EUGENE, Ore. — Dan Lanning didn’t call for a fake punt per se. Punter James Ferguson-Reynolds had the option to tuck it and run, and made that decision himself.
Facing a fourth down on No. 6 Oregon’s first series of the second half, Ferguson-Reynolds entered with the punt team with the ball on Oregon’s own 34-yard line. But the much-maligned Beaver special teams were out of sorts, and once a crease opened, the Aussie took it, racing downfield for a 21-yard scamper punctuated by a slide out of bounds.
“I just went out there for a normal punt and grabbed the ball and saw a big gap and thought ‘Why not take it?'” he said after the 41-7 win. “Never run in my life, so that’s where the slide came in. I had a little bit of fun there and thought I was a bit of a football player there for five minutes, but I just saw some space and took it.”…