Inside Jay Moore's path to the Husker football radio booth: Ben Doody's media notes

It also ran through the World-Herald newsroom. 

Moore, who's set to make his debut Saturday as the NU color commentator, made several appearances as a guest and guest co-host on The Bottom Line, a live show that the paper produced during the 2010s. 

The Bottom Line, a precursor in some ways to our growing podcast ecosystem, aired online and, at one point, on 590 AM, from a studio in the old downtown newsroom on Douglas Street in Omaha. 

Those appearances are part of the backdrop for a whirlwind process that led to Moore joining play-by-play voice Kyle Crooks in the Huskers' booth. 

Moore, who played defensive end at NU from 2002-06 and later signed contracts with the 49ers, Rams, and Titans, spends most of his professional energy on his day job as a Lincoln-based financial advisor. 

But The Bottom Line appearances helped launch a media career path. The show was hosted by Mike'l Severe, who now hosts Nebraska Public Media's Big Red Wrap-Up show. Moore has been an analyst on Big Red Wrap-Up for almost a decade.

When Damon Benning announced in August that he'd be leaving the radio booth to take over as the Huskers' director of player development, Crooks and other Husker radio stakeholders had less than a month to find a new color commentator. 

When I called Crooks on Wednesday for a conversation ahead of this week's media notes column, he told me he was looking for a person who checked a few key boxes. 

Crooks said the ideal candidate would be: 

• A former Husker.
  
  
• Someone who would be available for at least a majority of NU's 12 regular-season games — along with a potential bowl game or College Football Playoff appearance. 
  
  
• Someone with at least some on-air reps. 

In other words: Someone who played college football at the highest level, had deep local ties, had media experience, and was willing to blow up their entire fall weekend calendar for something that's a high-profile side gig rather than a full-time job. 

As you might imagine: Those people don't grow on trees. 

In vetting candidates, Crooks worked with a group that included reporter and host Jessica Coody, NU senior associate AD for communications Keith Mann, and Jason Rathe, the general manager of Huskers Athletic Partners, which manages the radio network. 

Crooks said that the vetting group "reached out to a few different people," but that the search quickly centered around Moore. 

"You need somebody who's got the flexibility with their career and with their job to be able to commit as much time is necessary to preparation and to game-day operations," Crooks said. "We ask this color commentator to do a lot outside of just calling the game. Radio hits during the week, doing two hours of our four-hour pregame show, doing on-field stuff for our social media crew. There's a lot of different things that factor into it." 

Moore said the process moved rapidly. After he told the Husker radio group on Aug. 11 that he was interested in the job, the group invited him in for an interview on Aug. 13, a Thursday. 

Moore had told his wife, Jamie, that he was interested — and that his Saturdays from September through at least late November might look a lot different. 

But he was surprised at just how rapidly things picked up from there. 

"I assumed that I wasn't going to get offered the job right away," Moore said. "I assumed that they were still in the interview process." 

Moore was wrong. He said about 20 minutes into the conversation, Crooks told him that the job was his if he wanted it. 

Moore didn't want to miss out on the opportunity. His wife was at work, not available to discuss it in the moment. Moore felt like he had a choice to make. 

"I just took it," he said. "... I took it, and then I talked to her later. I just said 'hey, my Saturdays got a whole lot busier this year.'"

Moore described his arrangement with the Husker network as a one-year deal with the understanding that if it goes well, there will be opportunities to keep going. 

I'll chime in here with a prediction: If Moore enjoys the work and wants to keep doing it, this booth will be in place for a while. 

Crooks, 35, moved to Nebraska last year and has embraced both the state and the Husker culture. Moore, 43, is awfully busy. But in talking to him this week, I got the sense that he likes to be busy. 

He told me he'll be at Memorial Stadium no later than 6:30 a.m. Saturday ahead of the pregame show, which starts at 7 a.m. He didn't seem daunted by the early wakeup call. 

I also think Moore will be good at the job and that he'll fit the role well. He's gotten some advice from Crooks — "get in and out, don't get too long-winded" — that I think he'll be able to heed. 

And like Benning, Moore is a good cultural fit for the booth: A high-profile ex-Husker who grew up in Nebraska and settled in here after his playing career. 

I asked Moore if he had any ambition to become a full-time broadcaster. The answer — at least for now — is a clear "no." Moore said he loves his day job. 

And there's a hopeful tie-in on that front: His broadcasting gig is already proving popular with his clients. 

"It's a very good marketing piece to get my name more out there," he said. "I have a lot of clients who are Nebraska fans. So I've gotten a lot of phone calls and emails and congratulations." 

A broadcaster's view from Wrigley 

While there's a long list of college football games I'm looking forward to watchin this weekend, I'm with many Nebraskans in feeling like the real TV highlight will come at 8 p.m. Sunday night on Fox: No. 1 Nebraska against old Big Eight foe Mizzou in a volleyball match under the lights at Wrigley Field. 

Aside from being a highly unusual volleyball venue, Wrigley, which opened in 1914 and trails only Fenway Park on the list of MLB's oldest venues, is a quirky place in general — and one that might not be that easy for broadcasters to navigate. 

I wondered what it's like to navigate the place as a broadcaster, so I texted Taylor McGregor, the field reporter for Cubs' broadcasts on Marquee Sports Network, and asked: Is there anything Fox's crew should be aware of heading into the telecast? 

McGregor's response: "Well, we've gotten a lot more rain than usual. They told me it was eight inches above (the) season average a few weeks ago. So the ivy is as thick as it's been. I was told if you looked through the ivy right now, you'd find about 10 baseballs lodged in the top part of the ivy. ... Because it's so thick this year, maybe even volleyballs could get stuck?!" 

Don't sleep on this Pac-10 classic 

My friend Nicole Auerbach is gearing up for a busy weekend in NBC Sports' studio.

Auerbach, who serves as a reporter and an analyst on NBC's college football studio shows, will be on the air both Saturday and Sunday: Saturday ahead of NBC's telecast of Michigan's season opener against Western Michigan, then Sunday around the network's coverage of two intriguing games: The Apple Cup showdown between Washington and Washington State, and Notre Dame's game against Wisconsin at Lambeau Field. 

Auerbach, a Michigan alum and former Big Ten Network analyst, follows the Big Ten as closely as anyone. So I posed this question to her ahead of the weekend: What's an underrated game this weekend involving a Big Ten team? 

Her response: UCLA at Cal — a battle between historic programs that spent decades duking it out against one another in the Pac-10. 

I mentioned that the game is on our docket this week at The World-Herald for Squib Picks, where reporters and editors make predictions for a seven-game slate.

I told her I picked Cal. She texted me back with a different take: 

"I'll take UCLA," she said. "I'm not sure there's more buzz around any first-year coach in this league quite like the buzz around Bob Chesney. After spending a day around him and his team in the preseason, I'll tell you this: I totally get it."