Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy ruffled the feathers of some Oregon Ducks fans with his recent take on quarterback Dante Moore. The Cowboys are set to travel to Eugene for a matchup against the Ducks on Saturday.
According to James Crepea of The Oregonian, Gundy appeared on a radio show where he addressed the high hopes for Moore in his second season after transferring to Oregon. The OSU coach then suggested that if Moore was as good as advertised, the Ducks would have to pay a high price to keep him past this season.
“He’s a good player,” Gundy said. “He’s a really good player. But there’s people around there that feel like that they say he’ll be the best one to ever play there before he leaves. So it’ll cost them a lot of money to keep him.”
Moore takes over as the starting quarterback for Oregon this season after Dillon Gabriel moved on to the NFL. Moore began his college career at UCLA and was a five-star recruit in the 2023 class.
The QB sat behind Gabriel and appeared in five games for the Ducks during the 2024 season. In Week 1 of this season against Montana State, he finished 18-of-23 passing for 213 yards and three touchdowns.
Moore is already making a large chunk of cash this season at Oregon. His NIL valuation is $640,000 according to On3. However, that pales in comparison to some of the highest paid quarterbacks in the country such as Arch Manning ($6.8 million) and Carson Beck ($4.3 million).
Oregon is coming off of a season in which it won the Big Ten Championship and earned the No. 1 seed in the College Football Playoff. However, the Ducks went on to lose against eventual national champion Ohio State in the quarterfinals.
A lot of hope is riding on Dante Moore to get them back to the playoff, and the comments from Mike Gundy certainly won’t be appreciated from Oregon fans. But they’ll surely he assauged with a victory this weekend. That seems a likely scenario, as the Ducks are 28.5-point favorites according to Bet MGM.
Oklahoma State would certainly like to be in the quarterback situation that Oregon is currently in. The Cowboys saw starter Hauss Hejny go down in the season opener with a broken foot and Zane Flores is expected to make his first career start on Saturday.
We’ll see in the end whether OSU has enough to pull off the upset, or if Gundy will be eating his words. Kickoff is set for 3:30 p.m. ET at Autzen Stadium.
