Chris Simms. Credit: NBC
By Tyler Lauletta on

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Oregon quarterback Dante Moore left the field in an ambulance after taking a brutal late hit from USC linebacker Desman Stephens on Saturday night.

Moore had clearly started his slide before Stephens made his move to tackle, and the resulting hit was an obvious targeting penalty.

At halftime, NBC analyst Chris Simms weighed in on the moment and might have misread the situation a bit with his take on the play.

“It was a Debbie Downer moment,” Simms said. “We want to see these teams be at their best. He’s one of the best players in college football.”

Simms went on to argue that some of the fault for the hit was on Moore for sliding late.

“I think the first thing that comes to my mind is what my dad said to me when I became the starting quarterback at the University of Texas. ‘Hey Christopher, when you get out there running around, make sure you get down in time and don’t take any big hits.’ That’s part of being a quarterback. When you’re out in the open, big guys like him, they go, ‘Oh I can hit the quarterback.’ So there is that. You want to slide in plenty of time to keep your body safe.”

He then empathized with defensive players in modern football, as there are a lot of rules protecting offensive players right now.

“You’ve got to also have a little soft spot in your heart for defenders right now. You’ve got to think about, Dante Moore’s 6-foot-3, 220 pounds. He’s running at you. The defender Stephens is bracing himself getting ready to get low to make the tackle, so yes, you the defender have to know in this day and age that you’ve got to be careful with the quarterback. But I would also say, Dante Moore I think slid very late, and put the defender in a kind of no-win situation.”

Later in the conversation, Simms added that while he believed it was a tough play, Stephens’s apparent celebrations after the play were “a bad look” for the Trojans.

“I do want to say again, just to make sure, I think we all thought he slid late. Desman Stephens has to know we’re in 2026 college football. They’re going to protect the players. They’re going to protect the quarterback. And what Joshua said adds a little more salt and vinegar to the situation. The fact that Desman Stephens was over on the sidelines laughing, guys were coming over to him dapping him up, saying good job, that was a bad look for USC.”

The argument Simms is making has been valid in plenty of cases of recent roughing calls that go against defenders in order to protect quarterbacks. All of those times Patrick Mahomes would dance on the sidelines come to mind. But Moore’s slide sure didn’t look like that sort of play. While Simms argued it was a late slide, watching in real time, Moore goes for the slide basically as soon as he crosses the line to gain, and a solid beat before Stephens launching himself at him. What constitutes a “late slide” is a judgment call, but let’s just say we’ve seen later.

Also, while Simms is right that Moore’s injury is a disappointment because these are two good teams that we as football fans would like to see at full strength, when Moore is getting carted off the field in an ambulance, that should probably be more of a third- or fourth-tier concern, rather than the first thing mentioned to start halftime.

Again, Simms’s arguments are perfectly reasonable football takes, but in the moment, they felt a bit off the mark, as several fans watching pointed out.

Football is a dangerous sport, and scary things can happen on a bang-bang play like that. Simms is right that the current game is hard for defensive players, and rightfully called out Stephens for his casual attitude after the hit. Plenty of people were on his side as well.

Ultimately, it does feel like the reaction more than the hit itself may be what leaves USC with a potential punishment from the Big Ten, as Nicole Auerbach pointed out on the halftime show. We’ll know more in the coming days.

About Tyler Lauletta

Tyler is a editorial contributor at Awful Announcing, with previous stops at Sports Illustrated and Business Insider during his career covering sports in digital media. He is, begrudgingly, a Truster of the Process and general Philly sports sicko.

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