National college football pundits slept on Dante Moore, but they're slowly waking up

On3 Sports college football writer and podcast host Andy Staples has been spending too much time in the sun, or too much time watching bad quarterback play in the South.

In April Staples posted his list of the Top Ten quarterbacks in college football, and five months later the list looks like it was written in January and sealed in a Duke's Mayo jar on the On3 porch. It leans heavily on reputation, preseason hype and recruiting rankings, while ignoring one top candidate who's started the season with excellence and consistency.

Cade Klubnik? Arch Manning? DJ Lagway? Through three games Dante Moore owns a 3-0 record and his team has scored on 20-23 drives when he's been in the game.

In 2023, Bo Nix set an NCAA record completing 77.4 percent of his passes. So far Moore has connected on 78 percent of his throws, ahead of the record pace, and he's been throwing downfield.

Gone is the Nix/Gabriel era dependence on quick throws, screens and checkdowns. Moore is deadly accurate to the deep and intermediate levels. He stretches the defense.

Moore's passer rating of 219 ranks fourth in the country, and he's only played eight quarters of football while winning three blowouts.

Moore's proven to be much calmer and more athletic in the pocket than anyone outside the Oregon fan base gave him credit for. He goes through his progressions, moves well in the pocket, evades the rush and can throw the ball on a line to all parts of the field.

So far this season the Ducks have been cagey. They've played four quarterbacks and 11 offensive linemen, seven running backs, seven wide receivers. As Geoff Schwartz suggests, in a tighter game they could build the offense around Moore and let him take over. When the team has been in the two-minute drill, he's done exactly that.

The strength in numbers, play-everyone approach has been exactly right for these early games, providing the coaches an opportunity to develop their roster. The Ducks have spread the ball around, given a lot of reps to a lot of players, and they are right where they want to be at 3-0.

Moore looks like the real deal at quarterback, a guy who could outplay Drew Allar, Fernando Mendoza, Jayden Maiava and Demond Williams and win the Big Ten again. The Ducks haven't had a young quarterback show this much promise since Justin Herbert and Marcus Mariota.

Rankings and ratings are one thing, but this list has real money on the line.

NFL scouts have noticed. They weren't in Evanston to see Preston Stone.