Copyright The Oregonian
IOWA CITY, Iowa — Dante Moore’s parents were waiting to see their son. The Oregon team buses were scheduled to leave in 11 minutes for the chartered flight home. So, when the Ducks’ quarterback popped into the interview room on Saturday night inside Kinnick Stadium, Nate Krueger, the team’s sports information director, warned the assembled reporters they would need to be quick. “You have 90 seconds,” Krueger said. Story of Moore’s night, right? The postgame time crunch left time for all of four questions. But after Moore’s performance on the Ducks’ final possession, and throughout the Ducks’ gritty 18-16 win at Iowa, what questions even remain? Playing without his top three receivers on a night that relentless rainfall made gripping, throwing and catching the ball a challenge, Moore took the Ducks offense 59 yards in less than two minutes to set up Atticus Sappington’s game-winning 39-yard field goal. “Dante was lights out on that drive,” Dan Lanning said. And he turned the lights out on Iowa’s upset bid. Most important of all? Moore saved Oregon’s dreams of returning to the College Football Playoff in those final two minutes. Yes, Sappington saved it also with his three field goals. And Noah Whittington did his part by rushing for 118 of the Ducks’ impressive 261 yards on the ground. Give Brandon Finney a share of the game ball for his timely tackle that forced a fumble in the third quarter with the Ducks backed up against the shadow of the goal line. But Oregon goes as their quarterback goes, and in this season of high hopes, they will only go as far as he takes them. With 1:51 left in Saturday’s game, the Ducks were trailing by a point and 75 yards away from the end zone. The defense had just given up a back-breaking 93-yard drive that took up nearly half of the fourth quarter, including a fourth-down touchdown run by Iowa quarterback Mark Gronowski. If that had held, the Ducks could have said goodbye to their postseason aspirations. By ranking Oregon ninth in the initial rankings, the CFP committee showed what it thought of the Ducks’ resume through eight games. Another loss before the end of the regular season will almost certainly knock them out of the top-12. Facing the prospect of two losses with only three games remaining, none of them marquee matchups, the 2025 season, from the standpoint of national relevance, was on the line Saturday. It was going to take a comeback on Saturday in the rain in Iowa City. And whatever Moore did would have to be without his preferred targets. The Ducks’ top available receiver, Gary Bryant Jr., had to be carried off the field after suffering an apparent leg injury in the first half. With Dakorien Moore sidelined with a knee injury and Kenyon Sadiq also banged up, it left Moore with few reliable targets. Moore has lost some of his shine since being hailed by Lanning as the nation’s top quarterback following the win at Penn State in September. It is unlikely that he is going to be able to fight his way back into the Heisman Trophy conversation after few marquee matchups and getting knocked out of Oregon’s last win against Wisconsin when he was hit in the face. The last time he took the field facing anything close to the pressure he encountered on Saturday in the fourth quarter against Indiana when the Ducks trailed by a touchdown, he threw a second-down interception that essentially sealed the Ducks’ only loss. And that was at home and it was in good weather. Unlike at Autzen, it does rain in Kinnick Stadium. And on Saturday, it rained a lot. In buckets and sheets. “It was raining really bad,” Whittington said. “That two-minute drive, it kind of let up and we went out and executed flawlessly.” After throwing only 14 passes on the Ducks’ first eight drives, including an interception in the first quarter, Moore went 5 of 7 when he needed it most, including his first four passes on the drive. On first down from midfield with just 23 seconds remaining, he delivered a 24-yard pass to Malik Benson into a window so tight that Robin Hood couldn’t have hit it with an arrow. It was Benson’s second catch and the longest pass of the game for the Ducks. And it put the ball on the 21-yard line, well within Sappington’s kicking range. “He really couldn’t have put it any better spot,” said Whittington, who was on the field for the play. That’s what stars do, though, isn’t it? The Ducks were toast against Texas Tech two years ago before Bo Nix brought them back. And they were in trouble at Wisconsin last year before Dillon Gabriel did the same. But they were two of the most experienced players in the history of the sport. This was Moore thriving as he gained that very experience. The third-year sophomore now has a comeback he can point to as just as impressive — maybe even more so, considering the environment and the stakes. Moore’s best show of leadership may have come after he had left the field following his dazzling drive and set the table for Sappington to come in and win it. Standing on the sideline, Whittington put his head down to pray. He was not sure he could stomach watching the kick. “Dante told me to watch,” Whittington said. It was something to see after a game of such tight margins, that had included a safety for the Ducks and a 58-yard field goal for the Hawkeyes.The Ducks’ offense has not been the electric, explosive road show that the college football world has grown accustomed to over the last three decades. In their last two wins, both in sloppy conditions, the Ducks have had to grind out wins befitting their new conference. “That was what they call Big Ten football,” Lanning said. Against Iowa and Wisconsin, the Ducks threw for a combined 244 yards. Touchdowns have not been tumbling forth like you might expect from the Ducks. But along the way, the Ducks have been learning to win, and to do it in different ways. That should give them and their fans a great deal of confidence when or if they do reach the CFP. Because Moore is showing he knows how to deliver when everything is at stake. “I’m not nervous when the game’s on the line,” Moore said. When he said that, he was actually talking about his trust in Sappington. But it could have been any of Moore’s teammates talking about their trust in him.
