2026 Portal Recruiting: Aisea Moa

Brother of Salesi, son of former Utes TE Ben.FilmNo highlights worth embedding. Hudl. Camp vs Raleek Brown (2020).We can brush past these next two quickly, since they're basically walk-on siblings of guys the coaches wanted to retain from Utah's class and Michigan's roster, respectively.Online Spartans are not representative of their whole fanbase, but they are a reliably touchy lot. This week they were posting through some strong feelings about the Lions celebrating their drafting of two Wolverine national champions. I bring up the whiniest fanbase in sports now because there was disappointingly little of it when Michigan yoinked Aisea Moa after one year in East Lansing. The feeling there is akin to Michigan sending over Frederick Moore: he was their first guy off the bench at a position of weakness.The difference is MSU might not be able to do better. Jordan Hall returns, and former LB Pat Fitzgerald added a former Maryland green dot and some up-transfers from Albany and Buffalo, but none project to be much better than Moa might've after 180 snaps for the last year. Starting linebacker of a bad MSU defense seems to be the consensus.When you put that in a Michigan context, Moa the elder looks like someone added to provide depth and help recruit his brother, who was about to enroll early at Utah before all this went down. [After THE JUMP: He doesn't feel like an MSU linebacker.]CAREER THUS FARA standout in the 2022 Poly Bowl, Moa was ranked a composite 4-star and the 1 target for BYU coming out of high school, where he played all over the defensive line. He originally committed to Utah, where his father starred at TE, but flipped to the rival in December over heavy pursuit from Oregon State. Enrolling early, Aisea projected as a hybrid LB/DE and the Cougers decided to try to develop him as an edge (putting him in the same room with John Henry Daley). After two years of that however Moa was still just 235 pounds, and moved back to WLB.After a year as the fourth linebacker in a three-man rotation that wasn't going anywhere, Moa felt like a bust and hit the portal to find playing time. The Oregon State staff was at MSU and in need of a third guy/potential starter. He didn't explode, but he saw the same number of snaps (180) last year as he accrued over three seasons with BYU. WHY HE LEFT, WHY HE CAMEHe also had little tying him to MSU when Jonathan Smith's program cratered, and Jay Hill and Kyle Whittingham arrived at the flagship in the same state looking to give Salesi reasons to join them. It's not like this was a fresh idea either.Thanks to the State of Michigan's reciprocity rules for in-state transfers, Moa was afforded the opportunity to finish his MSU degree at Michigan.STATS PFFKeep in mind the first two years were at edge.Those pressure rates from linebacker (26 and 35) and are very high for a guy who didn't collect any sacks.SCOUTING AND FILM REVIEWI had last year's game but Moa's longest outing was at USC; starting MLB/green dot Jordan Hall went out for targeting early in the 2nd quarter and they also lost WLB Wayne Matthews to a head injury near the end of the quarter, after which Moa moved to WILL. I had to use BTN+ to get these clips so the quality isn't great, but it was a good chance to gauge Moa against an offense that uses a lot of misdirection to mess with linebackers.He was a LB/DE hybrid projected to be a heavy DE or 3-Tech. The scouting reports out of high school described an athlete already 6'3/240 and projected to grow into a versatile edge. BYU writer Jeff Hansen in late 2021:Moa is a big, huge, giant, enormous human being. His frame is massive. He plays all along the defensive line right now, but he will likely end up putting on more good weight and find himself in the middle of BYU’s defensive line. He fought double and triple teams throughout the entire season and still put together a wildly productive year. His ceiling is sky-high.He uses his strength exceptionally well. He has long arms and a strong lower body that allows him to capitalize off of the leverage he gets off the line of scrimmage. He is quick with his hands and explosive off the line of scrimmage. Moa makes watching the interior of the defensive line a heck of a lot of fun.That's right: interior—there was some thought that Moa might add 50-60 pounds and become a tackle.But his frame is enormous and he could put on more weight without any effort whatsoever. If the weight does come, he could find himself playing on the inside of the defensive line.Awareness. He seems to be medium at this. MSU played him at middle linebacker but often had Moa come down to the edge when Joe Rossi went to his staple 46 Bear look.Oddly Moa didn't start the 2nd half—they went with old friend Semaj Bridgeman for the first drive—but I didn't detect any glaring errors, which suggests Moa was struggling with communication.I found him responsible but not aggressive, the kind of linebacker who sticks to his reads and keeps himself clean but isn't there to make a big play (though he does try a strip at the end of that link). In the first the three clips below you can see him take a false step with the run action but fix it quickly enough to be in his spot after the pull. The second clip shows this when he's playing at edge, as Moa shot upfield then quickly retraced his steps to not leave a bounce open (something Michigan screwed up often vs USC a few weeks later). The third clip shows the downside, as Moa waited too long to figure out which gap they were attacking and got run out of an opportunity for a short stop.He came in for some notice when I broke down how Michigan used Bredeson against MSU; Moa was the LB who followed Bredeson's split motion on several plays when Michigan used that as misdirection. On the other hand he seemed just fine at picking his way through traffic on USC's difficult screens.I thought his awareness was also impressive on this screen versus Michigan (2:07 2Q):8 on the edge at the bottom of the formationMoa was stunting all the way around to the backside and kept his head enough to occupy Frazier's attention and leave an unblocked defender to shut down the play. He also shut down a 3rd long draw when he dropped from a blitz look and picked up Klein trying to seal him.Coverage. Moa's first snap vs USC was a long touchdown off play-action; he wasn't directly involved, but the analysts pointed out how Lincoln Riley used the absence of Hall to break Joe Rossi's system; Moa bit very hard on the run action, safety Malik Spencer stayed down on a Dagger concept of Moa's reaction, and that left no safety help over the top. USC went after him on 4th down their next drive; Moa wasn't able to bring down Makai Lemon himself but the act of spinning away created the turnover.Athleticism. He's not a freak. Moa is tall for a linebacker, and he uses that length to keep himself clean from blocks and knock down passes.But his body is a three-star's when it comes to agility, which can get him in trouble when all that gangliness is in space against a real athlete. Ine the examples I captured we can see both sides of this—Makai Lemon successfully spun away from Moa on a 4th down but the delay created enough time for a teammate to make a play. The second clip shows what happens when Moa doesn't have that kind of help, as Maiva was able to slip past two of the linebacker's sack attempts and convert.Versatility: Two years as a defensive end for Jay Hill reportedly gave him a suite of pass rush moves but his limited opportunities to come off the edge for MSU didn't produce any highlights that I saw. His one true pass rush was a stunt inside that the left guard handled.Etc. Nickname is Ice which makes the correct pronunciation of his name—ice-SAY-uh—easier to remember. Brother is freshman WR Salesi Moa. Older brother Siona Moa was a LB and RB for Utah State, BYU, and UConn. Dad (Ben Moa) was a blocking TE for Utah who spent a couple of years with the Dolphins and Jets, then became a mixed martial artist, and is now a bare knuckle fighter despite being my age. Nickname is the Tongan Nightmare.Aisea's academic situation required some creativity—Michigan state law allows him to finish an MSU degree at Michigan, which gets them around UM's requirement (unique in that they don't waive it for athletes) that you have to complete half (60) of your undergrad credits in Ann Arbor. However MSU was allowing him to finish his BYU degree at MSU. Apparently this all got worked out.Why John Thompson? Oversized, athletic linebacker who was kind of a let's see how he grows tweener out of high school that never grew beyond linebacker. It's older comp, and Moa doesn't play with a neck roll, but Thompson is a tight enough fit I went with it. Thompson was always a bit questionable as a coverage guy, but functional at it because of his height. Some time spent with the defensive line/OLB taught him a few pass rush moves that proved beneficial as a pass-rusher. Also his signature thing was good awareness/blowing up screens. Thompson was never more than a rotation player, which is what I project Moa to be in his final year of college.Guru Reliability: High. He was watched like a hawk at BYU for any signs of a payoff, and then he played in a Big Ten defense.Variance: Very low. At this point Moa isn't going to grow into a defensive end.Ceiling: Medium-low. I think he's best used as a specialty player when Hill wants to replicate his 5-1 looks. If Moa had come to Michigan as a freshman he surely would have been put in the Jaylen Harrell bin and developed as such; that opportunity is now long past.Flight Risk Level: None. Final year of eligibility.General Excitement Level: Moderate-minus. I'm a lot higher on Moa now that I've taken a look at him, but that's because I went in thinking he was in the same box as Alford/Pierce, and at first reading I was ready to say he replaces Tyler McLaurin. Instead of a ho-hum linebacker in case of emergency I think we found a specialty piece who's already familiar with Jay Hill's defense, and whom Hill knows how to use. He was wasted at MSU, which couldn't afford to blitz its linebackers with a secondary full of confused slow guys. Projection: Moa is my pick for fifth linebacker on Michigan's depth chart, which is the spot occupied last year by Troy Bowles if you're tracking how much things have changed in a year at the position. That's a spot that rotates on the field in certain circumstances, but isn't a regular. Expect the other four guys to hold down most linebacker snaps, and for Moa to factor in packages or when Chase Taylor isn't available to do something hybrid-ish. Log in or register to post comments JJ Frankie JJ April 30th, 2026 at 2:31 PM ^ Wasn't John Thompson also known as The Razor? Might be one of the coolest nicknames in Michigan football history. Joined: 07/10/2024 MGoPoints: 6554 PopeLando April 30th, 2026 at 2:36 PM ^ These linebacker previews are making me think “safety help over the top” is going to be the theme of this season Joined: 08/01/2015 MGoPoints: 117506 aisea moa 2026 transfer profiles 2026 recruiting profiles 2025 michigan state