Throughout his first 13 years in the NFL — six as a player and seven as a coach — Kellen Moore has seen first-hand the connection former Boise State football players have when they cross paths in the league.

Now, thanks to college football’s all-time winningest quarterback, that Bronco brotherhood extends to the NFL’s head coaching ranks. Moore was hired as the head coach of the New Orleans Saints in February and will get the chance to represent the Broncos in an entirely new light during the 2025 season.

He hopes maybe he can get a few more fans in Boise changing into black and gold on Sundays after wearing blue and orange on Saturdays, as well.

“We love Boise, it’s a special place and will always be a home to us in some capacity,” Moore said in an interview with the Idaho Press last week as he prepares for his first season with the Saints. “It’s been a lot of fun to still watch the Broncos, follow them along the way. If we can steal a few more Saints fans out there, you can’t help it.”

Since retiring as a player in 2018, Moore has built up his coaching career, serving as offensive coordinator with the Dallas Cowboys, Los Angeles Chargers and Philadelphia Eagles, where he won a Super Bowl last season. But despite the busy schedule that comes with coaching in the NFL, Moore still tries to catch as many Broncos games as he can.

He said he’s enjoyed watching the continued rise of the Broncos, something that was still in its relative infancy stage when he was the team’s signal caller from 2008-11.

His freshman season came two years after Boise State’s first Fiesta Bowl win against Oklahoma and, through four years as a starter, he led the Broncos to a 50-3 record, which still stands as the most wins in NCAA history.

After leading the Broncos to a second Fiesta Bowl win against TCU in 2009, he helped Boise State reach as high as No. 2 in the AP Top 25 poll and No. 3 in the BCS rankings in 2010, as the Broncos remained in the national title conversation until a late November loss to Nevada.

Moore finished fourth in the Heisman voting, which remained Boise State’s highest Heisman finish until Ashton Jeanty finished as runner up this past season. This past season also saw Boise State reach the College Football Playoff for the first time.

“It’s really about the people,” Moore said about how Boise State has continued to rise over the past decade and a half. “You got really, really special people there, the leadership is awesome, (coach) Spencer (Danielson) has done a phenomenal job, (athletic director) Jeramiah (Dickey) has done an incredible job building it off the field and creating the support for the program. It’s just continued to build, continued to grow, continued to take advantage of the right opportunities. Get the right type of people together and you can create things like that.”

During his years at Boise State, former Bronco coach Chris Petersen often predicted that Moore would have a future in coaching. But Moore was likely destined to chase that career path even before coming to Boise State.

His father, Tom Moore, was a four-time state title-winning coach at Prosser (Wash.) High, where Kellen played high school ball at. The younger Moore credits his success to all the coaches he played for, from his father, to Petersen, to Idaho graduate Scott Linehan, who was Moore’s offensive coordinator as a player with both the Detroit Lions and Dallas Cowboys, and now on his coaching staff in his first season with the Saints.

He said while Tom Moore instilled his passion for coaching, he felt it was really confirmed at Boise State and then his coaches in the NFL really helped guide him into a career at that level.

“I think that’s the beauty of being a player and transitioning into coaching,” Moore said. “You take from each coach that you’ve been a part of. Certainly, my dad was our foundation, just being around it growing up in Prosser. Coach Pete, so much about it is about culture and environment, building the program the right way. I certainly loved our play style at Boise, how aggressive and innovative we were. In the NFL I was around a bunch of different coaches, guys that schemed, guys that had different personalities than me, guys that had personalities like me. So, you’re able to pull from all those different guys.”

He may not have realized it at the time, but Moore was also around several future coaches at various levels of football when he was at Boise State. His Bronco teammates included Bush Hamdan — who came back to Boise as offensive coordinator in 2023 before taking the same job at Kentucky in 2024 — current Boise State offensive coordinator Nate Potter, current Boise State receivers coach Matt Miller and, of course, younger brother Kirby Moore, who is currently the offensive coordinator at Missouri.

“I think it’s a good example of when your mentors do things the right way, you want to emulate your mentors naturally and follow their paths a lot of times,” Moore said. “So, that coaching staff was really special, a bunch of those guys became head coaches. Now, a lot of us have hopped into that coaching profession as well and followed their lead.”

Moore is the first of that group to reach a head coaching position at the sport’s highest level. He will be tasked with rebuilding the Saints, who went 5-12 a season ago.

With the surprise retirement of quarterback Derek Carr in May, Moore now finds himself watching over a quarterback battle between rookie Tyler Shough, the Saints’ second round draft pick out of Louisville, and Spencer Rattler, their 2024 fifth round pick out of South Carolina.

It will be the first time he has had to deal with a preseason battle for the QB1 spot — as either a player or a coach — since beating out Hamdan for Boise State’s starting spot in 2008.