BOULDER — It would be a stretch to describe Sefo Liufau as a true dual-threat quarterback, but he was a big part of Colorado’s running attack last week when the Buffs ended their 14-game Pac-12 winless streak at Oregon State.
Running him against the Beavers was part of the game plan from the beginning of the week. He rushed for 50 yards, one fewer than the team’s leading rusher, Phillip Lindsay, and that figure warrants an asterisk. In college, sack yardage comes off a quarterback’s rushing statistics. Remove his lone sack and he rushed 16 times for 59 yards.
“He’s in better shape than he ever was, he’s running better than he ever was,” said CU coach Mike MacIntyre. “He’s faster than he looks. He makes up ground, and he’s extremely tough and powerful. He’s one of those quarterbacks that, I think, the other team doesn’t really like to see running. Sometimes they’d like to see the quarterback run, they want to go hit him. You don’t see people really wanting to go hit him. When you hit 245 pounds at 6-foot-4 that’s running pretty fast, it’s a big load. It’s like hitting a big tight end.”
Liufau has misgivings about shouldering so much of the load in the running game.
“You take the game plan, you run with it,” Liufau said. “You’d like to sit in the pocket a little more and give it to some of my playmakers who are a little bit better runners than me, but you’ve just got to go out there and make plays.”
Would he prefer not to run as much?
“I prefer to win,” Liufau said with the kind of smile that hasn’t been seen much in recent weeks. “So, whatever it takes to win.”
Adding the yardage Liufau has lost on sacks this season to his rushing totals, he would have 308 yards rushing with an average of nearly five yards per carry. He entered this season without a rushing touchdown but has scored five this year. That’s the most for a CU quarterback since Bernard Jackson had seven in 2006.
“We’ll definitely keep running him,” MacIntyre said. “We’re cautious about how we do it, but he gives us an advantage, because now they’ve got to pack the box when we spread out, but he can also throw it. If they pack the box, he has reads to throw it, and if they don’t pack the box, he has reads to run it. It’s something the opponent has to be aware of. It gives us another weapon.”
John Meyer: jmeyer@denverpost.com or @johnmeyer
