Kansas sophomore Ryan Schadler started his collegiate athletic career as a sprinter for Wichita State and even he is taken aback at the amount of sprinting demanded of receivers in Doug Meacham’s offense.
“The first couple of spring practices I was like, ‘Man, this isn’t running back anymore,’ ” Schadler said after catching three passes for 37 yards for the winning side in Saturday’s spring game. “I’m running a lot of 40-yard sprints over and over and over. It’s good. In high school I was always a guy who played offense, defense, special teams, never coming off the field. It’s been a while since I’ve been running like that and I really love it.”
Schadler appears to love everything about playing football for Kansas and he has done a little bit of everything to utilize his speed. He scored on a 91-yard kickoff return in his Kansas debut in 2015 and he also appeared at running back.
He missed last season after being [diagnosed with a birth][1] defect involving the malrotation of his small and large intestines and appendix, which required surgery.
Fully recovered, he converted to slot receiver in advance of spring practices, a move initiated by Meacham.
“The biggest thing for me is getting in shape,” Schadler said. “Meach has said a receiver will run five, six miles at practice.”
The need for speed isn’t limited to running pass patterns.
“He always want to go faster,” Schadler said. “Lining up fast is more important than anything. If we can line up fast while the defense is trying to figure everything out, we have an advantage.
“With this Air Raid you’ve got to be able to just go, go, go. We wear the defense down in practice all the time just because we’re going and going and going and going. If we can be the fastest team in the Big 12 in that category, I think we’ll be OK because you can catch defenses off guard.”
Schadler has been the first-team “Y” receiver, fellow inside receiver LaQuvionte Gonzalez the “H,” Daylon Charlot the “Z” and Steven Sims the “X.”
“Meach is so good in that video room and the meeting rooms,” Schadler said. “If you look at our film from Day 1 to now, we’ve come a long way. Our route-running and identifying coverages have come a long way.”
[1]: http://www2.kusports.com/news/2017/apr/13/unshakable-ryan-schadler-overcomes-organ-disorder-/
