At Pac-12 media days, a punter appears
The Pac-12 media days are mostly lacking star power, with the exception of Stanford’s Christian McCaffrey and USC’s Adoree’ Jackson. Still, 11 off the 12 teams at least brought an offensive or defensive player to the event.
The one exception? Oregon State. On Friday, the Beavers brought Nick Porebski. He is a punter.
Porebski said he found out via text message that he would be the Beavers’ representative. At first, he thought, “I’ve done something wrong here.” No, he was told, he wasn’t in trouble. He was going to media days.
It is a strange honor. Porebski, a former Australian Rules football player, was a fine punter last season. Plus, Oregon State Coach Gary Andersen said, he’s got “personality, man. He brings juice.”
But of course, Oregon State would rather Porebski not see the field at all. Andersen acknowledged that “you earn your way to media day, if you will. And I think he did a year ago.”
No team in the conference punted more than Oregon State last season, and the Beavers were picked to finish last in the Pac-12 North in the preseason media poll.
“But,” Porebski said. “I think this year will be a different story.”
So, what does a punter talk about at media days?
“I was hoping I wasn’t going to get asked a whole lot of questions about offense and defense because I’ve got no idea,” Porebski said. “I’m just going out there kicking the footie.”
Twitter: @zhelfand
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