Oregon QB Dante Moore won't play rest of 2026 season following concussion vs. USC

Oregon will play the final five games of the season without Dante Moore.

Ducks head coach Dan Lanning announced Monday evening that Moore, who has been out since he suffered a concussion against USC on Sept. 26 , is not expected to see the field the rest of the season. Oregon lost to Illinois in Week 8 to fall to 4-3.

That loss to Illinois all but eliminated Oregon from College Football Playoff contention. The day after the game, Lanning fired first-year offensive coordinator Drew Mehringer. He had been promoted to replace Will Stein after Stein was hired to be Kentucky's head coach. The Wildcats are 7-1 and No. 9 in the country.

"Really got clarity for us this past week," Lanning told reporters. "For him — if it was up to Dante, in any shape, way, he would want to be out there playing for the guys. But unfortunately, it's not really up to Dante. It's not really up to me. We can control the setting at practice where he's able to do things for us, where that's not always the case in a game.

"And we said before that this is a serious deal that he'll 100% make a full recovery from. That hasn't changed. Definitely feel that way. But for him to be out on the field for us right now, that's not going to happen."

A potential top-five pick in the 2026 NFL Draft, Moore returned to Oregon after the Ducks were eliminated in the semifinals of the College Football Playoff by eventual national champion Indiana. With Moore's return and the other talent that also came back to Eugene, Oregon opened the season at No. 2 in the AP poll.

Instead, the dreams of a national title have become a nightmare of simply trying to get bowl eligible. After beating Boise State in Week 1, Oregon lost at Oklahoma State in Week 2 as the offense — with Moore at the helm — was out of sorts.

Moore was injured in Week 4 after he was hit in the head while sliding at the end of a scramble. After USC linebacker Desman Stephens II hit Moore in the head, the back of Moore's head violently hit the turf.

Through parts of four games in 2026, Moore was 69-of-99 passing for 926 yards and nine touchdowns. In 2025, Moore was 296-of-412 passing for 3,565 yards and threw 30 TDs and 10 interceptions.

The 2025 season was his first full year as the Ducks' starter. After appearing in nine games for UCLA as a freshman in 2023, Moore was Dillon Gabriel's backup in 2024 in his first season at Oregon.

Thanks to the NCAA's five-in-five rule, Moore will have the ability to return to school in 2027 for a fifth and final year of college football.

Moore was replaced by former Nebraska QB Dylan Raiola after the injury and Raiola led the Ducks to a 41-27 win over the Trojans. Things haven't gone nearly as swimmingly since. Oregon turned the ball over seven times in a 17-15 loss to UCLA that saw Raiola replaced by Brock Thomas in the second half.

Thomas started the Ducks' following game against Nebraska, but Raiola was needed to come off the bench against his former team as the offense struggled, and he led Oregon to a 17-14 win.

Raiola started and played the entirety of Oregon's loss to Illinois. The Ducks haven't scored more than 17 points in any of the games Moore has missed.

Like Moore when he transferred to Oregon, the optimal plan for Raiola and the Ducks was for the two-year starter with the Huskers to sit for a year and then take over as the team's starter when Moore left for the NFL.

Now, Raiola will have a new offensive coordinator as the Ducks play No. 20 Northwestern and No. 2 Ohio State in the next two weeks. Throw in a home game against Michigan on Nov. 14 and the next three weeks could tell us a lot about how Oregon will want to proceed at quarterback in 2027.