It wasn’t pretty during the spring, but Oregon’s Heisman finalist found a way.

JJ Anderson photo

EUGENE — Dillon Gabriel placed third in the Heisman Trophy voting last week and I think that was a fair finish. The Oregon quarterback passed for 3,558 yards, 28 touchdowns and six interceptions while setting a career-high in completion percentage.

He was the offensive leader of the country’s No. 1 team and certainly deserved that trip to New York City. And looking back at his 13 games (so far) with Oregon, there’s one moment in particular that will stick in my memory.

It was that fourth down against Wisconsin when the pocket collapsed, Gabriel flushed out to his left and fired a pass to a sliding Terrance Ferguson that threaded its way between a pair of Badgers’ arms before finding the tight end’s hands for the first down.

Say what you will about an offense that may inflate completion numbers by design, you don’t just complete 70-plus percent of your passes against Big Ten competition without having a little touch.

Or the desire to develop it.

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Tyson Alger covered the Ducks for The Oregonian and The Athletic before branching out on his own to create and run The I-5 Corridor. He brings more than a decade of experience on the University of Oregon sports beat. He has covered everything from Marcus Mariota’s Heisman Trophy-winning season to the Ducks’ first year in the Big 10.