By Adam Kilgore
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, December 30, 2007

JACKSONVILLE, Fla., Dec. 30 -- Michael Crabtree had never played wide receiver when he first attended a Texas Tech practice. He played quarterback in high school at Dallas Carter High, but he refused any school that wanted him to play behind center.

Texas Tech saw him as a wideout, too, which helped the Red Raiders land him. That first practice two years ago, Crabtree watched quarterback Graham Harrell throw passes.

"Man, he's a good quarterback," Crabtree said to himself. "If I played receiver, it could work out."

One-hundred-twenty-five catches, 1,861 yards, 21 touchdowns and 1 Biletnikoff Award later, it's safe to say it worked out. Crabtree's historic redshirt freshman season, in which he broke every significant freshman receiving record, may set him up for an even more unprecedented pursuit: a run at next season's Heisman Trophy. He can launch his campaign Monday, against No. 22 Virginia in the Gator Bowl.

"I think he definitely should" be considered for the Heisman, Texas Tech Coach Mike Leach said. "And I think he will, because he's on the radar screen now. The hardest thing sometimes is to get on the radar screen, and he is."

In researching Crabtree, Virginia Coach Al Groh spoke with Texas A&M interim coach Gary Darnell, who coached under Groh at Wake Forest in the 1980s. Darnell offered more of a warning than advice.

"After you watch the tape, however good you think he is, he's better," Darnell told Groh.

Crabtree accelerates like a gust of wind, taking quick, short passes then zipping past defenders who perhaps couldn't tackle him anyway. At 6 feet 3 and 208 pounds, he can unleash his 34-inch vertical leap as easily on a dead sprint as he can standing still, a skill he honed while playing basketball well enough to receive about 20 scholarship offers and also pique some interest from Bob Knight.

Coach Mike Leach said he anticipated greatness from Crabtree, "as far as his ability to do things that other people couldn't. . . . The $64 question with these guys is always how they adjust. He didn't have any real adjustment period."

As staggering as his final numbers were, they hardly do justice to the first six games of his career, perhaps the most dominant stretch for a wide receiver in college football history. Some perspective:

* In the seventh game of his career, Crabtree caught eight balls for 170 yards and no touchdowns. Those totals actually hurt his averages of 11.7 catches, 179 yards 1.7 touchdowns over the first six games.

* He had consecutive games gaining 244 and 237 yards, against Rice and Oklahoma State. Those games alone would have made him Virginia's leading receiver, 79 yards more than tight end Tom Santi's 402.

* If Crabtree had not caught a touchdown pass in the entire second half of the season, he still would have tied for the 14th-best season ever. If he hadn't caught another pass over that stretch, he would have finished 22nd in the nation with 1,079 yards.

"You got to where you just kind of expected it," Texas Tech receivers coach Lincoln Riley said. "It was an unbelievable streak."

He seemed on the verge of breaking Troy Edwards's record of 27 touchdowns, set in 1998 at Louisiana Tech. He settled for 21, tied for fifth all-time. Whether he can break Edwards's career record of 50 may hinge on how many seasons he stays at Texas Tech. Because he redshirted, he can leave after next season.

Should Crabtree bolt, next season will be his chance to prove he can win the Heisman Trophy by catching the football. Only two wide receivers have ever won -- Tim Brown of Notre Dame in 1987 and Desmond Howard of Michigan in 1991 -- and both made some of their most indelible plays returning kicks.

Even if you count tight ends Leon Hart (Notre Dame, 1949) and Larry Kelley (Yale, 1936), that makes four receivers out of 73 winners. Crabtree does not play on special teams, and "you have to also return punts and kicks to win the Heisman as a receiver," said Chris Huston, who runs the Web site HeismanPundit.com.

But for every detriment, Crabtree smashes conventional thinking. Those who decry Crabtree's numbers as a byproduct of Texas Tech's unconventional offense may want to consider that no Red Raider had caught more than 98 passes or gained 1,300 yards receiving under Leach before Crabtree.

"It's just kind of a foolish thing to say," Leach said. "Everybody's got a system."

Said Riley: "We don't have magical routes. We run posts and curls and all the same routes everybody else runs."

But nobody, perhaps, runs them with more success than Crabtree, whose career is working out better than even he imagined.