These are the priorities for the Oregon Ducks at quarterback
The Ducks lost a QB over the weekend. Their roster still looks OK.
Here’s quite the quote from now-former Oregon quarterback Jared-Keawe Sagapolutele, who announced shortly after the Rose Bowl that he was entering the transfer portal.
“I just felt that I wasn’t a main priority at Oregon,” the 2025 four-star recruit told ESPN. “Of course, there’s going to be competition anywhere I go. But I’m just looking at other QB rooms and the best place for me to go get on the field early.”
Sagapolutele, who flipped to Oregon from Cal on national signing day, would return to the Golden Bears over the weekend. It was an eventful week for the 2024 Hawaii Player of the Year, who on Wednesday was at the Rose Bowl walking side-by-side with his competition — 2025 Oregon signee Akili Smith Jr.
While it may seem like a negative headline for Oregon coming off a thoroughly disappointing end to its 2024 season, the truth is Sagapolutele was entering a roster crowded with young quarterbacks fighting to be the main priority following the departure of Heisman finalist Dillon Gabriel.
As of Jan. 5, the Ducks have five quarterbacks on their roster. One of them is a walk-on. The rest is a grouping of quarterbacks sought after by some of the biggest schools in the country.
And while we’ll never put it past this Oregon staff to pull a rabbit out of the portal, after four consecutive seasons of the Ducks starting a transfer, the 2025 season is shaping up to be manned by someone on the roster in 2024 or naturally recruited by the Ducks.
There may be one obvious front-runner, but the only thing for certain is that it’s not going to be Sagapolutele.
Here’s more on Oregon’s priorities:
1. Dante Moore, Redshirt Sophomore
5-star in the 2023 class
Career passing stats: 121-221, 1,659 yards, 11 TD, 9 INT
The file on Moore: By now, you know the bona fides. Moore is the highest-ranked QB recruit in Oregon history. He has a cannon for an arm, five games as a starter at UCLA under his belt and had the benefit in 2024 of sitting behind Gabriel as the senior led the Ducks to the College Football Playoff. He was a little erratic as a true freshman starter in Westwood, but he also played behind an offensive line that allowed him to be sacked 25 times in five games.
When Moore came to Oregon, he knew he could get better.
“In high school, I went from 14, 15 picks my freshman year to throwing just a couple as a senior,” he told The I-5 Corridor in August. “I feel like in college football last year, I made a lot of mistakes — threw too many pick-sixes and things like that. Of course, it’s different from high school to college. There’s more fans. Many more things are on the line in college. But at the end of the day, I know I need to get back to the mindset that it’s just football.”
How’s the mindset going?