EmailPrintOpen Extended ReactionsEUGENE, Ore. -- As the Oregon team buses made their way toward the Atlanta airport following a 56-22 loss to Indiana in the College Football Playoff semifinal at the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl in January, quarterback Dante Moore and one of his coaches stared into Moore's phone.Moore's stat line in the game wasn't pretty -- he threw a pick-six on the first play from scrimmage and lost two fumbles that led to Indiana touchdowns. His mentions were just as rough."Dante Moore is seeing ghosts in Atlanta.""Dante Moore's warming up very nicely for the New York Jets -- three turnovers.""Dante Moore took a breathalyzer at halftime and blew a .27.""Social media, it's undefeated, man," Moore said.On the bus, he and Koa Ka'ai, then his assistant quarterbacks coach, laughed off the comments. Just three months earlier, Moore couldn't have done that.After he threw two interceptions and was sacked six times by the same Indiana team in a 30-20 loss in Eugene, he spent more than an hour in Ka'ai's office trying to recover from the beatdown."That was one of the first times that he truly opened up," Ka'ai said. "Some of that stuff came up. You can't get away from the peanut gallery out there."But this second loss to Indiana was worse, and the stakes were much higher.This time, Moore used the commentary as fuel."Once he put his phone down, he was like, 'This is a poor taste in my mouth. I'm not going to leave like this,'" Ka'ai said.Five days later, Moore announced he was returning to Oregon for the 2026 season. He was projected as a potential first-round pick in this year's NFL draft, perhaps the second-best prospect behind Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza, who won the Heisman Trophy and taken first overall by the Las Vegas Raiders.Moore potentially walked away from $50 million in guaranteed salary. Former Colorado two-way star Travis Hunter, selected by the Jacksonville Jaguars with the No. 2 pick in the 2025 draft, signed a contract that will pay him $46.65 million fully guaranteed.In weighing his options, Moore sought out advice from former NFL quarterbacks Peyton Manning and Cam Newton and Washington Commanders quarterback Marcus Mariota, the 2014 Heisman Trophy winner at Oregon. Moore consulted with his youth coaches, high school coaches and his family.In the end, Moore decided he wasn't ready to play in the pros."There's so many times when guys get drafted high and aren't prepared and their careers just go downhill from there," Moore said. "There are going to be some times I'm going to fail in life, and I'm going to keep learning, but it's just I'd rather be more prepared before going [pro]."Oregon coach Dan Lanning provided Moore and his family with as much information as he could get from NFL teams but gave his quarterback space to make his own decision."Normally, with guys in his situation, I'm saying, 'Hey, this is a no-brainer. You've got to go, right?'" Lanning said. "Becoming a first-round pick is hard enough. I think the one thing that was different is that if you look at the quarterbacks that had success in the NFL long term, how much time did they have behind center in college? How many snaps have they taken? I think he recognized it."In the back of his mind, Moore also wondered whether he was ready for more harsh criticism if he was forced into action as an NFL rookie and didn't perform well right away."If he's going to be the No. 1 or No. 2 pick in the NFL draft, there's going to be some serious expectations," Oregon offensive coordinator Drew Mehringer said. "Maybe he wasn't ready for it and didn't want to go through that experience again. I think that's very true for him. I do think we all have scars, and I think that one sits with him."Moore already has plenty of that scar tissue from his only season at UCLA. He was the No. 2 prospect in the 2023 class, according to ESPN's recruiting rankings, after throwing for 9,880 yards and 135 touchdowns in his prep career at Martin Luther King Jr. High in Detroit.Moore committed to play at Oregon out of high school but flipped to the Bruins in December 2022 when Ducks offensive coordinator Kenny Dillingham left to take Arizona State's head-coaching job.At UCLA, Moore played immediately as a freshman, sharing time with Ethan Garbers in the opener, a 27-13 win against Coastal Carolina. He made his first start the next week in a 35-10 win at San Diego State.The Bruins rolled over lesser opponents in a 3-0 start, but the wheels came off in a 14-7 loss at No. 11 Utah. Moore threw a pick-six on his first attempt and was sacked seven times. He threw two more interceptions and was sacked four times in a 25-17 win against Washington State. Then he was sacked five times and picked off three times -- with another pick-six -- in a 36-24 loss at No. 15 Oregon State.Then-UCLA coach Chip Kelly benched Moore the next week."I went from being the best player in the country to coming to college, where it's just a lot of expectations put on you," Moore said. "I feel like I didn't meet them at all. I was thinking about other people's opinions of me more than myself. I kind of feel like all that just added up and felt like a lot of weight on my shoulders."I've never really been down to that lowest point in my life when it comes to football -- the thing I loved -- and I started losing faith. I was mentally ill."Kelly's advice to Moore: Stay off social media."Of course, you can see it," Moore said. "We're human. Everybody wants to know what people are saying about them."Moore eventually took a break from social media after receiving threats. A recent trip to Las Vegas made him realize why there's so much online venom; he'd never seen the towering casinos and massive sportsbooks."It's a dangerous game," Moore said. "When you win big, it's like, 'I love you,' and when you lose, it's like, 'I want to kill you.' There's a lot of things that go on with that, but as a player, you only control what you can control."On Dec. 18, 2023, Moore announced he was transferring to Oregon. His decision came only a couple of weeks after Oklahoma starter Dillon Gabriel opted to join the Ducks. The plan was for Moore to sit behind Gabriel during the 2024 season and learn Oregon's system.Taking a redshirt season ended up being the reset Moore needed."That whole process of playing through the fire my freshman year and coming here and learning behind Dillon prepared me for where I am now," Moore said. "I feel like it taught me a lot about life."Moore was outspoken about his mental health this past spring. In March, he wrote a letter to Oregon governor Tina Kotek, asking for increased support for mental health services. Oregon has a suicide rate of about 20 deaths per 100,000 residents, which is higher than the national average, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention."Early in my college career, I found myself struggling deeply: I was depressed," Moore wrote in the March 3 letter. "The pressure and expectations that come with playing quarterback at a high level felt overwhelming at 18. Around that same time, my mother was diagnosed with cancer."Watching her endure chemotherapy while I tried to stay focused on school and football challenged me mentally and emotionally. It was heavy in ways that are difficult to put into words."Moore's mother, Jera Bohlen-Moore, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2023. Bohlen-Moore waited until after her son's first spring practice at UCLA to share her diagnosis with him. Seeing his mother lose her long, beautiful black hair was particularly difficult."The day she had to cut her hair, she was emotional," Moore said. "It kind of hit me deep. It was a lot to deal with."Bohlen-Moore underwent months of treatment and was declared cancer free in summer 2024."With me being in L.A. and my family's in Detroit, I wasn't close to home or anyone," Moore said. "I'm just out there in L.A., 17 years old, just trying to play the game."Moore's mother and father, Otha Moore, have moved to Oregon to be closer to him, and Eugene's slower pace has helped his mental health. Moore also found an unlikely outlet to eliminate his stress.Now, whenever pressure mounts and Moore needs to clear his head, he retreats to one of the few places that can test a person's patience even more than the football field: the golf course.Moore took up golf last summer as a way to deal with the enormous expectations of playing the most demanding position on one of the most high-profile teams in college football."It's very green in Oregon," Moore said. "There are trees everywhere. Of course, it rains, but when it's nice in the summertime, you can't beat it. Just being able to get away from things and being out there on the course, it just helps me mentally, for sure."What began as a hobby has transformed into another passion. After playing only a few times last year, Moore now has a membership at Eugene Country Club, where the rough is as thick as Oregon's vaunted defensive linemen. He recently took golf trips to Bandon Dunes Golf Resort on the Oregon coast and Mexico."Dante is definitely hooked on golf," said Ka'ai, who was promoted to quarterbacks coach in March. "If you can't find him in the building, he's at the driving range or on the course."Mehringer, who was elevated to offensive coordinator when Will Stein left to become Kentucky's head coach after last season, believes golf has been instrumental in Moore's mental health."I think it's catharsis for him to get out there and just kind of detach for a little bit," Mehringer said. "When he's out there, he can have fun. You can play your own game. You can want to be competitive and get better, and that's what keeps you coming back."Those are some of the same lessons that Mehringer and Ka'ai are trying to instill in Moore on the football field -- to forget about a bad throw and move on to the next one."There's always another shot in golf," Mehringer said. "You might not hit a great tee ball or make a great decision on how you're going to play a hole, but there's going to be another shot. You're only one shot away. There's a little bit of reset there that's applicable to what he does on the football field."Ka'ai encourages all of the Ducks' quarterbacks to pick up golf because of the mental strategy it requires. The two offensive coaches and six players split into foursomes this spring and competed."Golf is a great reflection of playing quarterback," Ka'ai said. "You've got to play what you're good at. If you hit a driver well, play to your driver. If you're great with your irons, hit your irons. If you're great with your wedges, play to your wedges."It's the same way in football."How do you get in situations to play those clubs?" Ka'ai said. "On top of that, boring golf is good golf. It's all risk mitigation. That's like playing quarterback. When can you be aggressive and take a shot at the pin? Or when do I just need to hit it to the middle of the green and give myself an opportunity for a two-putt?"At last month's Big Ten media days, Moore said he plays to a 16 handicap."Golf is very, very tough," Moore said. "There's some days I can shoot 86 and some days I can shoot 120. But it's just a game and as a quarterback, it's great. It's just a way for me to decompress."Ka'ai said Moore's golf game resembles his style on the football field."I think he's the best dropback passer in college football," Ka'ai said. "His ability to place the ball in tight windows is unbelievable. You watch this guy with his irons and wedges, it's pretty good. He doesn't have a huge driver. He doesn't have a huge arm, but he's playing on time. He's making smart decisions."Heading into what figures to be his final season in college, Moore will once again carry enormous expectations. The Ducks seem loaded for bear with receivers Evan Stewart and Dakorien Moore and tight end Jamari Johnson returning, along with four seniors on the offensive line. Lanning's stingy defense added Minnesota transfer Koi Perich, one of the best safeties in the FBS.Oregon is 26-3 in two seasons since joining the Big Ten, falling to eventual national champion Ohio State in a CFP quarterfinal in 2024 and then to Indiana twice last season. The Buckeyes and Hoosiers again figure to be the Ducks' biggest obstacles to winning their first national title."There's some unfinished goals," Lanning said. "There's some unfinished business. We're a team that got so close the last two years."Moore is ready to grip it and rip it.
