If you think it sounds like a picnic trying to chase down a guy who runs a 4.4 in his sleep, try doing it with your pants around your ankles.

“I remember our team just not really getting real comfortable with the play-calls,” Colorado State cornerback Rashad Ajayi said of the 2018 Rocky Mountain Showdown, a 45-13 CU victory, and Buffs wideout Laviska Shenault’s coming-out party to the world. “And us being confused on certain things. Like assignments.”

Which sort of explains why last August’s CU-CSU showdown at Mile High so often resembled one of those old Road Runner cartoons. Shenault — Meep! Meep! — exploded for 211 receiving yards while the Rams more or less played the part of Wile E. Coyote to the hilt, with their best-laid plans either blowing up in their collective mugs or sending them careening off the nearest cliff.

“Execution,” CSU defensive coordinator John Jancek mused, “and tackling.”

How do you solve a problem like Laviska? Start there.

RELATED: Michael Westbrook’s advice for CU Buffs star Laviska Shenault: “Be exciting. Be spectacular, period.”

And if you’re a sucker for narratives, Friday’s Showdown — unlike the Rams secondary a year ago — has you pretty well covered. It’s CU coach Mel Tucker’s Buffs debut. It’ll be the last Showdown under the current contract to be played at Broncos Stadium, as the CU-CSU series is expected to move back to campus sites on a regular basis from here on out. For CSU coach Mike Bobo, it’s about trying to avoid becoming the first Rams boss since Robert Davis in 1950-54 to drop five consecutive games to the Buffs.

But to a national television audience (ESPN), the biggest star on the stage is No. 2 in black and gold. The biggest draw is Shenault, the 6-foot-2 junior wideout who’s already being floated as a Heisman Trophy darkhorse, a future first-round NFL draft pick and the most exciting college football player west of Tuscaloosa.

“You’ve got to be hungry,” Shenault said of his autumn bucket list. “You’ve got to put in the extra time, the work, all those kinds of things, to be legendary for the long term.”

You’ve also got to have signature moments, showcases, under the game’s brightest lights. The Worldwide Leader is happy to put Shenault on center stage and watch him run wild. The challenge for Ajayi, Bobo and the Rams is to knock No. 2 straight into the orchestra pit, to apply the lessons that they learned — the hard way — from this time a year ago.

Lesson 1: Don’t judge a scouting report by its cover

Bobo swore last week that Rams coaches had put a bullseye on Shenault after watching him during a telecast of the Buffs’ 2018 spring game. But as the speedy Texan had only made seven catches in 2017, they could only speculate on the burst, guess at the physicality. Related Articles CSU Rams, Mountain West shift gears, now playing football in fall

CU Buffs, Pac-12 will play football season in the fall, school and conference announce

Pac-12 CEOs plan to vote today on 2020 football season

CU Buffs announce 5-year partnership with online sportsbook PointsBet

13 former CU Buffs make NFL 53-man rosters

In hindsight, more often than not, they guessed wrong.

“You can’t really tell on film how explosive a player is until you’re actually on the field with him, like personally.” Ajayi explained. “Going into that game, I had to get a feel for everybody, and it’s like (Week 2). (Shenault) was surprising, yeah.”

It helps that the Rams have more depth in the secondary now, thanks to the addition of cornerback Andre Neal, a juco transfer from Baltimore. Ajayi is an older, wiser head, having notched 12 starts last fall as a true freshman, a pup thrown to the wolves.

“This kid (Ajayi) comes in, he wins the starting job as a true freshman, he starts every single game,” Jancek noted. “We’ve got to be able to roll guys in. We’ve got to be able to play more guys, and I think we’re going to be able to do that this year.”

Lesson 2: Make Laviska get vertical

Several of Shenault’s biggest gains in the 2018 Showdown came out of the slot — including an 89-yard touchdown jaunt during which No. 2 took care of the last 82 yards by himself — or as an H-back, turning swing routes and screens into serious chain-movers.

“First of all, we need to make him catch something longer than a 3-yard pass,” Bobo cracked. “And they did an outstanding job by going fast, getting the ball to an athlete in space. We’ve got to make it harder than that. No. 1, we’ve got to make him run a route, we’ve got to make him catch the ball.”

Of course, you’ve also got to catch him, and the sinewy Shenault is one of the YAC — Yards After Catch — kings of the FBS. According to Pro Football Focus analyst Jordan Plocher, Shenault notched 639 yards after the catch in 2018, tops among all returning Pac-12 wide receivers and No. 2 among returning Power 5 wideouts. The CU speedster forced 29 missed tackles after a catch last fall, which also ranks first in the Pac-12 and No. 2 among all returning Power-5 receivers.

“He’s a bigger receiver. Fast guy. Wide-body receiver,” Ajayi said. “He’s physical and he’s also fast. He’s a good combination of everything that you want in a receiver.”

Lesson 3: Trust your pass rush, and when in doubt

… find a leg, grab it and hang on for dear life until help arrives.

Then again, the more bodies Jancek chucks at No. 2, the less help he has for the Buffs’ other weapons along the perimeter — including wideouts K.D. Nixon, another home run threat, and Tony Brown.

“That’s going to be hard,” said Nixon, Shenault’s roommate and close friend. “Because there are so many good players on this team, you can’t double-team or triple-team anybody. Everyone’s fast, everyone’s physical, everyone’s strong. And when our name is called, we’re going to step up to the plate.”

Execution. Tackling. It’s one thing to get caught with your pants down. It’s another when the guy across the line yanks those puppies off and starts lighting the legs on fire.

“It motivated the team as a whole,” Ajayi said. “Everybody wants to release last year, just the whole season, and come out and show how much we’ve (improved) since the spring. We just want to come out and push forward.”

“At the end of the day, we’ve got to do a good job, schematically, of making him earn it, OK?” Bobo said. “And then, also, we’re going to have to man up and play. Sometimes, there are going to be some 1-on-1s, and we’ve got to win our fair share of those battles.”

Because they’ve already seen what can happen if they don’t. And if you’re in green and gold, man, it doesn’t end pretty.