Bo Nicks made Oregon better. Oregon State did the same for the Knicks. The Ducks relied on him being a pressure reliever for Nix after his tenure at Auburn, confident that all the other important things were in place. And it worked! Now the Ducks are running it again with another quarterback. Study major college football programs. This is the way.
Ty Thompson did everything he was ever asked to do for three years in Eugene. Oregon State did absolutely nothing wrong in entering the transfer portal and signing Oklahoma star Dillon Gabriel to a one-year deal. The Ducks want to keep winning. Dan Lanning wants to continue pairing a super-efficient offense with an up-and-coming defense. Will Stein will likely enjoy working with the Knicks this season, and going from the Knicks to any other pass rusher in the country would be stark.
Nix my brain. He’s an NCAA record holder in his prime, and he often uses that data bank to serve as the de facto 11th coach on the field. The Knicks were calling plays quickly. You can’t get that level of cohesion with a guy making his first career start, no matter how long he’s been in the building.
And a guy like Gabriel would likely be one of the only quarterbacks in the country who would make the post-Knicks era look somewhat like what it was.
But Gabriel’s arrival seemed to send Thompson out the door. Oregon State certainly knew this would happen. With the former recruit facing the possibility of staying on for a fourth straight year after transferring, he made the best decision — really the only decision — for himself. The hardest part is what Oregon State did. The Ducks are at the forefront of another new trend in college football.
Welcome to the new sports nutrition system for quarterbacks.
By taking Gabriel, the Ducks ensured their floor would be relatively high during their first season in the Big Ten. Gabriel has seen it all in college football. It’s a profitable move now. They can reevaluate the next era a year from now. Maybe this is Austin Novosad. Maybe it’s Luke Moga. Maybe it’s Dante Moore! Or maybe the Ducks return to the gate a year from now and get another guy for a short while to keep things going.
With the College Football Playoff expanding and top sports leagues hoarding brand names like Monopoly pieces, the biggest programs don’t have any incentive to develop quarterbacks anymore. Find someone in the market who has developed it elsewhere, bring them on for a year or two, earn at a high level, rinse and repeat.
Ohio State tried the Kyle McCord route and was released on bail before the season technically ended. The Buckeyes were immediately linked to Cam Ward out of Washington State.
Five of the last six quarterbacks to win the Heisman have transferred. All three quarterbacks who were Heisman finalists in New York City on Saturday night were transfers.
The trio — LSU’s Jayden Daniels, Washington’s Michael Penix Jr. and Oregon’s Nix — should arguably be the final straw. Female athletes are trusted collectively by coaches across the country; What additional evidence do major programs need to ensure that this is the lowest risk/highest reward option on the table? Daniels left Arizona with his baggage and just won the Heisman. Penix left Indiana State and faced Washington in the College Football Playoff after a program-record 13 wins. The Knicks left Auburn with everyone doubting his game and silenced every last doubt over the past two seasons.
A coach once told me that recruiting high school quarterbacks is bullshit. You can massage mechanics. You can help bad habits. You can’t tell if a guy has it when the lights come on. With new students, you don’t know how you’re going to translate. In all other positions, growing pains are less painful.
The No. 40 recruit in the 2021 class, Thompson spent his freshman season behind Anthony Brown. He watched, he learned, he waited. Then the staff changed, and Lanning and Kenny Dillingham came to town, followed by Nicks. Thompson sat, watched, learned and waited for another two years.
He has 17 career appearances and 15 career completions in three years of college football.
Kids want to play. Thompson should play. It’s unlikely he will do that at Oregon, hence the reports that he decided to enter the transfer portal shortly after Gabriel’s commitment to Oregon was announced.
Who can say he doesn’t transfer to a new school, prove he can be the guy, then come back in the portal as a grad transfer and go straight back to a major program? This is what I will do in his shoes. That’s what I would push any young quarterback towards if I were a coach.
With the transfer portal being what it is, why would a program like Oregon roll the dice in the first six games of its season waiting to see if a young man can do what the guy in the transfer portal has already shown he can do? In the new Big Ten, nine-win Oregon is in a 12-team playoff. Having none makes the situation worse when schools like Oregon, USC, Ohio State and Alabama can afford to pay anything on the price tag.
It appears Oklahoma will take a chance on the true 5-star sophomore who will make his debut in the program’s first SEC appearance next season. Good luck with that.
Will USC do the same with 5-star 2023 tight end Malachi Nelson? Or do you believe the reports that linked the Trojans to Ward, and for a while, to Gabriel, and some other quarterbacks in the portal? Lincoln Riley turned transfer quarterbacks into Heisman winners and built his career on it.
“We’re going to look in the portal at some quarterbacks. We’ll see how that develops,” Riley said recently. “I like the guys we have in the room, but you always have a responsibility to look at guys who can improve our room.”
Washington is eyeing Mississippi State’s Will Rogers after signing 2023 4-star quarterback Austin Mack. Florida State is eyeing Oregon State’s DJ Uiagalelei when it has a top-50 quarterback committed to the 2024 class.
Landing Rogers in Seattle would create a similar situation. He will be the Bridge’s starting quarterback for one year. But a bridge to what? To Mac? Or for someone else who has not yet joined the list?
Coaches have to win.
When Nix initially committed to Oregon two years ago, he felt like he was the final piece to a team that was built to win. Oregon State felt the same way.
It’s hard to argue with the results.
“Coach Lanning is going to do a good job of putting players around the team that he believes are going to win games,” Nix said before the Heisman ceremony on Saturday. “I think it’s clear that the transfer portal has been a success for me, so I hope it continues to have a positive impact on college football.”
The landscape of college football has changed dramatically in recent years, with a new generation of quarterbacks making waves and taking the sport by storm. Among these rising stars are Bo Nicks and Dillon Gabriel, both of whom have made significant impacts on their respective teams and the game as a whole. With their electrifying play and ability to take over a game, these quarterbacks are emblematic of the exciting new world of college football. As the sport continues to evolve, the rise of talented quarterbacks like Nicks and Gabriel is reshaping the way we view and experience college football.