‘I will be in red.’ Why a UK football great will root against the Cats on Saturday.

Marty Moore plans to do something Saturday that he would have once deemed unthinkable.

When Mark Stoops and the 2022 Kentucky Wildcats open their season at 7 p.m. against the Miami (Ohio) RedHawks, one of the best linebackers to ever play football at UK plans to be at Kroger Field — rooting against the Cats.

“I won’t be in red and blue,” Moore said last week. “I will be in red, rocking it for Miami.”

Even the most rabid member of the Big Blue Nation should understand the rationale behind Moore’s altered allegiance. His son, former Lexington Christian Academy football standout Mason Moore, is a true freshman defensive back on the Miami roster.

For Marty Moore, the fact that the youngest of the three children he shares with his ex-wife, Wendy Ganote Moore, is a member of the team that will be playing against Kentucky is going to make for a surreal Saturday night.

“I will be sitting in the Miami section, rooting for the RedHawks,” Marty Moore said. “It will definitely be weird.”

Those Kentucky backers old enough to remember the Bill Curry coaching era likely still have the Commonwealth Stadium public address announcer saying “tackle by Moore” ringing in their ears.

From 1990 through 1993, Marty Moore was responsible for 462 career stops, the fourth-highest total in UK football history. Moore’s 183 tackles as a sophomore in 1991 are the most in a single season by a Wildcat.

In the 1994 NFL Draft, the New England Patriots made Moore “Mr. Irrelevant” by making him the last pick selected. Moore went on to carve out an eight-year NFL career, playing seven of those seasons for New England.

With the Patriots, Moore played in two Super Bowls. He was part of the Bill Parcells-coached Pats who fell 35-21 to the Packers in Super Bowl XXXI in 1997 and the Bill Belichick-led Pats who stunned “The Greatest Show on Turf” Rams, 20-17, in Super Bowl XXXVI in 2002.

Statistically, Moore’s best NFL season came in 2000, the one year he played for a team other than New England. In the second season of the “new Cleveland Browns” expansion franchise, Moore recorded 90 of what would ultimately be his 173 career NFL tackles.

Once his playing career ended, Moore eventually went into medical sales while settling and raising his family in Lexington.

At Lexington Christian, Mason Moore became one of the best all-around high school football players in the city. Last season, as LCA went 14-1 and finished second in the Class 2A playoffs, Mason Moore ran for 304 yards and five touchdowns; caught 47 passes for 922 yards and 10 TDs; and intercepted four passes and made 29 tackles.

The college recruitment of the 6-1, 192-pound Mason Moore was complicated, his father said, by the after effects of the NCAA granting all players in college during the 2020-21 school year an extra season of eligibility due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Every college football player in America took a COVID year,” Marty Moore said. “For the kids trying to enter college football, that backed everything up.”

Marty Moore said Mason’s dream was to play for UK, but that Kentucky recruiters did not show much ardor. Given his own playing success at UK combined with Mason’s accomplishments as a high school player, Marty Moore said he felt like Kentucky could have at least offered Mason a game day visit.

“I just felt like me being a legacy guy, in the (UK Athletics) Hall of Fame, and having some relationships with (current Kentucky coaches), that they could have done that as a courtesy,” Marty Moore said. “But it is what it is. There are reasons for everything. I don’t have any hard feelings.”

Mason had already committed to Miami when, late in his recruitment, “bigger schools” such as Pittsburgh, Colorado and Louisville started showing interest.

“Had COVID not happened, I think he may have been recruited a little harder by some of these schools,” Marty Moore said. “They all came in late, and I wouldn’t let him change his mind. I was like, ‘We are not doing that. You committed to Miami, you are going to Miami.’”

Under Coach Chuck Martin, the RedHawks football program has placed considerable emphasis on recruiting the state of Kentucky. When Miami faces UK, at least three Kentuckians — offensive tackle Sam Vaughan (Lexington Catholic), tight end Jack Coldiron (Covington Catholic), and boundary safety Eli Blakey (Manual) — are expected to start. A fourth, offensive tackle Ben Jackson (Clark County), could also play.

Unless something changes between now and game time, Mason Moore will not see the field Saturday night in his hometown. Mason found out Sunday night that Miami plans to redshirt him in 2022, Marty Moore said.

That will not keep Mason Moore’s father, an all-time UK great, from sitting in the Miami section and rooting for the RedHawks.

Said Marty Moore: “I think (Kentucky) fans and coaches understand, if you’ve got a son who is playing on a college football team, you are going to root for your son over your legacy.”