FOOTBALL ’92 : In a Class by Himself : Although Brandon Moore is One of the Aeras Elite Players the Memory of a Fumble in the City 4-A Title Game is aLonely Reminder that Fame Can be Fleeting

Banning High’s Brandon Moore ranked second in the South Bay with six interceptions last season, more than most prep football players get in a career of Friday nights.

Moore, though, shrugged off the accomplishment with a candid admission.

“I dropped seven, which was disappointing,” he said. “I don’t know what happened. I could have had 13 (interceptions) if I really would have focused on it.”

Catching the football proved troublesome for Moore in 1991, right down to the final minutes of the last game. Although he is considered one of the nation’s top college prospects, his fourth-quarter fumble on a punt return was the critical mistake in Banning’s 33-30 loss to Dorsey in the City Section 4-A Division championship game.

The fumble remains Moore’s most painful memory of an otherwise excellent junior season. He earned All-City and All-South Bay honors at strong safety.

“It’s still in the back of my mind, but it’s something you have to get over,” he said of his turnover, which led to a Dorsey touchdown. “The good football players can put that behind them and focus on the next year.”

Moore has had the entire off-season to think about the fumble. That’s one of the reasons the 6-foot, 195-pound senior is eagerly awaiting tonight’s opener against host Kennedy of Granada Hills. He is expected to start at tailback and strong safety.

“I’m ready to go; I can’t wait,” Moore said, laughing. “I’m going to make them remember No. 2.”

This time, he hopes, for the right reasons.

Moore’s name is already well-known to college coaches. He has been contacted by virtually every major NCAA Division I school and lists Michigan, Texas, Arizona State, Colorado, Washington, USC and UCLA as the most probable institution to acquire his talents.

“He’s unbelievably good,” a college coach told Super Prep magazine, which named Moore to its preseason All-American team and rated him the nation’s 11th-best senior prospect at defensive back.

Dick Lascola, director of a college scouting service, says Moore is the real thing.

“If he progresses the way we think he should, he could be one of the premier players in the (defensive) backfield in the country,” Lascola said. “He’s got field awareness, he is a good hitter, and he breaks well to the ball. . . . He always seems to be there when the ball is there.”

Moore, who runs the 40-yard dash in 4.6 seconds and can bench press 315 pounds, makes no secret that he loves contact.

“I like to hit,” he said, “It’s in my blood.”

Carson Coach Marty Blankenship can attest to that. His team lost twice to Banning last season, games in which Moore distinguished himself with his aggressive defensive play.

“He likes to come up and get his nose in the thick of things,” Blankenship said. “I’d like to have him on my team.”

Moore has been impressing coaches since he came to Banning as a 14-year-old sophomore. He will turn 17 in November, making him nearly two years younger than the area’s other preseason All-American, Morningside quarterback Stais Boseman, who repeated the second grade.

Because Moore hadn’t turned 15 yet, he was unable to play varsity football as a sophomore until midway through the season. This was after he had played tailback, quarterback and safety for the Pilot B team.

“He was an impact player even then,” said Ed Paculba, who was Moore’s coach on the B team and begins his first season as varsity coach tonight.

Former Banning coach Joe Dominguez thought so highly of Moore that he predicted before last season that Moore would become the next great Banning tailback, following in the footsteps of Freeman McNeil, Stanley Wilson, Danny Andrews and Travis Davis.

But two weeks before Banning’s 1991 opener, Moore came down with chickenpox. Senior Shayzar Hawkins moved into the tailback spot and won the job, rushing for an area-leading 1,798 yards and sharing City Section 4-A player-of-the-year honors with Dorsey running back Sharmon Shah.

When Moore returned to action, it was as Hawkins’ understudy.

“Shayzar came in and did the job, and that’s what we needed,” Moore said. “I really wasn’t too disappointed because we’re good friends and we talked about it. (The coaches) felt like he was the right man to go to, and he took control.”

Moore humbly said it didn’t bother him that Hawkins got the publicity that otherwise might have gone to him had he not become ill.

“I just want to win; that’s the main thing,” he said. “I don’t need no kind of glory.”

Instead of glory, Moore ended last season with heartache.

Banning had rallied from an 11-point deficit to pull within 26-22 against Dorsey in the City 4-A title game. The Pilot defense forced Dorsey to punt with four minutes remaining, but the effort was wasted when Moore dropped the ball on the return and Dorsey’s Larry Bobo recovered in Banning territory.

Six plays later, Shah scored on a one-yard dive to give Dorsey a 33-22 lead with 2 minutes 15 seconds remaining.

Moore tried to make a running catch on a short punt, but he wound up fumbling his second punt of the game and his fourth in four playoff games.

“I really wasn’t concentrating,” he said. “A teammate, Larry Rayford, came up to me right before they punted the ball and said, ‘Brandon, coach says whatever you do, catch the ball.’ I had that on my mind. I really wasn’t going to go after (the punt), but it popped in my mind that I had to catch the ball. I broke on the ball and it slipped through my hands.

“It was a pretty hard catch, but I’ve made them before. I just went after it, as always, and I just happened to drop it. But I felt I got the ball back. Larry Bobo of Dorsey and I both had our hands on the ball, and the referee made his choice.”

An emotionally drained Moore collapsed on the field after the game, played before a near-capacity crowd at El Camino College.

“I didn’t get any sleep that night,” he said. “I was pretty upset, I was crying. But I toughed it out at school. I took all the heat from all my friends and everybody else. It’s just something you have to do. It happens to the best of them.”

The best is exactly what Paculba expects from Moore this season. The coach compares Moore favorably to McNeil and former Banning fullback Michael Alo because of his straight-ahead, powerful running style.

“He’ll make a break, but he’ll run over you too,” Paculba said.

There is no question about Moore’s ability to hit an opposing player. But he acknowledges a need to improve academically.

He is a C student who has yet to take the Scholastic Aptitude Test. NCAA rules require incoming freshmen to carry a 2.0 grade-point average in college core classes and score at least 700 on the SAT.

Moore said he learned a lesson from three older brothers, all of whom experienced academic troubles that hindered promising football careers.

“My brothers are influencing me to hit the books,” he said. “That’s something that they really didn’t concentrate on. Every night they tell me, ‘Hit the books, hit the books.’ ”

Along with improved grades, Moore has set goals for himself in football. One of them makes up for dropping those interceptions last season.

“I want to have at least 10 interceptions and 100 tackles,” he said.

Those numbers seem well within Moore’s capabilities. All he needs to do is hang on.