When the Oregon Ducks walked off the field at the end of the 2026 season, everyone — fans, media, coaches, players — knew that there would be lessons learned after getting blown out by the Indiana Hoosiers in the College Football Playoff Semifinal, 56-22.
A team doesn’t just lose that badly on one of the biggest stages in the sport of college football and put the pain away. You watch the film, learn what you can learn, and try to improve upon it.
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For Oregon quarterback Dante Moore, watching the film of the semifinal also included watching the Ducks‘ defense — but he wasn’t watching his team’s side of the ball. Instead, Moore was watching the Hoosiers’ star signal-caller and 2025 Heisman Trophy winner, Fernando Mendoza.
“Yeah, I watched a lot of Fernando tape,” Moore said at Oregon’s media day. “He’s a good ball player; he’s someone I respect. You know, I’ve been playing him since my freshman year at UCLA, playing each other at Cal. I learned a lot from him.”
During that CFP matchup, the quarterbacks couldn’t have played much more differently.
Moore threw a touchdown on his first pass — to the wrong team, as Indiana cornerback D’Angelo Ponds took an errant pass to the house. It was the first of three turnovers for Moore, including a fumble as the ball simply dropped out of his hand mid-throwing motion. It was as close to a disaster as we’ve seen from the former UCLA Bruin, who had many more of those moments as a true freshman thrust into action in 2023.
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On the other side, Mendoza carved up the Ducks’ defense with ease, completing 17-of-20 passes for 177 yards and a staggering five touchdowns to four different receivers. He also added 28 yards with his legs, whereas Moore was down for negative 28 yards thanks to taking three sacks.
Much of the way that Mendoza was excelling was in putting Oregon’s defense in a bind with excellent run-pass-option reads.
RPO’s as they’re known, give the quarterback the option to hand the ball off to the running back or throw to an open receiver depending on the actions of one and sometimes two defenders. If the defender backs up, the quarterback should hand the ball off to the running back. If the defender bites on the fake, the quarterback should zip the ball right over his head to a waiting receiver.
Indiana head coach Curt Cignetti and offensive coordinator Mike Shanahan install plenty of RPO’s in the Hoosiers’ offense, with Mendoza serving as the decision maker on such plays. While watching Mendoza’s incredible performance from the sideline surely hurt, watching back the film and seeing exactly how the soon-to-be No. 1 overall pick excelled aided in Moore’s improvement this offseason.
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“The way he’s just so good at anticipating throws, confidence with throwing RPOs,” Moore said. “So I just learned a lot from just watching the tape. … But yeah, quarterbacks watch quarterbacks make their plays and just learn from them.”
There’s a lot worse quarterbacks to study than Mendoza, who the Las Vegas Raiders hope is their savior after selecting him first in the 2026 NFL Draft. He won the Heisman Trophy, Davey O’Brien Trophy, was an AP First-Team All-American, and led the Hoosiers to the first national title in program history.
Moore is already studying Mendoza’s execution of RPO’s, and if he could replicate everything that occurred with Mendoza’s 2025 season, he’d be considered an Oregon legend forever. The blueprint is there for Moore to make it happen.
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This article originally appeared on Ducks Wire: Dante Moore studying Fernando Mendoza to improve at Oregon
