Ever since an offseason contract extension made him the NFL’s highest-paid running back, 2020 hasn’t been kind to Christian McCaffrey. The Panthers’ star has played only three games due to injury, and will likely sit out again this Sunday, missing his first opportunity to face his hometown Broncos.
But that injury-plagued season hasn’t diminished McCaffrey’s hype locally, or the belief in his NFL superstardom among those who have followed his football path from the beginning.
Rod Smith, a Broncos teammate of the running back’s dad, Ed, on two Super Bowl teams, is one of those unwavering believers. “Uncle Rod,” whose earliest memories of Ed’s second-oldest son are of a curly-blonde youngster throwing the football around with other players’ kids at Mile High Stadium, recalled the first time he witnessed McCaffrey’s dominance.
“I had seen the highlights, and I heard about him, but I was like, ‘Is this kid really that good?'” Smith said. “Then I saw it for my own eyes. He really was that fast, and that’s coming from a guy who played football in Arkansas and Texas. I was thinking maybe (the hype) was because of the competition or it was because of his dad, but obviously it wasn’t. He was just better than everyone, point blank, and we saw that in college and now with Carolina.”
On that December day nine years ago at Sports Authority Field, the then-Valor Christian sophomore running back torched Pine Creek for 165 yards rushing and 127 yards receiving, running for two touchdowns and catching two more.
“Every time he touched the football,” Smith said, “it seemed like he scored.”
McCaffrey was MVP of that Class 4A title game, and in the two 5A title wins that followed, not to mention contributing in Valor Christian’s 4A championship win over Wheat Ridge to cap his coming-out campaign as a freshman. Over those four seasons, McCaffrey finished second in Colorado history in career points (848), touchdowns (141), receiving touchdowns (47) and all-purpose yards (8,845).
That record-setting career earned McCaffrey the Gold Helmet award for the state’s top football player and a scholarship to Stanford. Seven years after he left high school, he remains widely considered the best prep football player the state has ever produced, with only Cherry Creek’s Darnell McDonald (who led the Bruins to three straight titles in the late 1990s) in the same stratosphere.
So suffice to say, Rod Sherman — who coached McCaffrey at Valor Christian — isn’t worried about the running back’s setbacks this year, especially after McCaffrey became only the third player in league history to post 1,000 rushing yards and 1,000 receiving yards in the same season.
“Those of us who knew him saw his unwavering passion, work ethic and desire, so he’s built to handle adversity (like he’s encountered in 2020),” said Sherman, now the head coach at Arapahoe High School. “It’s hard to say you project someone to have arguably the greatest season (by a tailback) in NFL history like he did last year. That’s hard to ever project anyone to do that. But what you always knew was, he was going to make any team better that he played on, and he was going to make people around him better… that was true at Stanford and it’s been true in his time with the Panthers.”
Even before a tweaked quad put this week’s game in doubt, McCaffrey said this season has been “really frustrating” as he’s posted just 225 yards rushing and 149 yards receiving.
After signing his four-year, $64 million extension in the offseason to keep him in Carolina through 2025, McCaffrey suffered a high ankle sprain in Week 2 against Tampa Bay. In his first game back from that injury, he hurt his shoulder against the Chiefs in Week 9. The quad issue first occurred last week, during the Panthers’ bye, and it tightened again Wednesday.
While the uber-competitive McCaffrey is no doubt irked by his inability to stay healthy this year, his college position coach also believes the injuries aren’t a long-term concern for the Castle Rock native. Before this season, McCaffrey had missed just one game in his entire football career.
“The way he prepares, trains, takes care of his body all year-round — and the history of him being healthy and constantly able to get his body ready week-in and week-out — that’s a testament to who he is,” said Lance Taylor, who is currently the run game coordinator and running backs coach for Notre Dame. “Moving forward, what you’re seeing this year will be an outlier for him.”
Taylor, like Sherman, was also privy to many first-hand ‘ah-ha’ moments with McCaffrey, as the running back’s versatility, hands and speed were on display from the first time he touched the ball at Stanford.
“That first touch in college football, he ran an option route out of the backfield, it was blitz coverage, and he snapped the route off across the defender’s face,” Taylor recalled. “He caught it, made a spin move and split the defenders for a touchdown. That was a heck of a start for his college career.”
After earning the starting running back job toward the end of his freshman year in Palo Alto, McCaffrey burst onto the national scene as a sophomore — and, as some would argue, deserved to win the Heisman Trophy for his efforts.
McCaffrey had 2,019 yards rushing and 645 yards receiving with 15 offensive touchdowns in 2015, including two passing, in addition to one kick return for a score and one punt return for a score. In doing all that, McCaffrey led the Cardinal to the Rose Bowl and set an NCAA single-season record with 3,864 all-purpose yards.
But McCaffrey finished second in the Heisman voting to Alabama tailback Derrick Henry, who has gone on to NFL stardom himself with the Titans. Henry ran for 2,219 yards and 28 touchdowns that season, and bested McCaffrey in the voting 1,832 to 1,539. It was a 17.4% difference in votes, but as Taylor pointed out, 16.9% percent of the Heisman votes that year (157-of-929) were cast before McCaffrey shredded USC in the Pac-12 title game.
“When you look at the amount of votes that were cast before we even played in the Pac-12 championship game against a ranked opponent, that was a travesty and really a shame,” Taylor said. “I can’t tell you how many people, at the Heisman event and even after, reached out to me and said they really regretted turning in their ballot early.”
In that conference championship, McCaffrey rushed for 207 yards and one touchdown against the Trojans, averaging 6.5 yards per carry. He also had four catches for 105 yards and a TD, and threw for an 11-yard score, too. He did everything in his power to put an exclamation point on his Heisman candidacy.
The voting outcome that followed was out of his control — as are the trio of this year’s injuries that have McCaffrey facing his first serious professional roadblocks.
“When I left Stanford and got hired by the Panthers, and we were going through the draft process, throughout all our meetings and prep I continued to stand on the table for Christian,” said Taylor, who spent two seasons as the Panthers’ wideout coach before Notre Dame.
“One, because of the type of player that he was, and I knew that from being around him every day… When we drafted him No. 8 overall, I felt that electric, wired player was the one that we were going to get. One who shattered record books and a guy to be the face of the franchise for a really long time, someone you can build a team around, someone who is active in the community. It was neat to see that come to fruition… And I don’t think one (injured) season is going to do anything to change that trajectory.”
Christian McCaffrey re-wind
A look at championship performances in McCaffrey’s prep career that laid the base for his emergence as a Heisman contender at Stanford and an All-Pro in Carolina.
Freshman, 2010: McCaffrey had 12 carries for 74 yards, and three catches for 72 yards, in the Eagles’ 38-8 win over Wheat Ridge. One of his receptions was a 68-yard touchdown in the third quarter that came off a screen pass.
Sophomore, 2011: McCaffrey fueled the 66-10 blowout of Pine Creek with 15 rushes for 165 yards and four catches for 127 yards. He had four touchdowns overall, two rushing and two receiving.
Junior, 2012: In a grind of a game, Valor Christian beat Cherokee Trail in the state’s lowest-scoring big-school title game ever. McCaffrey overcame two first-half fumbles by scoring the game’s only touchdown, and also had a 46-yard punt that was a key swing in the field position battle.
Senior, 2013: McCaffrey dominated in the 56-16 win over Fairview, scoring four touchdowns while racking up 221 yards between his rushing and receiving. His 65-yard touchdown reception in the first quarter sparked the rout.
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