Athlon Sports/Duck Football has been invited to appear on the Inside the Pylon podcast on Tuesday August 6th at 6:00 P.M. Pacific. Ahead of the show, hosts Ryan Satkowiak and Clinton Boring sent some pointed questions, which we will be answering in a series throughout this week. The second is:
Dillon Gabriel seems like a perfect fit for this offense, but he has had some injury issues in the past. What do you anticipate the backup situation looking like with the addition of Dante Moore and presence of Austin Novosad?
You never want to think about your starting quarterback going down, particularly in a promising season. Look what happened at Florida State last year when Jordan Travis got injured--The Seminoles were snubbed in the four-team College Football playoff despite going 13-0 and winning their conference, then dropped to a tie for six after losing to Georgia 63-3 in the Orange Bowl.
Duck fans know that kind of heartbreak. In 2007 Oregon had perhaps its best team ever, a national championship contender led by Dennis Dixon at quarterback. The Ducks started that season 8-1 and ranked number two in the country until Dixon got hurt at Arizona in a Thursday night game in Tucson on November 15.
DD, as he was affectionately known, tweaked his knee the previous week in the fourth quarter in a 35-23 win over number four Arizona State. He tried to go against the Wildcats while wearing a brace, but in the second quarter he was one-on-one in space against an Arizona defender, attempted to juke him but collapsed on the turf instead, all three major ligaments in his knee torn completely, lost for the season.
In the same disastrous upset loss backup quarterback Brady Leaf broke his ankle and all-time great at running back Jonathan Stewart aggravated a turf toe injury. Three devastating injuries, dream season ruined.
The Ducks are in a little better shape in 2024. Gabriel is a reliable starter with 49 career starts and 125 touchdown passes, a mobile guy and a good leader. He should thrive in Will Stein's quarterback-friendly offense, particularly because he's operating behind an offensive line with 144 career starts, 9th best in college football according to Phil Steele.
Gabriel enjoys two of the best offensive tackles in college football in athletic bookends Ajani Cornelius and Josh Conerly, both All-America candidates and potential early-round NFL draftees. Over the last two seasons, Oregon's o-line has surrendered just five sacks in both 2022 and 2023. It helps that Stein's attack is designed to get the ball out quickly and provide options, but this is a disciplined and effective group: The Ducks struck for 44.2 points a game last season.
Gabriel will throw to a loaded cast of receivers in Tez Johnson, Traeshon Holden and Texas A&M transfer Evan Stewart. Fourth receiver Gary Bryant is a veteran that receiver coach Junior Samples calls "the glue of the room." Tight end Terrance Ferguson is a reliable senior and Gabriel's best friend on the team off the field. He had 42 catches for 414 yards and 6 touchdowns a year ago.
Both lead running backs Jordan James and Noah Whittington have good hands and are dangerous in space. Backup sophomore tight end Kenyon Sadiq is a fearsome physical package that Stein compares to former Georgia tight end Brock Bowers. He's from Idaho Falls, Idaho, 6-3, 235. At the Vrbo Fiesta Bowl Sadiq scored on an end around play after catching a shovel pass from Bo Nix, a preview of the innovative ways they intend to get him the ball this season, taking an advantage of his 22-mile-an-hour reading on the GPS.
All that to say whoever takes the field as the Oregon quarterback, even if the unthinkable happens, has an awesome array of weapons. And Oregon's defense should be improved this year; last year they allowed 16.6 points a game while limiting 6 different opponents to a touchdown or less.
In 2023 Gabriel missed the second half of the BYU game with a head injury, and another head injury cost him a start in 2022. At UCF he suffered a broken left clavicle (he throws left-handed) on the final play of a 42-35 loss to Louisville in September 2021 that cost him the rest of the season.
So he hasn't been lucky on the injury front, but this is the best offensive line and supporting cast he has ever had. Like Bo Nix last year he'll be able to pick his spots running the football and limit the hits.
Among the backups, former 5-star Dante Moore, the transfer from UCLA is clearly number two. He played 9 games as a true freshman for the Bruins, throwing for 1,610 yards, 11 touchdowns and 9 interceptions in a deteriorating situation that saw Chip Kelly leave the head coaching job at the end of the year to become Ohio State offensive coordinator. At Oregon he gets a fresh start with a better structure for development, and he appears to be thriving so far. In the Spring Game he was 11-16 passing for 87 yards; he also had a 12-yard run.
Novosad is a redshirt freshman from Dripping Springs, Texas who appeared in three games last season. He was 5-7 passing in the blowout against Liberty, 1-1 versus Hawaii, 3-3 against Portland State, for a total of 52 yards. Stein flipped him from Baylor in the 2023 class shortly after coming on board replacing Kenny Dillingham. He was a four-star recruit and a Top 20 quarterback who threw for 2,673 yards and 35 touchdowns with just four interceptions in his senior year at Dripping Spring High, 6-3, 200.
In the Spring throwing with a black jersey on Novosad connected on 11-19 for 143 yards with a long of 28. Year two, he seems more comfortable in the offense.
Intriguing also is freshman Luke Moga from Sunnyslope High School in Phoenix, Arizona. Moga ran a 10.49 100 meters as a junior in high school, winning the silver medal at the state championships. 6-2, 190, he threw for 1,883 yards and 23 touchdowns while rushing for 657 yards and 12 scores as a senior in 2023.
Moga enrolled early at Oregon and participated in spring drills. At the Spring Game he was 2-3 passing for 48 yards and ran for an 8-yard touchdown.
Depending on the opponent, the Ducks could win game with Moore at quarterback though admittedly there would be a drop off: It's hard to replace a senior with 49 starts. The November slate, with a November 2 road trip to Michigan and a November 16 visit to Camp Randall, followed by a bye and then the rivalry game in Autzen against Washington, --that demanding stretch requires leadership and experience. Winning all three of those games in a playoff chase without QB-1 would be a daunting task.
But great teams, truly great teams, possess resilience. In 2015 the Ohio State Buckeyes won the national title despite being down to third team quarterback Cardale Jones, ironically against the Ducks. Of course, Jones had Ezekiel Elliot in the backfield.
No matter who finishes at quarterback for Oregon, they'll have that offensive line and an offensive coordinator who specializes in solving problems and getting the most out of his talent. In 2022 while at UTSA, Stein had to solve a puzzle that included losing his best running back and having left-handed, mobile but undersized quarterback Frank Harris operate behind a patchwork offensive line. Stein retooled the offense into a quick-throw spread with lots of RPOs, and the Roadrunners went 11-2.
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