UC Davis Athlete Joins the Philadelphia Eagles
Apr 30, 2019, 10:14 AM | Updated: Feb 27, 2020, 10:01 am
(Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images)
DAVIS, Calif. – Senior American studies major Mason Moe will head to a NFL Rookie Minicamp after agreeing to join the Philadelphia Eagles as an undrafted free agent.
National Football League teams are allowed to conduct post-draft rookie minicamps on one of two weekends, May 3-6 or May 10-13, for its draftees, UFAs and rookie invites.
Moe, an All-Big Sky recipient this past season, was UC Davis football’s inaugural Buck Buchanan Award Watch List selection — an honor that is bestowed to the national defensive player of the year.
The Kaneohe, Hawai’i, native anchored the Aggies’ defense from the moment he arrived to campus in 2017, but it was his performance at Montana, which took place last season, that solidified his place on college football’s national landscape as one of the best defensive talents in the nation.
UC Davis earned its inaugural victory in program history against Montana thanks to a Moe-led unit that prevented the Grizzlies from scoring a single point in the second half. In front of a capacity crowd throughout that road game in Missoula, he recorded a game-high 13 total tackles, seven solo tackles, 3.5 sacks and five tackles for a loss (new Division I-era single-game records) and forced a fumble, which ultimately turned a seven-point advantage into a two-possession lead.
Ranked No. 13 in tackles for loss (1.6 per game) and No. 17 in sacks (0.81/gm.) among all FCS players in the nation, Moe ended the 2018 season ranked No. 1 in the league in three categories: total sacks (10.5), total tackles for loss (20.5) and tackles for loss per game (1.58).
In addition to his team-high 83 tackles — 54 were earned throughout the team’s final six games of the season — Moe also set Big Sky-era single-season program records in tackles for loss, sacks, and interceptions (3) last year.
It is these attention-grabbing stats that helped UC Davis football win its inaugural Big Sky championship, advance to the postseason for the first time as a Division I program, set new program marks for the most overall and conference wins in a single season, and finish the 2018 campaign as the No. 7-ranked team in the country.