In his freshman year at Round Rock High School, he began working with trainer Bernard “Bam” Blake, a former Colorado State cornerback who now trains players in the Austin area. Moore had played safety and wide receiver as a freshman. He settled in at cornerback as a sophomore, and he credits Blake with helping to transform his game.
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“I was not polished at all,” Moore said. “My feet weren’t moving where my feet needed to move. But he’s helped me a lot, not only in the movement side of football, but also in the IQ side. So he’s helped me become a way better football player. He gave me opportunities.”
Blake said Moore was “like a baby deer” when they first started working together.
“You could tell he didn’t do a lot of DB work at all,” Blake said. “He was just very raw. Some of his movement was inconsistent, like all over the place. I don’t think he really understood his size and his frame at that time, so it was a little bit uncoordinated. And just overall, a lot of work to be done.”
But Blake also could see right away that Moore would be special. He was training multiple players who would play in college and the NFL, and Moore had a little bit from each of their games. And then he was able to absorb what was taught and commit to improving.
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“He’s a sponge to knowledge, and then rep after rep, he’s not going to give up on himself,” Blake said. “Every time you would see Leonard, he would just get better and better. His body would take an understanding of what we needed it to do, and he just took an understanding of the overall game of football from an IQ level. … He built it brick by brick, rep by rep.”
Moore gained attention as a high school sophomore, when he had four interceptions and 11 pass breakups. He added three interceptions, two forced fumbles and nine pass breakups as a junior.
As recruiting picked up, Dr. Moore thought his son should pick the best academic school in the conference he chose, so they visited Vanderbilt, Duke and California among others. But when Notre Dame offered — driven by former Irish defensive backs coach Mike Mickens’ belief in Moore — it was a “no-brainer.”
Coach Marcus Freeman’s approach helped. When they met, Freeman told Moore they wanted him at Notre Dame but also told him it was a hard place to be. The weather can be bad. The classes are rigorous. It isn’t a party school.
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But then Freeman told him: “If you can come up here and do this and then perform at a high level on the field, there’s nothing you won’t be able to do in life.”
After injuries hampered his senior season, Bass-Moore encouraged her son to finish his final year of high school and not enroll early at Notre Dame. He had been with the Irish only a couple of months when Morrison told reporters during 2024 training camp that Moore would be better than him.
Morrison and defensive back Christian Gray were Moore’s mentors, teaching him the game and also not to make excuses, even if he was a freshman. When Morrison went down with a season-ending hip injury in October 2024, the Irish turned to Moore to fill his void, and he didn’t disappoint during the run to the national championship game. He finished the season with two interceptions, 11 pass breakups and two forced fumbles.
“I always knew I could have success,” Moore said. “I didn’t know it would happen so soon.
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“But I feel like my humble approach, not expecting to come in my first year or first day and just be an automatic starter, I learned from everybody around me. And when I got my opportunity, I took advantage of it.”
Moore’s ascent continued last fall in defensive coordinator Chris Ash’s first season. He missed two September games with an ankle sprain but returned with a two-interception game against Boise State.
Among the highest-profile battles was against USC wide receiver Makai Lemon, who had two catches on three targets for 28 yards when Moore was covering him. Even as opposing quarterbacks shied away from him, he tied for seventh in the country with five interceptions.
Blake believes Moore is special because he doesn’t have a lot of flaws in his game. He can hold his own in man or zone coverage. He can play in the slot, at boundary or field corner and can support the run defense.
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“He has a lot of versatility to his game,” Blake said. “And then physically, there’s not a movement that he can’t perform. He can get out of his breaks. He can backpedal. He can cross over a run. There’s not anything that he cannot do.
“And if he can’t do it, he’s going to figure out and formulate a plan to work on it to make sure that he can do it by the time he needs to.”
Wisconsin coach Luke Fickell was asked during the lead-up to the opener against Notre Dame how the Badgers planned to account for Moore.
“We’ve got to not just think we can’t go that direction,” Fickell said. “I’m not saying he’s not the best in the country. I’m not saying he’s not a top two, three pick in the country. But the idea is you’ve still got to be able to run your offense.
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“We make people do everything. So he’ll have a chance to prove that he is the best in the country, not just in the way he covers, but also in the way that he maybe sets some edges, maybe in the way that he has to fit in on some ability to tackle.”
Fickell didn’t say anything too surprising, but the comments still made headlines — and drew an amusing response from Ash.
“Shoot, I think they’ve got a game plan, they’re going to execute it,” Ash said. “Good luck to ’em.”
A week later after Notre Dame’s 41-13 win, Moore’s game film was all over social media.
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He was targeted four times in 33 coverage snaps and allowed two catches for 16 yards, one of which he slipped on, according to the compilation by NFL Draft Files. He had five solo tackles, and his physical run defense was as eye-catching as his pass coverage.
Then there was his biggest play of the night.
Notre Dame was clinging to a three-point lead in the second quarter. On third-and-10, Wisconsin quarterback Colton Joseph tried to hit Shamar Rigby on the right sideline. Moore, glued to Rigby’s side, reached his right arm into the air and very nearly pulled the football down for a one-handed grab before it tumbled out onto the ground.
Moore’s day against Rice in Week 2 wasn’t quite as eventful. He played only one quarter as the Irish rolled to a 52-0 victory. But bigger tests lie ahead.
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As Moore crafts his follow-up to an All-America season, he’s keeping in mind the humble attitude he had at the beginning.
“All that hype is based off the last year, so in my mindset, I can’t buy into that because then I’ll take this year for granted,” Moore said. “I’ve got to focus on getting better so that when I do step on the field, the play will do the talking.”
Freeman told reporters in August that Moore wanted to be coached as he prepared for his third season. And one of Henry’s objectives in training camp was to figure out ways to challenge Moore.
“With a player of his caliber, you don’t want him to be comfortable,” Henry said. “You don’t want him to feel like, ‘Ah, I’ve seen that, I did that, I’m good,’ and be comfortable in where he is. We truly don’t know how high the ceiling is. We’ve seen him be an All-American the last couple of years. But maybe he can win a Heisman.”
Moore said one of his goals in camp was to be locked in for a full practice, even when quarterback CJ Carr wasn’t throwing his way. He prides himself on being calm, collected and concentrated, and he knows that to reach his potential, he needs to be that way for a full game.
“Just not losing focus,” Moore said. “Because the one play you lose focus, that’s when the ball is coming to you.”
Amid the hype this season, which includes being on the cover of EA Sports’ College Football 27 deluxe edition, he said he just wants to be the best version of himself and the best leader he can be.
Blake said Moore doesn’t revel in the attention. When they’re training at home, other people will sometimes be deep into a session before they realize whom they’re working with because Moore doesn’t make it about himself. One time, he told the group he had to go to Los Angeles but didn’t give specifics. They later saw on social media that it was for the College Football 27 photo shoot.
“He’s not going to showboat about himself,” Blake said. “He’s not flashy. He’s not arrogant. He’s just real mellow and real humble.”
Moore’s parents have embraced the talk of what could be ahead. They figure if he were a law student, they would be talking about what’s next, so they’ll also talk about NFL possibilities — and life after football too.
“It’s a lot of fun,” Dr. Moore said. “I think he’s built for it.”
