BOULDER — Austin Smith caught two touchdowns on Wednesday as his breakout spring camp continued.
“The 7-on-7 one, it was a corner (route) and I just got in front of the linebacker,” Smith told DNVR. “And then the other, I really wasn’t supposed to get the ball. It was weird. It just popped up into my arms. It was supposed to go to somebody else but it popped up into my arms.”
Head coach Karl Dorrell told reporters that a defender knocked the ball out of his Smith’s hands. The touchdown would have stood but Dorrell didn’t love that aspect of the play.
“I don’t know anything about that,” Smith said with a laugh.
While Smith has been one of the stars through the first half of Colorado’s spring camp, there’s still plenty for the young tight end to clean up… and that should be expected.
The redshirt freshman had never played tight end before getting to CU last fall. He was a wide receiver from Tidehaven High School in Texas, which doesn’t employ tight ends. That was fine with Smith, considering he didn’t have the build to line up in the trenches anyway. In January of his junior season of high school ball, Smith weighed 175 pounds. By the time football season came around seven months later, he’d packed on 50 pounds.
How does that happen?
“Covid,” Smith said. “I lived out on a farm so all I had to do was eat and lift. That’s all I did. I watched Netflix too but I probably lifted three times a day and ate nonstop.”
Still, Smith was a wide receiver through-and-through until he went to a small football camp in Texas.
“Do you want to go D1?” a coach asked Smith.
“Of course,” Smith said.
“You’re a tight end now,” the coach responded.
Smith didn’t fight the transition at all. He was alright giving up the glamor of playing wide receiver and do more dirty work in the trenches. But that didn’t mean the transition went smoothly.
What’s it like trying to learn how to block?
“Hard,” Smith said. “My first semester here I really couldn’t get the grip of it.”
The 6-foot-5, 225-pounder credits new tight ends Clay Patterson for his growth as a blocker. But while Patterson teaches proper technique in the trenches and, in Smith’s words, “how to use my body to my advantaged,” that isn’t what stands out to Smith.
Patterson also teaches his guys about “the road to 500.” The concept comes from the movie “Knockaround Guys,” in which Vin Diesel’s character is a seasoned street fighter. Here’s how he explains the concept in the movie:
“That’s the number I figured as a kid; 500 street fights and you could consider yourself a legitimate tough guy. You need it for experience to develop leather skin. So I got started.”
Smith has taken that concept to heart.
“When you’re in there it’s either hit or be hit,” he said. “You’ve got to hit them first. Once I figured that out and started really applying that to my game I feel like it’s starting to get easier. I still have a long way to go but I feel like it’s getting easier.”
The blocking ability will continue to improve as he continues to put on more weight. He says he has the Fram to carry more—and I believe he’s totally correct—it just takes time to build up the body.
Still, you don’t bring in a wide receiver to play tight end and expect his strength to be in the trenches. At this point, he just needs to do enough to get by. Dorrell says that he expects Smith to provide a “different dimension” to the CU offense.
“He has a really bright future,” Dorrell said. “You’ll see some things and say, ‘hmm, that wasn’t so good.’ But then you’ll see something, ‘Wow, that was pretty good.'”
Smith missed much of last season with a soft-tissue injury. He was depressed. He wouldn’t let his family visit him because he knew he wasn’t going to be on the field, so he didn’t see a point.
Smith wound up playing three combined snaps in the final two games of the season, all on special teams.
“They meant the world to me,” he said.
Even earning those snaps was a project. When Smith came back from his injury, he realized he probably wouldn’t see the field at tight end. He told the coaching staff that he wanted to contribute on special teams in any way possible.
“I was like, ‘Put me in. Anything you can put me into. I don’t care if I’m on the field just for kickoff,'” he said.
With his size, strength and speed, Smith should have no trouble finding roles on the special teams units in 2022.
The big question is what sort of role he can carve out within the offense.
