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Eugene, Ore. • It's Oregon, Kyle Whittingham explained.
Usually, you don't call a fake punt leading 41-13, but Whittingham said he wasn't trying to rub it in. He was just trying to win.
"The game is never out of reach for Oregon," he said.
The fake, resulting in a 33-yard gain from Ray Guy Award-winner Tom Hackett, was one of a few unique cards the No. 18 Utes played in Saturday night's 62-20 rout of the No. 13 Ducks.
Devontae Booker threw a touchdown pass.
Britain Covey deceived the Oregon coverage team into ignoring Boobie Hobbs.
Caleb Repp — No. 47 on your depth charts — caught his first-ever passes for touchdowns.
The game did, eventually, become out of reach for Oregon, and Utah's penchant for the unusual played a large role.
Utah called the fake after Hackett hit the cable that suspends the overhead camera on an earlier attempt, when Whittingham's staff noticed that Oregon hadn't honored a potential run that Utah tipped by the way it lined up.
Utah got another chance, and Oregon lined up the same way, so they went for it. The snap from Sean Sellwood was a little high, but Hackett made an athletic play to catch it while still angling toward a hole in the Oregon defense.
A little while later, Covey pretended to be fielding a towering punt near one hash while Boobie Hobbs caught it on the other. As Covey continued to backtrack, Hobbs ran untouched for a 69-yard score — Utah's second punt return for a touchdown in two week's, after Covey's 77-yard effort in Fresno, and the first return for a touchdown against Oregon in 100 games.
Covey said he'd been dying to try the play, which required Hobbs to race from the line of scrimmage back to the sideline, where he caught the punt.
"It's just cool to see something that you practice every day in practice, and it kind of looks crappy in practice — it doesn't look like it will work — to see it executed in a game, it just makes you pumped up," Covey said.
And Booker improved his career passing totals to 1-for-1 for 25 yards and a touchdown when he his smooth lefty toss found a wide-open Covey in stride for the true freshman's second career receiving touchdown.
His "pass efficiency rating is off the charts right now," Whittingham said.
Twitter: @matthew_piper