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Veteran Mentors Vital to Growth of Dante Moore, Oregon Quarterback Room Heading Into 2025

Max Torres Author Profileby: Max Torres07/23/25mtorressports
Dante Moore
Oregon Ducks quarterback Dante Moore in the 2025 spring football game. (Photo by: © Ben Lonergan/The Register-Guard / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images)

When Dante Moore announced his commitment to Oregon, it immediately put the Ducks in a unique spot.

Will Stein would be adding two of the most high-profile quarterbacks in the transfer portal to his room, with Moore picking the Ducks just nine days after former Oklahoma Sooners passer Dillon Gabriel made the same decision.

Gabriel went on to win the job the starting job at Oregon, which meant Moore and other quarterbacks in the room would spend the 2024 season sitting behind the talented signal caller, honing in on their craft and waiting for their opportunity to shine.

Now the 2025 season is nearly here and Dan Lanning believes that having a pair of experienced mentors in Gabriel, and Bo Nix before him, has greatly aided the development of Oregon’s quarterbacks.

“We’ve been really fortunate the last few years and I’ve said this to a few, that we’ve had a great mentor in that room,” the head coach said at Big Ten Media Days in Las Vegas. “We’ve had guys that have had unbelievable experience. That these guys were able to watch and see.”

Moore is widely viewed as the best positioned to become Gabriel’s successor and run Oregon’s offense. With snaps hard to come by, Lanning has admired the approach he’s seen from the redshirt sophomore and the other passers on the roster.

“I think probably what impresses me most with Dante is not wanting to be in a microwave society. Not wanting to just get it fast because there’s an opportunity in front of him, but to have the slow cooked meal.

“To have the opportunity to sit back and mature and learn from experiences that you don’t necessarily have to be on the field to feel. And same goes for Austin (Novosad), same goes for Luke (Moga) and the other guys in our program. Those guys have learned from great quarterbacks that have done it at a really, really high level.”

Gabriel and Nix both finished their college careers as finalists for the Heisman Trophy, which leaves big shoes for Moore or whoever wins the starting job to fill.

“For him (Moore) to have that opportunity, show maturity, develop in his leadership— I think it’s going to create great opportunities for our team.”

Oregon will kick off fall camp in the next week or so. Those weeks will be crucial for the quarterbacks to continue building chemistry with their wide receivers and get their timing down with the offensive line.

Whoever wins the starting job, whether it’s Moore or Novosad, will be the youngest and most inexperienced quarterback to start at Oregon since redshirt sophomore Tyler Shough in 2020.

“It’s different,” Lanning said of the experience in this year’s quarterback room. “But experience is all relative. It’s about quality of experience. So it’s about us getting quality experience for our guys quick. Ultimately it’s still football. Reminding these guys that the fields still the same length, same width.

“It doesn’t really change just go do what you do in practice every day. Our guys will earn that opportunity through what they do in practice. Our job as coaches is to create a game-like atmosphere as much as possible in practice, so that it doesn’t feel like their first experience when they’re out there.”

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