EUGENE, Ore. -- Oregon wide receiver Darren Carrington -- arguably the most explosive receiver weapon for the Ducks -- made some of the biggest strides of his career on the offensive scout team.

With coaches knowing he’d be sitting out an extended period of time for a suspension at the start of the season, they decided not to run him with the offensive starters all the time in training camp. Instead, he ran with the second- and third-string guys, getting some looks occasionally with the starters.

But given that, Carrington had a question for Oregon wide receiver coach Matt Lubick: Could he play the first few months of the season with the scout team at practice, so he could go up against the starting defensive players?

So Carrington, who finished second on the team in receiving yards and led the team in yards per reception a year ago, began meeting with and playing with the youngest and least-experienced offensive players on the Ducks’ roster.

“He looked forward to going to scout team,” Lubick said. “Because if he would’ve stayed with us, he would’ve done a lot of watching. And he doesn’t like to watch. He likes to play.”

There were fears from a few a coaches about how Carrington would handle playing with the scout team, even though it was his idea.

Would he continue to have a good attitude about it?

Would he take plays off because he was so much better than the other offensive players?

Would he see it as a demotion?

“I couldn’t have been more wrong,” Lubick said.

“I love practicing,” Carrington said. “So it was fun for me to just be on scout team, to give my defense a different look and a look of what receivers on the other team were going to do.”

It was not as much “fun” for the first-team defensive backs. Carrington became an instant headache for defensive back coach John Neal, defensive back Chris Seisay and any other unfortunate player who was tasked with defending him.

It wouldn’t be uncommon for the guys to re-run certain looks with the same personnel. Typically, it was because the offensive scout team player needed to do something better or something different. But through September and early October, it was because the starting defensive backs needed to do something better or something different against Carrington.

“He was beating up on our first team DBs,” said Kwame Agyeman, a graduate assistant who works with the scout team offense. “He gave us a real-life look. He was better than some of the guys [our defense] saw on Saturday.”

And once Carrington returned as a starter on Saturdays, not much changed in the way of his production.

Even when comparing his statistics -- with his five-game totals to most players’ 11- or 12-game totals -- Carrington ranks in the top 10 in the Pac-12 in receiving touchdowns, the top 25 in the conference in receiving yards, and he leads the conference in yards per receptions (for receivers with 10 or more catches).

He and Lubick credit his time spent on scout team for preparing him to face other teams' top defensive backs. It was an unconventional choice -- a highlight-reel player choosing to play with lesser-skilled players on the team -- but it meant he got to play against the best defensive guys on the team and that’s what mattered to him.

“It was kind of hard, but I don’t look at it like that,” Carrington said. “I used optimism to just try and look at the bright side. I was over there working on my game and trying to get our defense better.”

And in the process, he got himself a lot better, too.