$3 Million QB Ranked as No. 1 Overall Player in Retrospective Recruiting Rankings

A quarterback at a Power Four football program has been ranked as the best overall prospect in retrospective recruiting rankings.

Oregon Ducks quarterback Dante Moore (5) throws a pass during the fourth quarter of the 2025 Peach Bowl | Dale Zanine-Imagn Images

Roughly six and a half months lie between the middle of February and the first weekend of the 2026 college football season.

The era of NIL and the NCAA transfer portal has made the NFL draft a less favorable option for underclassmen regarding the future of their football careers. As a result, many of the stars from the 2025 college football season will return for at least one more season in 2026.

One of these returning stars is Oregon starting quarterback Dante Moore, who was projected as the No. 2 quarterback in the 2026 NFL draft class. In addition to monetary gain, Moore is looking to settle unfinished business with the Ducks from 2025.

The 6-foot-3, 206-pounder was a five-star prospect in the class of 2023 when he started his career at UCLA. Moore played in nine games for the Bruins, passing for 1,610 yards, 11 touchdowns and nine interceptions. When head coach Chip Kelly left UCLA for the Ohio State offensive coordinator vacancy, Moore entered the NCAA transfer portal.

UCLA Bruins quarterback Dante Moore (3) before the game against the Stanford Cardinal | Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images

Moore transferred to Oregon, where he was committed for five months in his recruitment process before flipping to UCLA. He used a redshirt in 2024; Oklahoma transfer Dillon Gabriel was the Ducks' starter. In total, Moore completed seven of eight pass attempts for 49 yards in four appearances.

Moore's first full season as a starter was a productive one. He finished 2025 with 3,565 yards, 30 touchdown passes and 10 interceptions and guided the Ducks to the College Football Playoff semifinals, the closest they had been to a national championship in just over a decade. He was named to the All-Big Ten Third Team by league media.

Since Moore and the rest of the 2023 class have played three seasons of college football, high school talent evaluators now have an idea of how accurate their recruiting ranks were.

Billy Tucker of ESPN reranked the 2023 ESPN 300 based on what the class has done in its first three seasons of college football on Thursday. Moore was atop the list, differing slightly from his No. 2 overall rank coming out of high school.

"The ball jumped off Moore's hand in high school. He was capable of making almost every throw," Tucker wrote. "After throwing for more than 70 touchdowns over his junior and senior seasons at Detroit's Martin Luther King High School, Moore signed with UCLA, had modest production as a freshman and then transferred to Oregon."

Moore was behind quarterback Malachi Nelson in the 2023 ESPN 300. Nelson has become somewhat of a college football journeyman as he started his career at USC, then transferred to Boise State in 2024, then to UTEP in 2025 and then to Syracuse in 2026.

Oregon quarterback Dante Moore warms up as the Oregon Ducks host the Oklahoma State Cowboys | Ben Lonergan/The Register-Guard / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images