Athlete of the Week: Blake Shaffer

RIFLE, Colo. ( KREX ) - Blake Shaffer started playing football at a young age. He continued that into high school where he has showed out for the Rifle Bears.

"It's like the chess of sports," Shaffer said. "The contact, Friday Night Lights, you can just go out and hit someone and it feels great scoring touchdowns."

He started football in third grade. Shaffer was a running back in his early days before switching and playing more receiver and tight end. A wrestler as well, Shaffer prefers football and said he made is favorite memory this year.

"It feels great getting long runs and you can hear the crowd," he said. "Coal Ridge this year, we were down two touchdowns and then I got that one touchdown to bring us to one touchdown and it just felt great hearing the crowd."

That touchdown and the win over Coal Ridge helped set the tone for the season. Shaffer had a big performance and has continued that play all year.

"You could tell it was more hype," Shaffer said about the win over Coal Ridge. "We felt good to win because from the last two years we didn't really feel it a lot. It just kept pushing us because we wanted to keep winning after that."

Shaffer made the switch to running back for Rifle coming into the season. Throw in a brand new playbook and he had plenty to work on coming into the year. He has handled it all in stride.

"Practicing running back and going into camp and everything I was like, 'Yeah, I really, I love this position,'" he said. "My senior year I really wanted to pop off and play with my brothers under the lights."

He has popped off in a big way. He has three games with over 200 yards. In his past two games he has five touchdowns and 470 total yards.

"It's been great," he said. "As a team, we're a lot closer, it's more of a brotherhood. I think because we all got the new playbook together, we all had to learn it together and I really feel like it brought us even closer because we just had to learn it together and go through our ups and downs together."

Shaffer thanked his parents, coaches and teammates for their support. He shouted his teammate Cache Garcia and his offensive line for their play.