Nelson Spruce (L) and Paul Richardson (R) have both made resounding impacts in the recent CU Buffs football program. (Matt Sisneros & Jake Fojtik/CU Independent)
One of the bright spots in Colorado football the past two years has been the the performance of wide receivers Nelson Spruce, who plans to return for his senior season next year, and Paul Richardson, who unfortunately just had his rookie year for the Seattle Seahawks end due to an ACL tear last week in the NFL playoffs.
Richardson has always been known as a big-play receiver and Spruce as the reliable sure-handed one. Sean Kelly and Jared Funk-Breay debate who they would rather have in a fictional world back on the Buffs again: 2013 Paul Richardson (83 catches, 1343 yards and 10 touchdowns) or 2014 Nelson Spruce (106 catches, 1198 yards and 12 touchdowns).
Sean Kelly: To start I want to make it known that I think Nelson Spruce is one heck of a wide receiver who has a bright future ahead of him. That being said, I would take Paul Richardson over him 100 percent of the time. Richardson just has that “IT” factor.
Before writing this I watched highlights from Richardson’s last season and you can just see it in that video: Time and time again he creates huge plays. He provided Colorado, which was a really bad team during his career, with an offensive spark that even Spruce can’t replicate. Whether it was making spectacular one handed catches, blowing past a double team for an 80-yard touchdown, or even throwing a touchdown himself, Richardson had a knack for making things happen. He could change the course of a game in a single play.
I went back and looked at the top ten longest offensive plays Colorado had during Richardson’s senior season, and he was involved in eight of them. He had three touchdown receptions of 75 yards or more and a touchdown pass for 75 yards. He was directly involved in creating a touchdown in all but three games his senior season. You can’t teach that kind of game breaking ability.
Despite a turbulent situation at quarterback throughout his career, Richardson was one of the few bright spots on an otherwise forgettable Colorado team. His ability to generate offense by himself is something that Spruce could never do.
Jared Funk-Breay: Call me old-fashioned, but give me consistency. Give me reliability. Give me Nelson Spruce. There isn’t a player with surer hands in college football. From what I can remember from last year, he didn’t drop a single ball that was accurately thrown at him. And in only one game—at Oregon—did he have less than five catches.
I know he doesn’t have lightning speed like Richardson, but Spruce is fast enough. Fast enough to have four games this past year with at least a 50-yard reception including two 70-yarders. His route-running is top class and he always seems to know how to shake off defenders whether he does or doesn’t have the ball.
Although I loved watching Richardson play at Colorado when he was here, many people do not talk about the drops he had. That’s never been a problem with Spruce.
The bottom line is I think Spruce, especially with developing quarterback Sefo Liufau, represents a comforting outlet that will always be there. Finding fast players at the college level is difficult, but finding receivers as consistent as Spruce is much more rare and his talent should be appreciated.
Sean Kelly: I totally agree Jared. A developing quarterback like Liufau needs quick and easy outlets in the passing game and Richardson gives him that, but not in the way you may think.
It’s true that Richardson is not the sure handed possession receiver that Spruce is. What Richardson gives you though is far more valuable. Like DeSean Jackson in the NFL, Richardson can blow the top off a defense. With his speed, Richardson is a constant deep threat and the defense has to react. When the defense reacts to Richardson going deep, it spreads the field out and opens up underneath routes.
While Spruce directly gives Liufau a reliable easy option, it’s not hard for the defense to take that away because it’s so predictable. Richardson forces the defense to adapt to him as a deep or risk giving up a big play, which gives Liufau the same quick outlets as he had with Spruce.
To address your point about Spruce being a deep threat at times, a lot of those long touchdowns came against below average secondaries like Hawaii and Massachusetts. Against stronger defenses like UCLA, Oregon and Oregon State, while he still had receptions, his yardage totals plummeted. From what I remember and from looking at the stats, Richardson thrived against top competition. He averaged 6.6 catches and 97.3 yards against the top three secondaries in the Pac-12 his senior season with two touchdowns coming in those games.
The last thing I want to bring up is how much Colorado improved as a whole between Richardson’s senior season and last year. The reason for this uptick in offense is the result of two things: stability at the quarterback position and the team having a better understanding of MacIntyre’s system.
Given time to settle in his role, this season’s version of Liufau was vastly improved from 2013. His completion percentage skyrocketed to 65 percent and he looked far more comfortable as a leader of the offense. The offense as a whole ran better in their second year under MacIntyre. This year, the Buffs averaged nearly 70 more total yards and averaged 30 more yards on the ground per game than in 2013.
If Richardson had stayed an extra year and gotten the chance to play in this offense, we would not be having this coin toss because his numbers would be unconscionable. With defenses unable to focus on him, Richardson would have wreaked havoc on the Pac-12 this season, while Spruce would have remained second on the depth chart.
Jared Funk-Breay: One can only imagine what would’ve happened if P-Rich stuck around for another year. Clearly this would’ve been to the advantage for the Buffs, but the emergence of Nelson Spruce this year has been amazing and you can’t dispute that. And who knows how well Richardson would have done if he came back for another year? Maybe Spruce would have gotten just as many looks because of other teams’ focus on Richardson.
What is true no matter how you look at it is Spruce carried the Buffaloes on his back the entire first half of the season, and Colorado was as competitive as it’s been in the last few years. He had 10 touchdowns in his first five games. That’s a ton of points on the board without Spruce. And although there were only two wins in that stretch, they were the only wins CU got all year. His ridiculous 19-catch game nearly gave the Buffaloes a rare road Pac-12 win against California.
I find it interesting you acknowledge the uptick in offense this past year but mostly attribute it toward MacIntyre and Liufau growing together in the system. While this is no doubt true to an extent, it never would have happened without Spruce. He had more than double the amount of catches than the next closest receiver (Shay Fields with 50).
Spruce still had a respectable 55 catches his sophomore season compared to Richardson’s 83 the same year. Spruce also is a stronger receiver that doesn’t let defenders bother him when cornerbacks jam him at the line of scrimmage or safeties nail him after a catch. In traffic, there are few better ball-catchers than Spruce, and if Richardson has a weakness, this is probably one of them.
As for your argument about Richardson opening up the defense with secondaries focusing on him, the same could be said with Spruce. Remember Shay Field’s 80-yard reception to open the game against Arizona? You’d have to think the Wildcats were playing up closer to the line of scrimmage because of CU’s tendency to throw shorter and safer passes.
When Spruce was covered harder and wasn’t getting as many catches in the latter part of the season, other receivers like D.D. Goodson and Tyler McCulloch stepped up in one-on-one coverage. So just because Spruce might not be a prototypical deep-threat doesn’t mean he can’t affect defenses.
When you look at the two players, they’ve both been really special at the University of Colorado. But Spruce is that rare receiver that seems to do everything right, whether it’s blocking or saying the right thing in press conferences. Fans should be excited about his return next year. Every year he’s improved, and if he improves even more for his senior campaign, Pac-12 defenses better watch out.
Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Sean Kelly at Sean.d.Kelly@colorado.edu
Contact CU Independent Assistant Sports Editor Jared Funk-Breay at jared.funkbreay@colorado.edu
