On paper, Jireh Moe doesn’t look like your prototypical college football defensive tackle.
Moe is officially listed on Utah’s roster at 6-foot, though head coach Morgan Scalley admits that he’s actually shorter than that, and at 280 pounds, he’s a good 20-plus pounds lighter than most of his teammates in his position room.
Moe’s measurables, along with the fact that he previously played at bottom-dwelling Group of Six school San Jose State, perhaps caused some coaches to skip over him when he entered the transfer portal after the 2025 season.
Scalley and his coaching staff, however, turned on the tape and liked what they saw.
Moe’s one-on-one reps against Power Four competition especially stood out to Scalley and the Utes’ recruiting team, leading them to believe he would be able to excel when facing that level of team nearly every week while at Utah.
In fact, Scalley said the Utes’ analytics showed that Moe was one of the best defensive tackles available in the transfer portal. 247Sports ranked him as the No. 97 defensive lineman in the 2026 portal, while On3 had him as the No. 293 defensive lineman.
Utah’s staff seeing something not many other people did has been a hallmark of Scalley’s going back to his time recruiting underrated defensive players such as Devin Lloyd, a two-star prospect in high school who is now one of the NFL’s best linebackers.
With Moe, the measureables didn’t matter nearly as much as the talent that was evident while he was at San Jose State.
“What we saw on film is he’s a football player,” Scalley said. “He’s a football player and you saw him going up against really good competition, and again, you always look for those one-on-one matchups. When they’re in a one-on-one situation, are they winning?
“Our analytics said that he was the best in the pool of anyone, but people, because of his size, a lot of people shied away from him. We did not, because again, he showed it versus powerful teams. I don’t know of many that have a better personality.”
Moe never started in his freshman season at San Jose State in 2025, but quickly grew into a dependable rotation option. He gained the trust of the coaching staff, making his debut at No. 6 Texas, where he graded out as one of the Spartans’ best defensive players in the game after registering two tackles and a quarterback hurry.
Against Stanford, Moe was once against one of the best defenders for San Jose State. Those two games, plus a season stat line of 28 tackles, two tackles for loss, 1.5 sacks and a team-high PFF season grade of 83.1 suggested that Moe was ready to make the leap to the next level of college football.
All offseason long, Ute coaches talked up Moe, with defensive tackles coach Luther Elliss saying during fall camp that Moe has been one of the most consistent players since spring ball.
“He understands that he has to be a technician, and he’s very good, if not one of our best technicians day in and day out, so I think that really helps him,” Elliss said. “He is strong and explosive. He’s very explosive and he has some really good things.”
While Moe has to be more of a technician than some other defensive tackles who can overwhelm offensive linemen with their size, developing that deep skill set has been what has allowed him to rise to the top of Utah’s depth chart.
And a certain height and size isn’t required to be great, as Ellliss, who played 10 seasons at defensive tackle in the NFL, reminds us.
“Just start looking at John Randle, Warren Sapp, Aaron Donald. You look at all those guys, some of the greatest ones here recently are around that six-foot mark, 280-ish, 300 maybe,” Elliss said.
“To me, size, the measureables are what they are — measureables. At the end of the day, it’s about can you play this game, and (Moe) can play this game.”
Though he started in the Utes’ season-opener against Idaho, Moe played just 14 snaps and did not register a tackle. Ute coaches opted to save him for the bigger game against Arkansas and test out some of the depth players at defensive tackle.
Moe was rested and ready to go against Arkansas and turned in a dominant performance.
He was graded Utah’s best-performing defensive player with a PFF grade of 85.7 and notched a sack, a team-high two tackles for loss and a quarterback hurry to go alongside eight tackles.
“Jireh Moe, eight tackles, two TFLs, one sack — all over the place,” Scalley said. “He didn’t show up on the stat sheet Game 1. Sometimes that happens, but the biggest reason we took that guy in the portal was because of the one-on-one matchups that he would consistently win, and that guy is so active. Impressive game from him tonight.”
Moe’s most impressive play of the game was on his sack of Arkansas quarterback KJ Jackson as he unleashed a spin move to easily get by Razorback offensive lineman Kobe Branham and stick Jackson.
“Just playing fast and just trusting my coaches too on play calls and all that, just putting us in the right spot,” Moe said.
Though there’s still a long way to go in the 2026 season, Saturday’s performance by Moe and fellow starter Karson Kaufusi answered some of the preseason questions surrounding the Utes’ young defensive tackles group.
The Utes held Razorbacks to just 2.2 yards per rush and made life difficult for Jackson throughout the game, sacking him four times, forcing seven quarterback hurries and batting passes down at the line of scrimmage.
“Me and Kars, I’m blessed to have him on my side,” Moe said. “Kars, he’s a very lengthy guy. He’s a technician, too. He’s a really good player, a really smart player, too. He helped me be who I am today too, technique-wise and getting smarter and getting in my playbook, but I believe we complement each other.”
While Utah’s defensive line will face greater challenges than a below-standard Arkansas offensive line this season, the Hogs still had a lot of size, and the Utes aced its first test.
“If you look at any SEC team that you go against, it’s impressive size. At our press conference on Monday, I said, the tale of tape’s going to be the offensive line, defensive line and I was so proud of them,” Scalley said.