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ORLANDO, Fla. — I hate to say it, but leaving UCF was the best career move Dillon Gabriel ever made.
Gabriel has played college football’s unfettered free agency system better than anyone in the NIL/transfer portal era, jumping from UCF to Oklahoma and then to Oregon, where he is now quarterbacking the No. 2 team in the country after Saturday’s exhilarating, come-from-behind 32-31 victory over Ohio State.
Gabriel has, by some estimates, made $5 million or more in NIL advertising deals and pay-for-play money. By making sound marketing and business decisions, he has steadily climbed the college football financial and competitive ladder and now is a multi-millionaire college quarterback who — if the season ended today — would be No. 1 on my Heisman Trophy ballot.
If Gabriel can lead Oregon to a school-first national championship, he will go down as one of the greatest college quarterbacks of all time. Against Ohio State’s stout defense, he completed 23 of 34 passes for 341 yards and two touchdowns and the final, winning TD when he ran for 27 yards after a beautiful fake handoff that completely fooled the Buckeyes.
With that score, Gabriel became the first player in FBS history to pass for 125 touchdowns and rush for 30 in his career.
“I’ve learned a lot at each stop and, more importantly, who I am as a person,” Gabriel says of his college football journey. “At this point in my career, I just appreciate where I am at the present. … I’ve loved every bit of it.”
There were many UCF fans who used to say Gabriel never won a big game with the Knights and actually thought the program would be better off after he left.
Think again.
It’s impossible now to argue with Dillon Gabriel’s decision to bounce from the Bounce House, especially when his old school is still looking for a consistent quarterback three…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/mike-bianchi-leaving-ucf-turned-014900744.html
Author : Orlando Sentinel
Publish date : 2024-10-17 01:49:00
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