BOULDER – Colorado Buffaloes sophomore running back Kyle Evans hasn’t been handed anything in his college career. Evans has earned every single handoff, special teams play and, recently, a scholarship.

When talking to Evans this past week after he scored his first touchdown in CU’s rout of Colorado State, you get the sense of joy, but you still feel his hunger. The San Jose, Calif. native is now reaching the high bars he sets for himself.

“I’ve always had goals in mind since I’ve come in here,” Evans told BSN Denver with a huge smile. “Coach always says don’t just be on the team, actually have goals to do something. I set out to accomplish my goals and I just happened to get both of them in the same year. First was a scholarship, obviously, that was huge and then the touchdown to just keep it rolling.”

He’s accomplishing his goals so quick, it begs the question, what other goals does he have?

“Coach Chev says don’t speak about your goals, just accomplish them in show them, so you guys will find out in the future,” Evans fairly retorted.

Not just anyone can put their head down work to something and accomplish it. That takes a certain type of person, a trait the coaching staff sees in Evans.

“He’s full of character, full of life, and he’s a really good football player,” Head Coach Mike MacIntyre said. “He’s gonna keep playing a lot of football for us, I’m excited about Kyle it was fun watching him score no doubt.”

Still, it’s pretty incredible to see a former walk-on and just a sophomore hit the ground running the way Evans has. He showed absolutely no problems against CSU and has been blowing people away all fall in practice.

“Last year I pretty much played in every game but it was mostly on special teams,” Evans explained. “Luckily that got rid of most of my nerves so this year even going into the first game I wasn’t nervous at all, now it’s just fitting in my role at running back and at special teams. Really I’m just trying to ball out when I’m on the field.”

What has helped the young rusher ball out to this point is the updated offense that seems to fit his style brilliantly.

“I think the high tempo offense has helped us all in terms of getting into shape, undertaking plays more quickly, getting on the field, moving around, pretty much every aspect of our game has gotten better from the offense we brought in and the offense we already had installed,” Evans described. “We have a lot of potential but we still have a lot of work to do.”

The work is something the five-foot-six Evans never stops doing.

“He’s pretty short,” MacIntyre said jokingly. “I saw his dad at the stampede came up to me and said hi, he was all excited and he thanked me for the scholarship and I said, ‘no, your son earned it.’ There wasn’t anything given to him, he’s a really good football player. So I saw Kyle and told him I saw his dad and Kyle goes ‘he’s shorter than me, isn’t he?’ He’s a very good runner, he’s very strong, pound-for-pound he is powerful, he also is explosive and has good vision and he has just kept working and working. He got hurt his senior year of high school so it hurt is recruiting but I was really glad he decided to walk-on here.”

“I’ve always loved the school,” Evans exuberated. “Since I came in here freshman year over the summer, but you know I play for my teammates first and foremost so anything I do I do for them. Any accomplishment I make is for my teammates and my family, of course, I represent the front and the back and everything I do I try to do to the best of my ability.”