Dillon Gabriel offers 'more of the same' taking over for Bo Nix, leading Oregon

After two phenomenal seasons for Bo Nix at Oregon, head coach Dan Lanning and the Oregon Ducks needed to find a new quarterback for the 2024 season. They landed on bringing in Dillon Gabriel as a transfer at the position.

It’s a new offensive style of Gabriel, where he needs to get the ball out quickly. However, as Justin Hopkins of ScoopDuck explained on Andy Staples On3, in the spring game Gabriel made it look like it’s going to be more of the same at Oregon.

“Yeah, I know we’ve got a pretty vanilla offense there and they kept things in check,” Justin Hopkins said. “For me, Oregon fans are tremendously spoiled because we were watching Bo Nix and he made very few mistakes, if any, in any game at any time. So, you go expecting that level of perfection, which is not common, and was Dillon Gabriel perfect? No, he was not perfect but he kept a pretty high level, the completion rate was good. He looked comfortable. He knew where his receivers were supposed to be. It just looked like more of the same in a different quarterback.”

Oregon is Dillon Gabriel’s third school and 2024 will be his sixth season of college football. He played three at UCF, including the pandemic season and one where he only played in four games before suffering a season-ending injury. He then transferred to Oklahoma and was a two-year starter there.

For his career, Gabriel has played in 50 college games. He’s completed 63.1 percent of passes for 14,865 yards and 125 touchdowns. He’s also rushed for 1060 yards and 26 touchdowns.

Living up to the legacy that Bo Nix left at Oregon is going to be difficult. However, Gabriel has the experience and talent to do a good job filling those shoes and helping Oregon to compete in its first Big Ten season.

Dillon Gabriel details conversation with Marcus Mariota to wear No. 8 at Oregon

Dillon Gabriel, a fellow Hawaiian-born player, will wear number eight at Oregon like Marcus Mariota did. It’s a big deal and one that he spoke to Mariota about before taking the number.

“I think it was just more of a respect coming from the islands. Like, he’s the guy we kind of looked up to and he kind of set the stage for all the quarterbacks coming up. Not only quarterbacks, but players in general. I wore No. 8 at Oklahoma, but once I came here I kind of told the coach, I was like, ‘Hey, out of respect I’ll probably wear a new number,’ or something like that,” Gabriel said.

“I don’t know, I just kind of rethought it because [Oregon head coach Dan Lanning] said something cool about how special that would be. Then, I texted [Mariota] and then next thing you know, I just said ‘Hey, can I wear it?’ I wanted to get his ‘Okay,’ and then once I did, it’s special.”