Burning question No. 2: How ready is Dante Moore? Is a drop-off inevitable?

Dante Moore spent a year watching Dillon Gabriel run the offense, redshirting, getting developed. He's a full year removed from a disastrous true freshman season when he was thrown into the hot water by Chip Kelly, behind a bad offensive line with an inadequate supporting cast.

At UCLA Moore completed 53.5 percent of 213 passes for 1,610 yards, 11 touchdowns with nine interceptions, sacked 25 times. The Bruins were 3-2 in the games he started. He threw three Pick Sixes.

How much better can he be after a year of sitting, taking practice reps and learning?

In April, Moore said, "Growing up, I've had great mentors, one being Cam Newton. One thing he always told me is, control what you can control."



"I mean, you go from Joey Harrington to Marcus Mariota, you got Darron Thomas, you got Bo Nix, you got Dillon Gabriel, there is so many great quarterbacks, but really I'm just thinking about my style of play, how I can better the team, just how I can make myself feel comfortable on the football field."

In 80 days, Moore takes the field against Montana State. After four tune-up games he leads the Ducks into a white out game at Beaver Stadium, 106,572, national TV, Prime Time on NBC, one of the games of the year in the Big Ten.

The opposing quarterback will be senior Drew Allar, 29 games as a starter, projected to be a top-five pick in next year's draft. He'll be flanked by Nicholas Singleton and Kaytron Allen, maybe the best one-two running back combination in college football.

The Penn State defense gets after people. Dani Dennis-Sutton had 8.5 sacks last year, while North Carolina transfer Amare Campbell, a 6-3, 230-pound linebacker, piled up 6.5 sacks and 76 tackles for the Tarheels last year.

New defensive coordinator Jim Knowles dialed up eight sacks against the Ducks as the mastermind of the Ohio State defense at the Rose Bowl in the College Football Playoff. His plan will be to create pressure on Moore, see if he cracks in a hostile environment.

At Oregon, Moore will be measured against all those great quarterbacks he mentioned. He's taking over a job with tremendous expectations, leading an offense where he's surrounded by talent.

Some drop-off is inevitable. The two previous starters made it to New York and they'd started 120 college games between them.

The expectation is that Moore will be better than he was as an inexperienced freshman thrown into the fire at UCLA. But how much better?

Typically a young quarterback will cost a team a game or two with inopportune mistakes or being overwhelmed in a key moment. Moore's being asked to be the man for a team with playoff aspirations. There's a greater margin of error in the playoff era, but it's not infinite.

In their first year in the Big Ten Dan Lanning proved to be a master at preparing his team for the special environments in the conference. Remember "Are you not entertained?" and "When you hear that song?"

The Ducks can survive a loss to Penn State. Many have already penciled it in as a game that would hard to win on the road against a playoff-seasoned team.

Observers like Danny Kanell of CBS think the Ducks will drop one more, maybe at Iowa or Washington. Slipping below that 10-2 mark would brand the season a disappointment.

How ready is Moore? How ready will he be by September 27? That's the burning question.

The prediction here is that with the cast around him and a solid defense Moore throws for 3000 yards with 30 touchdowns. If he keeps the interceptions under eight and the sacks below 15, Oregon can win those 10 games and make the playoffs.

By then, he'll be an experienced starter and Oregon could make some noise.

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