Dan Lanning visits 5-star Oregon QB commit Dante Moore
RELATED: What's next for five-star QB Dante Moore? (Gorney)
The recruiting contact period opened up Friday marking the first day college coaches were allowed to conduct in-home visits and meet with recruits away from campus before the start of the early signing period later this month. Who coaches see first is always an indication of the priority recruits in the class, and for Oregon there is one clear target who the staff wants to have in the mix once pens start going to paper later this month.
Ducks head coach Dan Lanning made his way to Detroit on Friday evening to meet with five-star quarterback commit Dante Moore. The No. 2-ranked prospect in the 2023 class is Oregon's highest-rated quarterback commit in the Rivals era and is the crown jewel of Lanning's first full class in Eugene.
Moore has continued to say publicly that he has no plans of changing his decision and intends to join the Ducks this winter as a midyear enrollee. However, there has been plenty of speculation that Michigan State is making a strong push to pull the Detroit native away from making a move to the West Coast.
It would be otherwise easy to disregard those whispers as nothing more than just rumors, except the Ducks recently lost offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Kenny Dillingham to Arizona State, where he is taking over as head coach.
Moore has a noted relationship with Dillingham that goes back to the latter's days at Florida State. The now-former Oregon offensive coordinator led the recruitment of Moore for the Ducks and had been a big part of why the five-star signal caller ended up picking the program over his host of other offers.
Still, Lanning has taken a more active role in continuing the relationship between Moore and the Ducks, and his visit to the 2023 prospect is a sign of that growing bond between the pair.
The Oregon head coach has already been out to Michigan this fall after visiting to watch Moore play in a game back in October. The latest meeting should give Lanning and his future quarterback an opportunity to discuss a variety of topics heading into this month's early signing period.
“With coach Lanning, he knows what it takes to get to a national championship," Moore previously said. "When he first came in, the first thing he said was he was going to treat his team like a national championship team but he’s not going to come from another school and tell them what to do. He’s going to start building. The main thing he had up there was bond and communication. That was one of the biggest things he said in our meeting.
“You don’t want to come to a school and tell everybody, ‘Do this, do this, do that.’ You have to build it with the whole team. Lanning is a great defensive coach, he was the defensive coordinator at Georgia so he knows what it takes."
The Ducks have yet to name Dillingham's successor, but the feeling has been that a decision is not far off for the program.
Should Moore follow through with his commitment, he will become a cornerstone of the future of Oregon's offense. His presence could be needed more than ever right away with Bo Nix having a stellar season potentially pushing him to the next level.
Oregon still has former five-star recruit Ty Thompson on its roster, but earlier in the week reserve quarterback Jay Butterfield announced his plans to enter the transfer portal potentially leaving Thompson and Moore as the only two scholarship signal callers on the roster.
Moore helped lead his Detroit-King squad to a state title last week with four touchdown passes capping an impressive senior season for the five-star quarterback.
The early signing period is set to open Dec. 21 with 2023 recruits having three days to sign National Letters of Intent with a college program. Moore is expected to arrive on campus in Eugene shortly after that time allowing him to participate in spring ball with the Ducks.
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