What Oregon Ducks' Joe Lorig Said About Punter Competition, Return Game

How Kicker Gage Hurych Has Been Looking During Camp:

“Gage had a great spring. Also had a really good summer. He's doing a really, really good job for us. You know, it's always competitive. Anytime you have a returning starter, the nod kind of goes to them unless, unless they get beat out,” Lorig said.

“But also, we want to compete every day, just like every position does. So, I'm certain he's in the mix. He's also a guy for the future I'm really excited about and that I think his future is really, really bright.”

What The Process Of Bringing In Punter James Ferguson-Reynolds Was Like:

“You always want to have at least two punters for kind of obvious reasons, right? If you only have one and something goes wrong that can really, really ruin your season. It’s kind of an undervalued position. It's one of those ones that maybe people don't think about until you don't really have one. I've lived that life at times before, and it's not very fun. It can it really, massively impacts every game.”

“Obviously, anytime you have attrition, we want to replace that attrition. Like I said, we want to have the number at least two. And then whenever we go to replace or to build a roster spot of Oregon, we're always going to go try to find the very, very best regardless of what we already have here, we're going to find the best guys that we possibly can in the country,” Lorig continued.

I knew about him, obviously, we played against them, and also, he had just done some crazy stuff the year before. And so, it was kind of a thing where I would show our guys his film, oftentimes, and just some of the crazy kick stuff that he did. Some of those Australians, because they grew up playing rugby, can just do some really tricky, weird stuff,” Lorig said.

So, he's a guy that I'd kind of been following, but not for the purpose of recruiting for a long time just because he's good. And I watched other good punters film every week. I already knew about him, this best teams coordinator at Boise and I went to college together, so I knew kind of the background stuff on him, what kind of kid he was, what kind of besides the talent piece, but how he would fit in the room and those kind of things.”

“Once he got into the portal and I was able to go see him, he was a natural fit. He's he really wanted to be here having played here and that kind of a game, he knew he had a taste of what, what it was like. So, it was easy to sell him on that really likes the West Coast area. And I thought he was the very best guy in the country that we get to come here and compete.”

What Bringing In A Punter Late Does For The Competition:

“I think that the key there is, is communication. I was very upfront with all of the -- I don't I think everybody you know in the specialist room knew that we have to have at least two guys again, for obvious reasons. And so, at the end of spring ball, it's protocol for us at every position on our team meets with their position coach,” Lorig said.

“I met with everybody and made it clear, Ross (James) included, that we were going to bring in a guy, and then I was going to go find the very best guy that I could in the country. That there, there wasn't any miscommunication there. They all expected it.”

“Then my messaging to him when he was deciding to come here was what that fit would be like, because that's important, and what the expectations were for that current person coming in, what the competition would look like. And nothing's handed to you. If you're in Oregon, you're going to compete every day,” Lorig continued.

“I tell our guys, it's no different than quarterback. You guys don't want to just have one good quarterback, right? Like, you gotta have more. Gotta have more than more than one. And so that was a big part of it, is making sure that he would fit, that that's my job, to make sure that I bring in a guy that fits.”

“And again, being friends with the coach at Boise helped me to know what his dynamics were behind the scenes, some of the things that are hard to figure out in recruiting, I feel like I was able to have a little bit of advanced information on just because of my relationship with Stacy Collins,” Lorig concluded.

If He Envisions A Scenario Where They Can Utilize A Redshirt For Ferguson-Reynolds:

“No, I haven't really thought about it like that, and I'm kind of curious, when we did need a punter, what game do we miss? Yeah, because you always, you always need every single game I've ever been a part of that we needed them,” Lorig said.

“No, I guess you probably could. When you like that, but in in our world, at least, speaking for myself, I just, you just don't think like that. You do the very you put the very best product you can on the field for this season. And if, at the end of that, another guy has eligibility, awesome, but you don't, unless Ross is the guy, then then James would have the potential.”

“But if James is the guy, I don't really factor that piece in, if that makes sense. You sometimes do if a guy's really young, and a guy's really old. So, in a perfect world, you wouldn't necessarily have two seniors, to be honest with you,” Lorig continued.

“But that's, again, what we look at, is what is the go get the very, very best guy. And if that guy happens, you'd rather maybe be younger, but if he's a senior, he's a senior. He's a senior, and you just want to put the very best product on the field that you can, and then at the end of this season, We'll reevaluate and see what our needs are and be doing the same kind of thing quicker.”

How He Evaluates The Return Game:

“I'm excited about our return game. I'm really excited about our kickoff returns. Obviously, we had some really, really big moments last year. You don't get that many opportunities anymore. I think we had 12 or 15 or something. That's been a while since I looked but it's like, the ones we have are pretty important, right?”

“We have Noah (Whittington), we only call him like the primary returner, because that's typically the balls kick to our right, just generally speaking. And then Jayden (Limar), who we call the off returner, if, assuming the balls kick to the right, he's on the left side, they're both back. And I think that's my opinion. It's the best duo in the country. Just hand him, everyone say it in the country. I think they're really, really talented and experienced,” Lorig said.

“And then we've got other guys, Diere Hill to Dakorien Moore, I mean, Malik Benson, Makhi Hughes. There's other guys that I'm still kind of figuring out. Tomorrow's the first scrimmage, like, I'm not 100 percent sure, but I've been doing this a long time. In my experience, you want to have that, really, about three to each side, so like, kind of a six man rotation, which I don't think we'll have a problem getting, getting to that pump returner wise.”

“Anytime you lose someone like Tez (Johnson), it's hard. I mean, he was really a game changing player, and not only with the plays that he made, but it's the plays where people would even punt to him, or they would be a bad punt, because the punter was his coach all week was yelling, ‘Don't punt to this guy,’ to the sideline or whatever. That really messes those punters heads,” Lorig continued.

“So oftentimes it's the things that don't happen. It's like, oh, that guy usually punts really good. He didn't punt good against us. We call them hidden yards. Those really add up. If you have 11 possessions in a game, which is the average, let's say they punt half of them. Okay, so let's just say five. I'm not great at math. And let's say each punt is seven yards shorter than maybe normal. That's 35 yards, right?”

“Well, if you could add or delete 35 yards from the defensive stats, or add 35 to the offensive stats, like, that'd be a really big deal, right? Those are the hidden yards that we're looking for and test caused a lot of those, so replacing that's difficult, but at the same time, I'm really excited about Gary Bryant. He did it a bunch last year as well. He's really talented, really secure with the ball, makes great decisions, has a lot of experience, so decision making is a super important piece of that.”

“Because we have a really dynamic offense, I want to make sure that we get the ball back to our offense, right. We only have two goals in special teams, is to own the ball and not get penalties. So of course, I want to be good at punt return too, but if we just get the ball back to our offense, don't get penalties to hurt ourselves, good things will happen, because we have a really explosive offense,” Lorig said.

“But with that being said, Dakorien is really good back there. Malik is really good back there. So, like the very similar kick return, you want to get to about three. I feel pretty good about those three. I just haven't seen the other two live, but I know I've seen Gary live a lot. He's very experienced.”

Which Guys Can Fill The Spots They Lost In The Non-Specialist Roles:

“I think you're right on it. I think it's, you try to it special teams as a priority on our team. So, we value it. Our best players play. But certainly, you got to be smart with them too. So, I think you will see just what you said.”

“Who Bryce Boettcher was on three before Kingston (Lopa) was on three. Well, maybe now they're only going to be on one or two, right? Because their player, though, goes up on offense or defense. And so, who's replacing those? And you said it, without going through all the names, it'll be the some of the young defensive backs that I'm excited about, some of the young linebackers I'm excited about, anytime you have depth at running back,” Lorig said.

“Jayden Limar has been a guy that's played a bunch of special teams, Roger Saleapaga, guy’s played a bunch of special teams, just a couple names to stick out. It'll be those kind of guys. I'm not trying to not answer your question. It's just a little early to kind of know all those, but generally speaking, that's I feel really good about it.”

“I think we'll have good depth. I think we've got a mix of good younger and older players. What you don't want to do, it's changed a little bit in the transfer portal area, but you don't want to be really heavy with all your seniors playing and then the next because what will happen is you'll be good, and then you won't be good, and then you'll be good, then you'll be bad,” Lorig continued.

“I'm always really conscientious when I build those rosters of having like, three or four seniors, three or four sophomores, three or four freshmen, so that you just can kind of always be building and always be good, in theory, rather than kind of having those dips.”

What Makes Whittington and Limar Some Of The Best Returners:

“I just explained that this the day's run together right now, but I think it was yesterday this morning. I coached Tony Pollard, who's a great running back in the NFL. He was an elite kickoff returner for us at Memphis, and I was telling Noah that you have to, a big part of being a kickoff returner is having courage, like you just have to run straight at a brick wall and trust that brick wall at the last second is going to open, and sometimes it doesn't,” Lorg said.

“That's why you have courage, because sometimes you're going to run into that brick wall, but you gotta, like, run through smoke. Some people say it. And he has that ability. He's really fast, obviously, but Noah also has massive courage. He will run right at that wall. I mean, he's really special that way. And then when he gets the open field, he has the speed to break it.”

“Then with Jayden, Jayden is a phenomenal blocker. He's really selfless, and he's an awesome communicator. That's a big part of it is like helping that returner know when to stay, helping him know we say stay in the end zone, like for a touch back right, or helping him know when to fair catch,” Lorig continued.

“He really helps with the decision-making process of the primary returner. And he's very smart, very selfless, totally for the team. He'll do anything for the team. And again, just a really, probably the best communicator that that I can think of, maybe besides the quarterbacks on the team, so that combination is pretty special,” Lorig concluded.