Dante Moore admits he 'second-guessed' throws vs. Oklahoma State
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Speaking for the first time since the Oregon football team's 39-31 loss to Oklahoma State, quarterback Dante Moore opened up Sept. 15 at the Hatfield-Dowlin Complex about the postgame IV that forced him to miss postgame media availability, his performance against the Cowboys and where the team is at.
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Following a testy exchange Sept. 14 between coach Dan Lanning and media members that revealed Moore missed media availability postgame due to severe dehydration and IV treatment, the senior quarterback confirmed it was a "tough time."
"I always get treatment, even after practices and things, but that was a tough one," Moore said. "It was a great learning curve for me to make sure I stay hydrated and take care of myself and just make sure that when those situations happen, I’ve been through it already, so I’m prepared now."
Moore also said he finished the game for his teammates and wanted to "push through" any of the issues he might have been facing late, which he kept vague.
The fourth-year QB also commented on his recent play and the struggles of Oregon's offense, which has been wildly inconsistent through two weeks of the season. Moore went 14 for 29 for just 191 yards and two touchdowns against the Cowboys, was off target and off-platform on several throws and also suffered from several drops from his receivers.
"There were some throws where I second-guessed myself, knowing that I told myself whenever I throw the ball, I want to have full confidence and full trust in myself," Moore said. "I second-guessed a lot of throws, there’s some throws I missed and there were some drops by receivers. But that’s not who we are as an offense. We’ve been attacking it this whole week and we’re excited for our next game."
Moore said he took "all the blame" following the loss for the offense's performance, because ultimately, he is the one that is the leader of that unit. He said he's been pushing himself much harder this week because of it.
"Everybody loves it when you’re scoring a lot of points, winning games, and things are easy," Moore said. "But I think I embrace the moments most when we’re in a tough situation and we have to crawl and fight and get out of it. It just shows me who I am as a leader."
Dante Moore says he needs to do a better job of hiding plays presnap
Much has been made of Moore's feet this week, specifically his stance before the Ducks take a snap. Both Oklahoma State and Indiana players from last season revealed that Oregon's offense had several tells that gave away what play they were going to run before the snap.
One of those tells is how far apart Moore's feet are presnap, and Moore recognized he needed to do a better job of hiding that moving forward and was glad that information has spread nationally through social media.
"Every player has tendencies," Moore said. "It can be from the NFL, it can be college, it can be anybody … I’m glad they brought it up. I’m glad that they got it all into the media, and I haven’t been on it much, but people have been telling me about it. It just shows as a player that I have things that I need to fix, and every player has it. It can be a great thing for a team, I gotta make sure I don’t show it to a defense to help them get into a better check."
Alec Dietz covers University of Oregon football and women’s basketball for The Register-Guard. You may reach him at [email protected].
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This article originally appeared on Register-Guard: Dante Moore admits he 'second-guessed' throws vs. Oklahoma State