Everyone knows Tyler Shaw can burn up the track. Football fans are finding out he can burn pass and kickoff coverages, too.

Shaw, Northwest Missouri State’s redshirt freshman wide receiver, is the team’s pass-catching leader through five games. But his worth to the Bearcats, as they head into today’s game against Missouri Western, is much more than that.

Against Truman State last Saturday, Shaw scored three touchdowns. He got his first career touchdown catch, a 14-yarder, to put the Bearcats on the scoreboard, then sprang into action on special teams.

Shaw recovered a blocked punt in the end zone and later returned the second-half kickoff 92 yards for a touchdown in the Bearcats’ 70-0 shellacking of Truman. The performance earned him the MIAA’s Special Teams Player of the Week honor.

Speed played a big part in the kickoff return. Always fond of track athletes as a former track coach himself, Tjeerdsma found a gem in Shaw. The former St. Louis Lutheran High School standout, an all-state return specialist as a senior, was a four-sport athlete in high school. He was the 110-meter hurdles state champion and 300-meter hurdles runnerup.

Last season, Shaw finished as the national runnerup in the 60-meter hurdles indoors and fourth in the 100-meter hurdles in the NCAA outdoor championships. His 14.03 clocking in the preliminaries was a Northwest record, and he ran 14.11 in the finals, earning All-America status in both the indoor and outdoor seasons.

“He’s got legitimate speed,” Northwest coach Mel Tjeerdsma said. “You can talk about 40s and all that, but if you’ve got a guy who can run the hurdles in 14-flat, you know he’s fast.”

Shaw was the beneficiary of excellent blocking when he sprinted the distance to open the second half against Truman.

“I don’t think anybody put a hand on him,” Tjeerdsma said. “He had the benefit of a pretty well-blocked play, but if somebody else had been running it, they probably wouldn’t have scored.”

Western coach Jerry Partridge said he won’t be focusing directly on Shaw when they tee it up against the Bearcats in Spratt Stadium. There are too many other weapons.

“We’re not going to really zero in on him; we’re going to zero in on their entire special teams,” Partridge said. “They’ve got good special teams. Jordan Simmons is a good return man, too.”

Kickoff coverage for the Griffons at times has been excellent. At other times, it hasn’t been so good.

“Hopefully Saturday we’ll be good,” Partridge said.

As a receiver, Shaw has caught 17 passes this season, being lined up inside at times and on the outside at other times. He caught 10 of those receptions in the second game of the season against Southwest Baptist.

“It’s just a matter of that one ballgame he was hot, and a quarterback will go to a guy that’s catching the ball,” Tjeerdsma said.