It has been 2½ years since he played the position every day, but Patrick Devenny still walks to the line of scrimmage thinking like a quarterback.

Sometimes it serves him well. Sometimes it can hurt real bad.

The fourth-year junior from Roseville, Calif., became a tight end in 2006 when coach Dan Hawkins took over in Boulder. Devenny was recruited to play quarterback by former coach Gary Barnett, who was fired following the 2005 regular season.

Devenny had never learned to block, run pass routes or the proper technique to catch the ball prior to his introduction to his new position. There was a long learning curve, sometimes longer than even he expected.

He played in six games last season but caught only one pass. It went for a touchdown. He knew there wouldn’t be a lot of playing time with players such as Riar Geer, Tyson Devree and Joe Sanders on the depth chart ahead of him, but it still made for a long season. He’s still looking for his first letter.

He admits there have been plenty of times he has wondered if he made the right decision to stick it out at CU instead of transferring elsewhere to remain a quarterback.

He always comes back to the same conclusion.

“Coming out of high school, I had a really good buddy who played at USC,” Devenny said. “His main advice to me was, ‘No matter where you go, choose a school not based off coaches cause you’ll never know how long they’ll be there. Choose a place that you love based on the atmosphere because that’s where you’re going to spend five years of your life, or four.’

“Initially I did kind of think about transferring but I knew the opportunity with coach Hawkins and his staff and just being in Boulder I loved it too much and didn’t want to go through the transfer process.”

His decision might finally pay off this fall.

Devenny produced what appeared to be a breakout spring in which he led the team in the three main scrimmages with 12 receptions for 244 yards and three touchdowns. He averaged more than 20 yards per catch and seemed to repeatedly get the best of linebackers trying to cover him in the middle of the field.

He received the bulk of the repetitions in spring because of Geer’s suspension for involvement in an off-campus fight and other highly recruited freshmen tight ends were still finishing up high school.

Geer was reinstated over the summer and freshmen Ryan Deehan and Ryan Wallace joined the team. When fall camp began more than two weeks ago, Devenny found himself in a dogfight once again for playing time. And once again, he heard coaches criticizing him for not being physical in his blocking and playing with confidence and aggression.

It’s difficult to retrain a quarterback’s mind.

“I think what it comes down to is my first year in football was freshman year of high school. I play four years at quarterback, and then I come here and get one fall and then get bounced around a little bit, which I was fine with,” Devenny said. “But at the same time, when I go to play tight end, I’m going against kids like Mo Lucas and Abe Wright. It’s kind of that learning curve. Then I have that quarterback mentality when I’m running my routes. I’m not playing full speed. I’m thinking too much, too. I just need to play fast and play with confidence.”

After what he called a tough start to camp, Devenny has come around again over the past week. Tight ends coach Kent Riddle said after the second scrimmage of camp he knows what he can expect from both Geer and Devenny and both will play. It’s possible one of the freshmen tight ends will avoid redshirting.

Devenny can be an annoying presence to a defense that is forced to worry about players such as wide receivers Josh Smith, Scotty McKnight and Patrick Williams, as well as running backs Demetrius Sumler, Rodney Stewart or Darrell Scott. When defenders bottle up those options, Devenny seems to find a hole somewhere in the middle of the field.

“I think I’m starting to get there,” he said. “I still have a ton of stuff to work on. I know I’ve got a long way to go, but I’m starting to get more pleased with the way I’m performing.”