Dante Moore’s situation at Oregon has turned into the kind of conversation nobody really wants to have, but one NBC Sports analyst put it out there anyway: if the Ducks keep sliding, would Moore consider stepping away to protect his NFL future?
Joshua Perry floated the possibility this week while talking on the Zack Gelb Show, and he didn’t exactly soften the idea. With No. 2 Oregon coming off a loss to Oklahoma State after an uneven start against Boise State to open the 2026 season, the noise around Moore has only grown louder.
That preseason buzz looks a long way off now. Before the year, plenty of analysts had Moore in the Heisman Trophy mix and Oregon back in the College Football Playoff picture. Instead, the Ducks are staring at a far messier reality in Eugene, and there was even speculation that Oklahoma State had figured out what Moore's formation by his feet structure.
Perry was blunt about where this could go if the struggles continue.
"One of the things I will say is he’s still spinning it," Perry said. "Dudes are out there dropping the ball.
They’re not protecting very well. He is still spinning the rock.
And I just, you might get to a point where you’re like, I’m not gonna be a part of the mess anymore.”
Moore’s profile makes the whole discussion even more charged. He came into the year projected as a first-rounder in last year’s NFL Draft, and the stakes around his next move are obvious. Through this start, he has thrown for 569 yards with five touchdowns and zero interceptions, while being sacked five times on 66 pass attempts.
He came back to Oregon for another run at a national championship, but the Ducks don’t look like a team on track for a Playoff push right now after the loss to OSU. Big Ten play could still give them a chance to recover, though Perry suggested the more likely outcome is that Oregon gets pushed back into the at-large discussion.
That’s where the business side of the sport starts to take over. Perry said if he were advising Moore, he would frame the situation carefully and make the case that the quarterback is protecting his investment rather than abandoning the team.
"If I were his people, I would totally spin it,” Perry said. “I would do the PR.
He didn’t quit on the team. The team quit on him before, and he didn’t want to be a part of that anymore.
It’s a business he’s protecting, his investment to himself. You could hold it against him - it’s not the most quarterback thing to do… If I had $50 million riding on what was going on, and I felt like the best strategy was to just pull the ripcord and not be a part of an offense that wasn’t gonna let me thrive the way that I need to, it’s business at that point.”
For now, Oregon moves on to Portland State on Saturday to finish non-conference play before heading into a Big Ten opener at No. 12 USC.
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Lanning put the responsibility on himself when he pointed to a lack of leadership as part of the reason the team stumbled out of the gate, while still expressing confidence in both the players and the coaching staff. For Oregon, the bigger question now is less about what the outside expectations were in the summer and more about how quickly the Ducks can settle into the kind of consistency that makes that Oklahoma State result feel like a foundation rather than a one-off. [Read more 🡒]
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Oregon Just Took A Painful Hit Where It Could Least Afford One
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Jamari Johnson and Carl Williams IV are also in evaluation mode after injuries from the recent game, adding a little more uncertainty to the roster picture. There is some relief on the horizon, though, with guard Douglas Utu and running back Jordon Davison expected back soon after missing the last game, giving Oregon at least a chance to absorb the loss without having to patch together too many new answers at once. [Read more 🡒]