EUGENE, Ore. — It isn’t hard to track where Dante Moore’s head was this offseason when he left UCLA for Oregon. The sophomore quarterback referred to the importance of development five times during his first press engagement as a Duck on Thursday morning.
With the Bruins, Moore questioned if he was getting the best coaching. That fear was only heightened by what he saw to be an unstable future across the Bruin staff.
“I had a feeling they were going to leave,” he said of the UCLA coaches. “Deep down inside, I was like ‘I don’t know if I’m going to get developed as best as I could’. I know coach [Chip] Kelly is gone, it took him a little longer after the season to leave, but I just wanted to get a fresh start.”
Moore’s analysis of the situation proved accurate. While Moore was out the door first, Kelly ultimately took a job at Ohio State in February.
Time is now Oregon’s side. It wasn’t 18 months ago when Kenny Dillingham, Moore’s primary recruiter from the Ducks, chose to take the head coaching job at Arizona State less than a month before the early signing period. That put Will Stein, Dillingham’s replacement, in a time crunch he was unable to maneuver out of, Moore explained this week.
“Many people say there’s a lot of reasons I left, but the real reason why was coach Dillingham,” he said. “As a quarterback, your OC needs to be your best friend. Really at the end of the day, when they hired coach Stein, I didn’t know much of coach Stein. He came from UTSA. We tried to build a relationship in a couple of weeks, but something told me to go to UCLA.”
A years time has changed Moore’s perspective on Oregon’s playcaller. The explosive offense Stein put on the field in his debut season with the Ducks caught Moore’s attention when he entered the transfer portal in December, and Bo Nix’s record-breaking season wasn’t lost on him either.
“He’s a really smart guy. He calls great plays. He understands how to develop quarterbacks,” Moore said, using the “d-word” once again. “I love him, and I’m glad to be under him.”
Eugene provides the perfect backdrop for the development Moore wants. While he admits it rains more than he’d like, and he’ll miss the ease of making trips to the beach, distractions are almost non-existent here.
“I just know being out here that football is the main thing,” he explained. “Being out here, there are no distractions, it’s a football school. It’s going to help me at the end of the day.
“We’ve got the best facilities in the world. We’ve got a great coaching staff. We’ve got the best playmakers out here on the field. You’ve got everything around here.”
And Moore is fully aware of what the 2024 season might be for him. With Dillon Gabriel he has a sixth-year quarterback to compete with, and one that most expect will be this year’s starting quarterback.
“Urban Meyer just said it out there, you’ve got to put people in front of you and don’t be selfish,” he said. “We’re just helping each other out. When it comes to competition on the football field, we know to be locked in and just to be thankful to even be playing football.”
Moore’s goal for spring is of course to get better, but also to win over the locker room.
“As a quarterback, you can’t just talk the talk, sometimes you’ve got to do the physical work. Being out here in practice, going through the reps in competition drills and things like that, I’m talking to receivers. That’s my biggest goal, to build trust with this team, and better myself,” he said.
The first spring scrimmage is set to take place on Saturday morning. The practice will take place inside Autzen Stadium and will be closed to media. Head coach Dan Lanning will speak shortly after its conclusion.
