Lees ready to make the leap
Of Northwestern’s 20 incoming freshmen, fans probably have higher expectations this season for Riley Lees than any other.
They look at the Wildcats’ struggles at the wide receiver position the last two seasons, as well as Lees’ high school numbers and his impressive Hudl highlight film, and see a player who could come in and be a difference maker right away.
The irony, of course, is that Lees has the most difficult transition to make among his Class of 2016 teammates. He is the only one making a position change, and it’s a profound one, from quarterback to wide receiver.
It may seem like a daunting task to make that type of transition in a matter of a few months, before the start of the 2016 season. Making the leap from high school to the Big Ten, where players are bigger and faster and the game is in hyperspeed, is difficult enough. On top of that, Lees will also have to get accustomed to “being on the other end of the ball,” as he puts it -- catching it instead of throwing it.
But if anyone can make such a change in such a short period of time, it is probably Lees. He is a quarterback at heart, after all, and certainly doesn’t lack for confidence. You’d be confident, too, if you were coming off of a career like Lees enjoyed at nearby Libertyville (Ill.). Last season alone, the 6-foot-1 dynamo amassed an X-Box-like 4,435 total yards and 62 touchdowns in leading the Wildcats to a 13-1 record and runner-up finish in Class 7A.
Lees, in fact, downplays the degree of difficulty of his position change. He sees things through the eyes of a quarterback, which, in his mind, gives him an advantage in playing wideout.
“It’s not that big a change,” says Lees. “It’s one of the easiest position changes to make. I know what the quarterback is thinking and where he needs me to be.”
Lees knew after the 2015 season that he would have to work on two things to be an impact player at the Big Ten level: he would have to get bigger and stronger while maintaining his speed and quickness, and he would have to get accustomed to running routes and catching passes as a wide receiver.
So he went about transforming his body and his skill set.
The Lees that reports to Evanston on June 19 for the summer session will look considerably different than the one that came up one score short of a state championship. Lees says that he weighed about 170 pounds after the Wildcats’ 34-28 title game loss to Glenbard West last Nov. 28. Now, he is up to 195, having put on 25 pounds of what he calls “good weight.”
His secret, he says, is not much of a secret at all. He followed Northwestern’s workout regimen and lifted weights twice per day, five days per week, and ran every other day. He also didn’t play baseball this season for the first time since grade school to focus solely on lifting and running.
According to Lees, the results have shown up on the scale but not the stopwatch. He says that he ran a 40-yard dash “a few weeks ago” and clocked a 4.43.
The Wildcats are looking for Lees to play the slot receiver position, where production has dropped off considerably since the days of Zeke Markshausen, Jeremy Ebert and Eric Peterman (the latter two of whom also happened to be former high school QBs). Lees hasn’t played wide receiver since his sophomore year at Libertyville, when he was in a quarterback competition not unlike Northwestern’s in 2012-13. Lees was in the Kain Colter role, playing quarterback every other series before eventually moving to wide receiver full-time.
(While Northwestern’s platooning system with Colter and Trevor Siemian usually ran smoothly, Lees feels that Libertyville’s was a clunker. “It was probably the dumbest thing we’ve ever done. It was hard to get into the flow of the games [as a quarterback].”)
Since 2013, then, Lees has been playing quarterback and only quarterback, which means that he’s rarely, if ever, been asked to run a route, catch a pass or block a defender since. But he’s been toiling this offseason to change both his mindset and skill set to a receiver’s.
Lees has been working with former Libertyville quarterback Jake Mansfield, who served as Lees’ backup in 2014, when Lees was a junior and Mansfield a senior. Lees runs every route on Northwestern’s route tree, over and over, and Mansfield, who “can really spin it,” says Lees, throws the passes.
But he knows that running pass patterns over the summer on an open field in Libertyville is a lot different than what he’ll experience this summer in Evanston -- let alone next fall in East Lansing or Columbus.
“I know the speed of the game is going to be a big jump,” he said. “Everyone is fast and big, but that’s also the fun part of it. It’s going to be a challenge.”
Plus, one thing that he can’t replicate is the defenders he’ll be facing. “There are going to be Big Ten cornerbacks on me,” he said.
Lees is working to make the routes second nature because he wants to ensure that he is reacting, not thinking, when he is out on the field. He knows that his ability to react and make plays at full speed is what makes him special.
“I don’t want to overthink. I just want to play,” he said. “Coaches always say, ‘If you make a mistake, make it aggressively.’ So I don’t want to try to be too perfect. If you make a mistake, just learn from it and move on.”
Lees hasn’t talked to Northwestern coaches about whether he’ll be involved in the return game, but he would love to, if given the chance. He wasn’t allowed to return punts or kicks at Libertyville because he was far too valuable to take such a risk. Coaches finally gave him the green light to return punts when the Wildcats were deep in the playoffs, but opposing punters wisely kicked away from him so he never got a chance to field one in a game.
But worrying about positions or roles is not on Lees' mind right now. His primary personal goal for next season is a simple one: to get on the field, any way he can.
“My goal is to play. I’m going in with the mindset to just do my job and do what the coaches want and the team needs,” he said. “If that means to play, I’ll do it to the best of my abilities.”