Oregon Ducks sophomore quarterback Dante Moore is off to an extremely hot start to the 2025 college football season.
Moore has helped the Ducks to a 3-0 record in which they’ve outscored their opponents, 162-30.
The former UCLA quarterback has completed 50-of-64 passes for 657 yards and seven touchdowns compared to one interception. Mind you, he’s not even playing for the entirety of these games either because of their blowout nature. That makes the production he’s had so far even more impressive.
One would think that all this success early on in the season could lead to a young quarterback overhyping himself a bit in his mind, but Moore has a wise head coach in Dan Lanning who seems to be doing his part to keep the young man grounded.
They could be talking about anything in private, but publicly, Lanning has asserted that his star quarterback is not doing this on his own.
“You can’t be a great quarterback unless the people around you play well,” Lanning said on his coach’s show (h/t On3). “Dante would be the first person to tell you that the people around him are creating opportunities for him to play well. He can’t catch his own passes, and he can’t block for himself. He’s done really well for us, and excited to see how he continues to grow.”
Moore is keeping Oregon’s offense explosive and on track
Oregon always has seemed to have speed and athleticism, especially at the skill positions, in the modern era, and things are no different with Moore at quarterback. He’s got incredible talent downfield.
That includes senior wideout Malik Benson, who has caught 11 passes for 161 yards and two touchdowns so far, averaging 14.6 yards per catch. Another player to mention is freshman wideout Dakorien Moore, who has caught nine passes for 144 yards and a touchdown through three games, averaging 16 yards per catch.
Those are two big-play targets downfield for the quarterback, but this whole thing, and the success of Lanning’s offense, comes down to the quarterback executing at a high level.
To that point, Lanning believes in the player he has in Moore.
“I think that he knows I have an unbelievable amount of confidence in him with the way he preps and how he works,” Lanning said. “He’s a really special person. I think it’s unfair that our players get judged just on how they perform. And I was just visiting with some of our friends outside that the best thing about our team is we have unbelievable people.”
In just two thoughts, Lanning is both keeping his quarterback humble and building him up as a leader of the team. That’s good coaching right there.
