Dillon Gabriel returned to school for a reason and Senior Bowl director Jim Nagy didn’t blame the left-handed quarterback.
Gabriel will finish up at Oregon in 2024 before taking a chance at the NFL. While he wasn’t the top prospect in the 2024 draft class, Nagy thought the UCF and Oklahoma quarterback would be selected.
However, he was appreciative to see Gabriel take some time and get even better this upcoming season.
“It’ll be interesting to see,” Nagy said on Andy Staples On3. “I think where people have to understand is there’s a difference between being a really good college quarterback, which obviously Dillon is, and being a great pro prospect. So, you know, a lot of times fans scratch their head like why would Dillon Gabriel go back to school? I think what he said is where the league had him. Because we have those conversations with teams. That’s part of our process is we have those you know, we try to gauge where the league is at.”
Gabriel played two seasons at Oklahoma but had one year of eligibility left and opted to play for the Ducks. In two years with the Sooners, he had 6,828 yards, 55 touchdowns, 12 interceptions and a 66% completion percentage.
Gabriel and Tua Tagovailoa are very similar quarterbacks, according to Nagy. Aside from being lefties and from Hawaii, they play similarly at a similar build.
“He’s going into an offense, you know, very smart of him, he’s going to school where a guy just came from being a first round draft pick,” Nagy said. “So we will see, you know, I mean, Dillon obviously a little undersized guy and he made comments when he didn’t get a Senior Bowl invite that was part of his decision making process. So I’m excited to see it man … We talked about it on the show last year, I think the Tua comparisons are real. Those guys both being from Hawaii and everything, that stuff aside, you watch him throw, you watch him play.
“I mean, there’s some similarities there. So, I mean, I thought he would get drafted. I did think if he came out, he would have been drafted and there weren’t a whole lot of guys that even got picked this year at the quarterback position … But it’ll be interesting to see Dillon in Eugene. We’re excited to see him.”
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