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Oregon State senior Nick Porebski has been named to the Ray Guy Award Watch List, which is given annually to the nation’s top collegiate punter. Porebski, who hails from Melbourne, Australia, comes into the 2017 season with the fifth-best career average in Oregon State history, at 41.2 yards per punt, trailing only Dainard Paulson (1958-59 – played for the New York Jets), Sam Paulescu (2004-05 – played for the Denver Broncos, Dallas Cowboys and Washington Redskins), Gary Houser (1965-67) and Johnny Hekker (2008-11, currently with the Los Angeles Rams). He is just 0.1 yards shy of Hekker and less than a full yard behind No. 3 Houser. Porebski averaged 41.3 yards per punt in 2016, with 18 of his 64 attempts landing inside an opponent’s 20-yard-line. He also had seven of 50-plus yards, including a season-best 66-yarder against Colorado. That not only tied his career long, set against UCLA the previous season, but also tied for the 10th-longest in Oregon State history. orebski earned Pac-12 Conference All-Academic Second-Team honors as a sociology last season – he has since earned his degree. He joins Ryan Nall (Maxwell Award) and Sumner Houston (Rimington Trophy), as of Wednesday, on watch lists for the 2017 season. Oregon State returns to the practice field later this month in preparation for the 2017 football season. Season tickets and mini plans are available at BeaverTickets.com for the six-game home schedule that includes visits from Portland State, Minnesota, Washington, Colorado, Stanford, and Arizona State.
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Oregon sophomore Jake Hanson is on the fall watch list for the award honoring college football’s best center, as announced Tuesday by the Rimington Trophy Committee. Hanson earned honorable mention all-Pac-12 accolades after starting all 12 games for the Ducks as a redshirt freshman in 2016. The human physiology major was also second-team academic all-conference. Of the 70 players on the Rimington Trophy fallwatch list, just 10 are sophomores, including Hanson. Hanson and his linemates helped Oregon average 226.42 rushing yards per game in 2016, second-most in the Pac-12 Conference. The Rimington Trophy, first awarded in 2000, is overseen by the Boomer Esiason Foundation and has helped raise nearly $3 million for the cystic fibrosis community. It is named for former Nebraska all-American Dave Rimington, who won the Outland Trophy as college football’s top interior lineman in 1981 and 1982. The Rimington Trophy winner is selected using all-America teams compiled by the Walter Camp Football Foundation, The Sporting News and the Football Writers Association of America. The Rimington’s committee holds a vote in the event of a tie.