re: Could the fake punt be used as a primary formation for an offense?

The "Short Punt" formation was a single wing passing formation used by early teams to take advantage of the forward pass rule by spreading defenses out. It was still a solid run formation, though not nearly as reliable as the traditional single wing. It wasn't uncommon to see plenty of early down kicks as part of game strategy either. Michigan used it under Fielding Yost, at Vanderbilt under Dan McGuin, and at Princeton under Bill Roper. The NFL's NY Giants used it as a base formation under Benny Friedman in 1931, and the Bears shifted to it in the 1956 Championship after falling behind. TCU used a variation of the Short Punt formation under Dutch Meyers, in which they would use 2 wingbacks as opposed to just one.