When Newton football coach Ryan Smith first came to campus, wide receiver Javarious Moore was quick to tell him that he was a basketball player first.
A year later, Moore will tell anyone that he’s a football player that plays basketball.
Moore burst on the scene for the Tigers last year, finishing the season with 644 yards receiving on 24 catches and seven touchdowns, an average of 26.8 yards a catch.
“As soon as he came out for spring football last year, everybody said he could be the best receiver on the team,” Smith said. “I was like, I don’t know about that. Then in practice one day, we threw a vertical and he literally skywalked and pulled the ball out of the air. So then, with what we try to do, he could take the top off of a lot of coverages so we use him as the vertical guy.”
Moore’s breakout performance came against Madison St. Joseph in the first round of the Class 2A playoffs where he made four catches for 163 yards and two touchdowns, making him the latest Newton County Appeal Elite 11 selection.
“And the bigger the game, the bigger and better he plays and I think that showed against Madison St. Joe,” Smith said. “It’s not something that you teach or coach. You either have it or you don’t. He just played out of his mind that game. And he has continued to get better. He is consistently catching footballs and working on his route running.”
In a rain-filled season opener, Moore didn’t see the football. Then against Raleigh, Moore came down with a big jump ball and scored the Tigers’ only touchdown.
“You really didn’t get to see him against Lake,” Smith said. “Then against a really good Raleigh team, he went up and made a big catch and made a big play. Then as he continued to progress, we continued to go back to him. With Dayreke (Snow) and the twins last year, it presented some favorable matchups for him and he just kept answering. And it will be the same way this year; who are you going to focus your coverage on?”
But it was against Union in a huge division rivalry game that Smith knew he had something special.
“You look at games like Union that stand out to me,” Smith said. “He didn’t score any touchdowns but made three huge catches. All three of those catches put us in the red zone and all three of those were third-down catches. And two of those were late in the fourth and were phenomenal catches.”
Smith said Moore doesn’t have any college offers but has received interest from Belhaven, Copiah-Lincoln, Southwest Community College and Southwestern Assemblies of God University.
“We talked about what sport we thought he could play in college and what would be best for him,” Smith said. “I think in the right situation, he has the potential to do both. He’s a National Honor Society kid and has a 3.8 GPA. He’s close on his ACT and has only taken it twice. I think the next time, he will make in the 20s and that will open up all sorts of opportunities for him.”
Moore averages about 15 points a game in basketball and is one of the area’s best guards.
“He’s just a freak of nature,” Newton boys basketball coach Darrin Gray said. “He’s just so athletic. There are things that he can do on the court with a basketball that you just can’t coach, just God-given talent. He’s not one of the big kids but what makes him 6-4 is his heart. And he’s one of those guys that can be away from the gym for months and come back and give me 15-20 points. Somebody is going to miss out on him if they don’t pick him up.”
Gray said the best thing about Moore is his ability to anticipate, the same thing that Smith said that makes him so good at the jump ball.
“We teach them to try to anticipate the pass and you have to move your feet and anticipate the pass and that’s not something you can always teach,” Gray said. “He’s great at anticipating the pass. I had him at the back of the zone to start the season and moved him to the front and that made a big difference for us. Honestly, it turned our season around because we started to get more steals and layups and that’s on him.”
While Moore excels at both sports and in the classroom, there’s one thing that motivates him.
“I want to win a championship,” Moore said. “We want to win a state championship. We have worked hard to try and get there. We just have to continue to work hard and work together as a team. It doesn’t matter who gets the ball or who scores as long as we win. I just want to win. I’ll do whatever it takes to win.”
