UCLA Football: Dante Moore Takes Responsibility for Bruins' Disastrous Performance

Not a great showing from the freshman, but there are chances to improve!

There will be major growing pains whenever you have a true freshman starting at the quarterback position. It doesn't matter how talented a player is; it just happens because of the lack of experience.

For the UCLA Bruins, they found out all too well about this in their loss this weekend against Oregon State. Freshman quarterback Dante Moore struggled most of the day, and his performance hurt the team.

But he didn't shy away from taking the responsibility, and he knows he needs to play better moving forward. This is the sign of a true leader, and UCLA has a good player on their hands.

“A lot of mistakes on my side,” Moore said. “As a quarterback, can’t turn over the ball. I know just in football in general it happens, mistakes happen, but just gotta keep bettering myself every week."

Per Dante Moore via The LA Times

For the third straight game, Moore had an interception taken back for a touchdown. Anytime you give up a pick-six, it hurts, but it's something that the Bruins will need to fix moving forward.

Head coach Chip Kelly spoke on his young quarterback and didn't scold him, but rather wants to work with him to get better.

“He’s a resilient kid and that’s one thing that’s a great quality of his,” Kelly said. “We’re going to sit down and watch the film with him and go over what his decisions were when he had the ball and how those things happened and we’ll continue to grow as a football team.”

Per Chip Kelly via The LA Times

While the Bruins chances of winning the Pac-12 essentially disappeared with the loss, they can still salvage the season into a successful one. With the freshman under center, it was always a tough ask to win the Pac-12, but Moore has to take these experiences and learn from them.

As the team enters into the Big 10 next year, these down moments will be huge for him. All he can do now is watch the film and make sure that he performs better the next time he is in this situation.

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