When he was a kid growing up in Arizona, chances are Dezmen Roebuck never passed up a punt, pass and kick competition.
The opportunity to do it all.
In practically every University of Washington football game now, the 5-foot-11, 190-pound sophomore is asked to handle a new responsibility.
At Purdue, Roebuck was his same wide receiver self by catching 5 passes for 97 yards and a touchdown in the Huskies' 38-26 victory on Friday night.
Yet for the first time this season, the versatile player also rushed the ball on five occasions for 16 yards against the Boilermakers, with a long gainer of 9 yards.
All of this came two weeks after Roebuck turned passer against USC with a 5-yard touchdown toss to tight end Baron Naone, this coming before he instigated a double pass that had the ball go from him to Demond Williams Jr. to Naone for a 17-yard gainer.
"We felt like the best opportunity was to give Dezmen some opportunities in the backfield, as well as finding different ways to get him the ball," UW coach Jedd Fisch of utilizing his multi-purpose player against Purdue.
This know-no-bounds usage of Roebuck was as much about necessity as it was creativity.
The Huskies felt the need to get the ball into his hands because they were dangerously low on running backs with five ruled out for the Purdue game and a sixth, Trey Cooley, having missed practice all week while dealing with a case of the flu.
At one point, only freshman Brian Bonner Jr. and walk-on Ryken Moon were considered sure things to carry the ball against Purdue.
"We had to find different ways to get Dezmen in the backfield," Fisch said. "We had Ryken and Brian. Those were our two backs going into this game."
At the same time, Roebuck handled all of his receiving responsibilities with his usual measure of reliance. For the season, he has 48 catches for 484 yards and 3 touchdowns, with his reception average of 6.8 per game leaving him ranked 13th in the country.
Against Purdue, the Huskies tried to go deep to Roebuck on the first play of the evening. To no fault of his receiver, the Elijah Brown pass was underthrown and intercepted.
On the next possession, he ran the ball 9 yards to the Boilermakers 19, a drive eventually ending with a 2-yard touchdown pass to tight end Decker DeGraaf.
In the second quarter, Roebuck caught a 23-yard pass from Brown, broke a tackle and set up his team on the Purdue 41 on the way to a Bonner touchdown catch and a 17-10 advantage.
After halftime, he caught another 23-yard pass from his quarterback and then came out of the backfield to haul in a 25-yarder.
With 14:12 left in the game, Roebuck simply beat John Slaughter one on one for a 4-yard scoring grab and a 31-20 lead.
On the next series, he had one more big catch in him when he pulled in a 22-yarder from Brown, preceding Trey Cooley's 53-yard touchdown run that came on the next snap to close out the Boilermakers.
When the Huskies needed a big play at Purdue, and it didn't matter what kind, all they had to do was look for Roebuck.
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