Brooks: Lee Adjusting Nicely To Role As An All-Purpose Buff

BOULDER – Stanford's Christian McCaffrey does almost everything for his school's football program except book flights and hotels. He's the college game's premier go-to guy in all-purpose yardage per game, with his 244.25 average in rushing, receiving and returning kicks underscoring his weekly value to the Cardinal.

He visits Folsom Field on Saturday (11 a.m., Pac-12 Networks), and if any player on the opposite sideline can identify with all that McCaffrey is asked to do, it's Donovan Lee.

There are a couple of major differences, though, beyond their weekly productivity.

Raised in Colorado in an ultra-athletic family (father Ed was a celebrated Stanford/Broncos receiver, mother Lisa a Stanford soccer player), McCaffrey entered his sophomore season in Palo Alto knowing he likely would touch the football nearly as much Cardinal quarterback Kevin Hogan.

Lee, on the other hand, suited up for his second season as a Buff believing he primarily would be catching passes from quarterback Sefo Liufau and returning the occasional kickoff. As for regularly taking handoffs from his QB, Lee might have scoffed at the possibility.

Things change . . .

With top running back Michael Adkins II sidelined because of a hamstring injury after one carry in the season's third game, Lee was shifted to running back/slot receiver. Shifting him out of that dual role won't happen this season and maybe not next.

After seven games, Lee is averaging a team-best 6.77 yards per rush (237 yards on 35 carries) and has the Buffs' longest scoring run (59 yards) this season. He's recorded one of CU's five 100-yard rushing games (103 vs. Nicholls State) and has caught 17 passes for 56 yards. Then there's his team-high 14 kickoff returns worth 326 yards (23.3 average).

LEE MIGHT NOT BE BUSY IN A MCCAFFREY kind of way, but game-day finds him with very little down time – and that's how he likes it.

“Yeah, I feel comfortable being in the backfield and lining up at receiver – really just having the opportunity to help the team out anyway I can,” he said. “I can see being a slot receiver or lining up in the backfield (for the foreseeable future). It's really just where they need me to be from week to week and however the injuries go . . . being able to fit in is something I want to be able to do.”

The 5-9, 170-pound Lee's dual roles and uncommon versatility fit just fine last week in the Buffs' frustrating 35-31 loss at UCLA. He accounted for a team-best 124 all-purpose yards (62 rushing, 15 receiving, 47 on two kick returns) and scored a touchdown on a one-yard run.

“Donovan is very versatile,” Liufau said. “You see him in the slot, you see him at running back. The defense never really knows what he's doing, because sometimes we will put him in the backfield then we will motion him out to wide receiver or we'll have him at wide receiver and we'll motion him back in to running back. He is a dual (player) that the defense has to worry about a little more because there are so many different things that we can do with him.”

That kind of flexibility, according to running backs coach Klayton Adams, has benefitted the Buffs ever since Lee made the shift into his dual role.

“The plan for us now is to get him the ball,” Adams said. “He'll continue to help us run the football, but however that works really doesn't matter to us – whether it's getting a handoff or running a route downfield. He's done a good job of it. I don't feel like he's overloaded. We've just got to monitor it and make sure we're putting him in situations where he can be successful.”

Adams called Lee, who rushed for nearly 2,000 yards (1,979) and 37 TDs as a high school senior, “a pretty football savvy guy. He understands football and has a natural feel for running routes and catching the ball and for running as well. He's doing a good job of being smooth and finding holes, hitting spots at the right time. He sees things pretty well. He's a little bit of a special football player for us in that way. You get worried about overloading certain guys, but he's one of those guys that you can tell one time and he usually gets it.”

With Adkins still not having returned to the lineup and his week-to-week status apparently still murky, Adams' running back rotation has been shuffled since early September. In addition to Lee's shift to the backfield, freshman Patrick Carr is exiting his “break-in” period and looks to be on the verge of significantly increased playing time.

Against UCLA he carried 19 times for 100 yards and a TD, an increase in his usage that meant individual decreases elsewhere. In one three-game stretch in late September, early October, Christian Powell carried 15, 13 and 10 times. Phillip Lindsay had 17 and 12 carries in two of those same games and was given the ball a CU season-high 23 times against Arizona.

BUT POWELL HASN'T HAD MORE THAN seven carries in the last four weeks while Lindsay rushed a season-low six times last week against the Bruins. Adams said those fluctuating numbers in his backfield reflect game-by-game strategies and who among his tailbacks appears to be “on” that day.

“The biggest thing is obviously there's only one football and usually only one of those guys is in there at a time,” Adams said. “When one guy is playing it's usually because he's doing a good job – not because the others aren't. You use the guys who are giving us the best opportunity to win.

“If one guy can get eight (yards) on one play and another can get six, we've got to get eight. The margin of error is really small and we have to be as airtight as we can and claw out every single inch that we can. I don't think it has anything to do with us not believing in other guys or other guys not playing well or anything like that. It's just that if a guy is giving us a chance to win, you've got to keep playing him.”

At 6-0, 235 pounds, Powell is the biggest of Adams' tailbacks, and his size often repositions him in a blocking role at fullback. “It's happened in a couple of games,” Adams said. “Just because of the nature of the position you never know what's going to happen. You have to keep playing, practicing and have those guys be as fresh as they can. We've got four games left in the regular season and by the time we're into ten snaps on Saturday it could be totally different. I've just got to keep preparing them all, and all of them have to prepare like they're going to get 30 carries.”

Powell's size and Stanford's collective ability and strength in the D-line might relegate him to another Saturday afternoon of blocking. The Cardinal is second in the Pac-12 in total defense (384.3-yard average in six conference games) and third in rushing defense (127.5 yards a game). Also, Stanford has allowed its six Pac-12 opponents a league-low 33.3 percent on third-down conversion attempts (37-of-74).

The Buffs have lost four of their last five games, with two of the losses by seven or fewer points (38-31 vs. Arizona, 35-31 vs. UCLA). At 4-5 overall (1-4 Pac-12) and with four games remaining, CU's bowl hopes are intact – but by the slimmest margin. In a 13-game schedule, seven wins rather than six are required for bowl eligibility, meaning the Buffs must close by winning three of their final four.

It's a monumental challenge, but Lee said morale remains high and that last weekend's near-miss in the Rose Bowl is “something we have to put behind us. It's a new week. We have to keep on coming with the same intensity every practice and have the same goal every week. We know what kind of team we are and what we're trying to do. You can't let it get you down. We know what we're capable of; we have to go out and work for it.”

Contact: BG.Brooks@Colorado.EDU