Laviska Shenault says he isn’t losing his long dreadlocks. And the former CU Buffs star isn’t taking a slip to the second round of the NFL draft personally.
“I think itap just another door opened, just another level unlocked,” said Shenault, who was selected by the Jacksonville Jaguars early Friday night with pick No. 42 in the NFL Draft.
“There (are) plenty more levels to it, so I’m not stopping right now. And (I’m) just going to keep on leveling up. Itap all actions.”
One of the most explosive players ever to wear a Buffs uniform is taking his play-anywhere, do-anything action to the north Florida coast — where he’ll pair with a former Pac-12 sparring partner, ex-Washington State quarterback Gardner Minshew.
“I didn’t (follow Minshew Mania), not as much,” said Shenault, who became the first CU player taken before pick No. 45 since 2011, when ex-Buffs Nate Solder and Jimmy Smith were both plucked in the first round. “But I knew when he started playing (in the NFL), he definitely made a mark.”
Assuming his health is sound, the Jaguars are getting one of the most dynamic offensive weapons in the Pac-12, if not all of college football, over the last two autumns.
An all-purpose threat, the 6-foot-1, 227-pound Shenault played just about everywhere but tight end and offensive line within the CU offense since the start of the 2018 season. Of his 191 touches at CU, 101 went for a first down or a touchdown.
Shenault appeared in 27 games over three seasons with the Buffs, recording 149 career receptions for 1,943 yards and 10 touchdowns; 42 rushes for 280 yards and seven touchdowns; and a punt-return touchdown in 2017.
His 149 catches rank No. 8 all time on the CU career list. Shenault elected last December to forgo his senior season to enter the 2020 draft.
The Texan was a first-team All-Pac-12 selection in 2018, a season in which he led all of the FBS in catches per game (9.6) and was fourth nationally in receiving yards per contest (112.3).
Unlike many of his receiving peers, Shenault relished contact as a collegian, making him just as effective out of the backfield as on the perimeter. Despite being built more like a linebacker than a conventional wideout, that physical approach also took its toll on the Texan’s body.
Shenault missed three games of a breakout 2018 season with shoulder and toe problems, both of which required offseason surgery after his sophomore year. The former Buffs star continued to be star-crossed on the health front as a junior, missing a game and several weeks of the 2019 campaign with a core muscle issue in his upper body.
The Texan declined surgery on that core muscle problem until it recurred during the NFL scouting combine in late February, at which he posted a 4.58 time in the 40-yard dash. Shenault shut down his pre-draft prep for surgery shortly after that, a decision that was expected to sideline him for four to six weeks.
“If I was perfectly healthy (at the combine),” Shenault said, “I really think (I’d have run) anywhere between 4.39 to 4.44.”
The doctor who performed the surgery, William Meyers, earlier this month sent a signed letter to all 32 NFL teams insisting that he’d given Shenault a clean bill of health.
“I think I did meet with (the Jags) at the combine and I had just a lot of talks with the receivers coach,” Shenault said of Jacksonville assistant Keenan McCardell. “He said he just liked me overall, he likes me as a player, and he likes how I can move around everywhere and just dominate in every position. We didn’t spend that much time together … it was kind of shocking (that they took me), to be honest.”
