Dan Lanning Sets Clears Expectations for Dillon Gabriel’s Successor originally appeared on Athlon Sports.
Multiple college football programs face questions at quarterback entering the 2025 season, including the defending Big Ten champion Oregon Ducks.
Star quarterback Dillon Gabriel helped lead Oregon to an undefeated regular season, the Big Ten title and a College Football Playoff appearance in 2024.
The former UCF Knights and Oklahoma Sooners transfer earned Heisman Trophy finalist honors while completing 72.9% of his passes for 3,857 yards with 30 touchdowns and six interceptions, adding seven touchdowns on the ground.
As Gabriel, a third-round pick in the NFL draft, fights for the starting job with the Cleveland Browns, head coach Dan Lanning and the Ducks are left with a largely inexperienced quarterback room.
Redshirt sophomore Dante Moore is expected to earn the starting nod after backing up Gabriel last season. The former five-star recruit appeared in five games last season, but the bulk of his experience came for the UCLA Bruins in 2023.
Moore (6-foot-3, 210 pounds) appeared in nine games that season, completing 53.5% of his passes for 1,610 yards with 11 touchdowns to nine interceptions.
Lanning and Co. have yet to name a starter ahead of fall camp, leaving the competition wide open to this point.
“I think what’s really critical is they have to be themselves, right?” Lanning said Thursday on “Always College Football.” “But we got to figure out what they can handle. And whether it’s Dante or Austin or Luke or whoever’s out there for us at quarterback – each one of them is going to be a little bit different.”
Moore is the only quarterback on Oregon’s roster with at least one start under his belt, a key edge over redshirt sophomore Austin Novosad and redshirt freshman Luke Moga.
Novosad (6-3, 205) has appeared in six total games through two seasons after signing with the Ducks as the No. 13 quarterback in the 2023 class. And Moga (6-2, 190) redshirted his true freshman season after signing as a three-star recruit in 2024.
Part of what made Gabriel so special at Oregon last season was efficiency, limiting interceptions to six with a 72.9 completion rate, the second-best in a single season in school history.
And the Ducks are looking for a similar output among Moore, Novosad and Moga.
“We want them to do stuff that’s routine and when you have great players, they’ll make routine plays look like elite plays because they execute it at such a high level,” Lanning said.
“Ultimately we’ve been really successful protecting the ball the last few years, and I think that’s really important when you have playmakers find opportunities to get the ball to playmakers and then make great decisions,” he continued. “And if you do that at quarterback in our system, you’re going to be elite.”
Oregon will open the 2025 season against the Montana State Bobcats at home on Aug. 30.
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This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Jun 12, 2025, where it first appeared.