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College football expert weighs in on Oregon quarterback competition

ByDale Bliss|
With less than a month until the Oregon Spring Game, Dante Moore is starting to emerge as the likely Oregon starter at QB.
With less than a month until the Oregon Spring Game, Dante Moore is starting to emerge as the likely Oregon starter at QB. | Ben Lonergan/The Register-Guard / USA TODAY NETWORK

In a Wednesday article national transfer portal analyst Adam Friedman of Rivals breaks down the top quarterback battles at spring practice around the country, including the hunt for new signal callers at Ohio State, Alabama, Michigan, Georgia and Oregon.

About the Ducks, he thinks Dante Moore will emerge as the Oregon starter.

"It appears the race is trending toward Moore being named the day one starter. The former UCLA quarterback spent last season in Eugene backing up Gabriel and he is seemingly ready to move into the starting role. "
Adam Friedman, Rivals College Football

Friedman added that Oregon will very likely do what it takes to keep all three quarterbacks from entering the transfer portal to ensure they have a strong position group in case of injury. Despite being a four-star recruit in the 2023 class and the No. 7 pro-style quarterback, Austin Novosad has stuck with the Ducks for two seasons.

In mopup duty behind Gabriel last year Moore connected on 7-8 passes for 49 yards. In two seasons as a backup to Gabriel and Bo Nix, Novosad has appeared in six games for the Ducks, completing 11 of 13 passes for 59 yards.

Neither quarterback has thrown a touchdown in an Oregon uniform, but Moore started five games at UCLA prior to transferring to UO, completing 114 of 213 passes for 1,610 yards. He tossed 11 touchdown passes but threw 9 interceptions, struggling while being thrown into the fire behind an offensive line that gave up 42 sacks that season.


Last spring Moore said of his time in Westwood, “Learned a lot, made a lot of mistakes, but at the end of the day all I can do is just learn. I kind of got the feeling of a lot of different things weren't going our way.

After his year of development sitting behind Gabriel, Oregon senior leaders Josh Conerly, Traeshon Holden and Tez Johnson have all made statements to the media about his readiness to be a starter, each stating they believed he had the stuff to win a Heisman Trophy running the Quack Attack.

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