Oregon Football 2024: Dillon Gabriel's Impact, Big Ten Move, & National Championship Hopes

college football season is just a couple days away and so is Oregon's pursuit of a national championship to talk about the Ducks we have scoop Ducks Justin Hopkins joining us at the on three round table jhop you've been watching this team up close and personal and there's no secret that there's big shoes to fill at quarterback with Dylan Gabriel replacing Bo Nicks who's been there for the last two seasons how's this offense going to look different with Gabriel the Helman what do you expect to see from him this upcoming season yeah you know first and foremost he brings experience right I mean you're talking about a guy who's played college football for for five years now at various programs around the country UCF Oklahoma um so that experience is is ultimately invaluable and you're talking about a guy who's been productive it's not like a guy who's kind of worked up the chain and and finally found a place he could start I think he's found a place where he feels like he can Excel and one of the things that this Oregon offense does really well and did uh really well under B Nicks was just be efficient right and you know Nicks almost got um unfairly labeled as just kind of a dink and dunk guy but ultimately that's a big proponent of this offense will Stein his Mantra is feed the studs right that's that's what he says and and you got playmakers all around you got TZ Johnson you got running backs you got Terence Ferguson at tight end all these guys were productive last year and they're back so if you're Dylan Gabriel you're you don't have to be the guy you really just have to get that ball out and let those guys do the work and so I think you'll see a lot of similarities between Dylan Gabriel this year and Bon Knicks last year and I think that's really just going to be a byproduct of the offense and what Oregon wants to do jhop you mentioned feeding the studs and there's even a stud waiting in the wings behind Gabriel Dante Moore joined this team as well this offseason through the transfer portal the former five-star who was at UCLA for his true freshman season what role has he played in this with this team this offense and what do you expect to maybe see from him if anything at all this year yeah you kind of wonder if this becomes maybe a new trend in college football uh you know quarterbacks have always kind of been the if not the guy starting I'm going to take off and go find that job and you see kind of the maturity maybe from Dante Moore saying hey look you know my my first year at UCLA up and down it's clear I've got some things to learn and I want to be a guy you know maybe this is a better fit for me to sit and learn and you know just hearing him do interviews at Oregon already through fall practice he's talked about being behind a guy like Dylan Gabriel and just how much he's mentored him on and off the field and not just physically you know mentally and the things of that nature from his vast experience as a as a college starter so you know you're Dan Lanning or your will Stein you're pretty excited because you know you feel like obviously you're gonna be better with Dylan Gabriel out there he's more polished guy right now and he's gonna be the starter for a reason but you also feel like you could probably win a game if you need to with Dante Moore out there and he's talked so much about his growth he's talked so much about how he's just feeling more comfortable and letting things kind of develop and come to him instead of force it and uh so you know luckily for Oregon you play Idaho the first week Boise State the second week Oregon State third week should see some Dante Moore I would assume out there at some points and we can get a good feel for how well he's developed it definitely sounds like the present and the future of this offense and this team at all might be very bright and that future is going to be in the Big 10 which is what the this team joins as far as the league goes you call you talk about these West Coast teams on the Pack 12 joining some people are talking about how they're going to have to adjust to the Big 10 and that physical nature of the conference but power team's going to have to adjust to Oregon this is a team that's looking like a Powerhouse program and what do you expect to see from them in year one in the Big 10 yeah this would be an interesting Dynamic to me because the Pack 12 As We Knew It uh was so dynamic in terms of offense you had teams that ran a pro style you had teams that ran a spread different variations of course in between and week to week your defense was tested because you know USC and Arizona and Washington and UCLA all ran different offenses and you had to prepare for it and so to me that's the one thing that I think the Big 10 will kind of get a little bit of a wakeup call about is understanding some of these offenses will be widely different I know it's only four teams but they'll still all be different in the way they run their offense conversely though uh these Pack 12 teams that are coming over and now Big 10 teams got to realize that it's going to be a very physical brand of football on both sides of the line of scrimmage right you're going to have very big offensive linemen you're going to have very big and strong defensive linemen I think Oregon is built to to compete with that if you look at their their size and their physicality along the line of scrimmage I think Oregon's built for that pretty well uh the other teams maybe a little bit of question marks there you kind of wonder how they'll be able to handle that and of course if you're winning games and you want to be in the playoffs it's a longer season this year right so we'll have to see how that plays in and injuries and depth comes into play so I think those are a few of the things that I see from this transition and uh I'm just so excited for some of these new matchups it's going to be absolutely amazing to see I know I'm excited too Jay hoppen last question for you before we let you leave the round table this team it's no secret has national champ Championship aspirations they're one of the top ranked teams in the country heading into this season whether it's a couple players or specific sides of the ball or maybe just their schedule and how they navigate it what do you think are going to be the biggest keys to this Oregon team potentially not just competing but maybe winning that national title when The Season's all said and done yeah first and foremost it's going to be Health right I mean you want your starters out there you want to keep as many of them out there as you can uh you know you really can't afford an injury to your quarterback in most cases although Oregon might be a little bit luckier than most I think for Oregon they need to stay healthy at the offensive tackle position a little bit light there and they've got two great guys that are that are going to Anchor the edges of the uh offensive line for me I think one of the big questions I have is the secondary and last year Oregon secondary was not necessarily a mixed bag it was improved from two years ago but it probably still needs to take that next step I think Oregon's really deep at def defensive line they've got two uh returning linebackers going to be very good uh Jabar mohammad's going to be a great corner on one side of the of the defense for Oregon the guy opposite Jabar Muhammad okay we'll have to see how they are there there's a lot of lot of guys that are competing for that spot and they've got a lot of new faces at safety this year couple transfers Kobe Savage Brandon Johnson uh taim Johnson returns as a as a transfer from last year so we'll just kind of see that's probably the biggest uh question to me and last thing uh I guess biggest thing managing the road managing being on the road managing these different environments you know managing a game at anal Arbor in the big house is going to be Oregon's been there before but none of the players on the current roster have been there uh it's going to be a different environment it's going to be different uh football so you know different schedule different time time zones all that stuff you know I'm sure they'll work their best to manage that but it's going to be different and there will be learning curves for everybody no Oregon's definitely going to have to do some adapting I know fans are even going to have to do some adapting to watch these matchups play out in real time but jhop thanks for so much for giving us the Intel for all the Intel and all things on Oregan make sure you get yourself a membership at scoop duck they're doing it like no one else when it comes to covering the Oregon Ducks and if you haven't already make sure you subscribe to us on the round table here give us a comment give us a like let us know how you think organ's doing this here and jhop thanks again no problem