FILE - Tampa Bay Buccaneers senior offensive assistant Tom Moore walks on to the field prior to an NFL football game against the Carolina Panthers Dec. 21, 2025, in Charlotte, N.C. (AP Photo/Brian Westerholt, File)

IOWA CITY, Iowa — Longtime NFL and college assistant Tom Moore, who will turn 88 during the upcoming college football season, will join the Iowa staff as senior consultant to the head coach and offensive adviser, coach Kirk Ferentz announced Tuesday.

The 87-year-old Moore lettered as a quarterback and kicker for the Hawkeyes in 1959-60 and began his coaching career as a graduate assistant at Iowa.

Moore made college stops at Dayton, Wake Forest, Georgia Tech and Minnesota before he joined the Pittsburgh Steelers as receivers coach in 1977. He also was an assistant with the Vikings, Lions, Saints and Colts and was an offensive consultant with the Jets, Titans and Cardinals. He was a consultant with the Buccaneers from 2019-25.

“I have known Tom Moore for over a decade and am thrilled that he has agreed to join our program in an advisory role,” Ferentz said. “Coach Moore has had a long and very successful career in football. He was a player at Iowa, coached at the collegiate level and spent many years working alongside Hall of Fame coaches in the National Football League. I am grateful that a four-time Super Bowl champion will share his wisdom and perspectives with us — coaches and players.”

Moore is a four-time Super Bowl champion as an assistant, winning two with the Steelers and one each with the Colts and Buccaneers.

ACC supports Big Ten

AMELIA ISLAND, Fla. — The Atlantic Coast Conference is backing the Big Ten’s push for a 24-team playoff, commissioner Jim Phillips said Wednesday.

Speaking at the end of three days of spring meetings in a posh resort in northeast Florida, Phillips said ACC coaches and athletic directors reached consensus on wanting to double the current College Football Playoff model.

“When you’re leaving national championship-contending teams and schools out of the playoff, you don’t have the right number,” Phillips said. “We lived through it.”

Phillips pointed to unbeaten Florida State getting snubbed from a four-team CFP field in 2023 and Notre Dame getting left out of last year’s 12-team model.

“Notre Dame was a CFP-worthy team this year; they just were,” he said. “The other rationale is there is so much investment going on in the sport of football and in college athletics. … If you’re going to ask presidents and chancellors and boards to continue to invest in their football programs, it’s really important that they have hope, that they have an opportunity at the beginning of the season to get into the playoff.”

Coaches and administrators have clamored for more access to the lucrative and potentially job-saving playoff. They point to having just 12 playoff spots for 138 teams in the Football Bowl Subdivision, a miniscule percentage compared to many other collegiate sports or major professional leagues.

“The more the merrier,” Florida State athletic director Michael Alford said. “The more opportunities to get teams in and give student-athletes opportunities.”

Phillips also said television partner ESPN “has been pretty clear with all of us that they’d like it to stay at 12, maybe 14, but no higher than 16.”

No matter how much the ACC and other leagues support a 24-team playoff, the Big Ten and the Southeastern Conference have exclusive power to determine the CFP’s future. Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti and the SEC’s Greg Sankey have the ultimate say on any expansion.

The SEC is pushing to expand to 16 teams, with an emphasis on at-large bids. The Big Ten supports 24 teams and initially wanted multiple automatic qualifiers from each conference.

An NCAA committee last month recommended that FBS teams play a 12-game schedule over 14 weeks beginning in 2027 with the season starting on the Thursday of what is now designated Week Zero and ending the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

Last week, the American Football Coaches Association proposed changes to the schedule that included eliminating conference championship games, reducing scheduled bye weeks from two to one and reducing the minimum number of days between games to no fewer than six.

GameDay annoucement

NEW YORK — ESPN’s “College GameDay” will achieve a pair of milestones on its first show of the season.

The venerable college football program will be celebrating its 40th season this year. The Sept. 5 show from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, before Lane Kiffin makes his LSU debut against Clemson will be the 500th show on the road.

The announcement was made during ESPN’s upfront to advertisers earlier this week.

Star RB out of hospital

All-American running back Ahmad Hardy has been discharged from a Mississippi hospital after a weekend shooting. The Missouri standout was shot in the upper leg at an outdoor concert.

Police have three people of interest in custody. Hardy is now returning to Columbia to begin recovery in the hopes of playing this season. Tigers coach Eli Drinkwitz said late Tuesday that Hardy’s recovery timeline is uncertain, and it could take weeks to know if he’ll return this year.

Hardy transferred to Missouri last season and ran for more than 1,640 yards with 16 touchdowns. Many believe he could be the No. 1 running back in next year’s NFL draft.