BOULDER — In recent years, the high-octane spread offense has spread across the college football landscape like typhoid. The men absorbing the worst symptoms — the hang-dog tongue, the bloodshot eyes, the frazzled nerves — are defensive backs.

A year ago, 10 teams averaged at least 500 yards per game. Eight averaged at least 40 points. This year, offense has gone viral. Seventeen teams are averaging over 500 yards, topped by Baylor at 714.4 per game, and 18 teams are averaging at least 40 points. The Bears are averaging 63.4 points.

In 2000, only Florida State averaged 500 yards. That year, only five teams averaged 40 points.

"It is difficult," said Colorado senior safety Parker Orms. "Sometimes you wish you were on the other side of the ball."

The spread has forced college football teams to change the way they play defense and how they recruit. Vaunted spread teams such as Baylor, Oregon and Texas A&M use up to five players lined up wide, feature quarterbacks who run faster than safeties and run plays at a pace that requires the fitness of a Navy SEAL to cope in the secondary.

A common theory in football is that offenses innovate and defenses catch up. Don't look now, but the spread offense has about lapped the modern defense.

"I had a great head coach that called me the other day," said Colorado coach Mike MacIntyre. "I mean, he's phenomenal and he goes, 'No way in the world, if anybody asked me to be a defensive coordinator, would I be a defensive coordinator today. No way.' "

Who could blame him? The spread is not like the old run-and-shoot offense when coaches called a running play to give receivers a rest. Baylor is averaging 302.2 yards per game on the ground, fourth-best nationally. Oregon, with Heisman Trophy contender Marcus Mariota at quarterback, is second with 324.0 yards rushing a game.

"You've got to make sure you don't come up too much if you think it's a run and they throw behind you, so you've got to make sure you play flat-footed," Orms said. "Don't cross your feet. Make sure you get a good read."

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Because of the proliferation of the spread, the nickel back has become a prized recruit. Ask a CU defensive back how much the Buffs played without a fifth defensive back against Arizona State, or Oregon, and he will scratch his head.

"When I first started coaching (in 1991), we never played a snap of nickel," MacIntyre said. "Then people started spreading you out and then you started using more nickel or you played a linebacker that could maybe do both because you weren't worried about playing as much man (coverage).

"Now, you've got to play man quite often or you don't have a chance."

Because coaches use five or six defensive backs on almost every down against spread teams, they stockpile them like cordwood. Jon Embree, MacIntyre's predecessor at CU, signed 10 defensive backs in 2011 and 2012, primarily to make up for a dearth of secondary players signed by his predecessor, Dan Hawkins.

MacIntyre said roster numbers in college have gone from 12 to 14 defensive backs and 12 linebackers in the old days to 10 or 11 linebackers and 15 or 16 defensive backs.

What can secondaries do? Hope they get help, such as a ball-control offense, a great pass rush, anything to keep them from chasing five receivers, plus a quarterback, all over the field.

"Don't get me wrong, those (spread) offenses are made to kill DBs," said Colorado State safety Trent Matthews. "But the good thing about it is, it's a good opportunity. We like challenges like that."

But a pass rush is nearly impossible because the spread requires quick passes from a pistol or shotgun formation. Mariota and Texas A&M's Johnny Manziel have both been sacked only five times.

"It's tough," Orms said, "but that's what we signed up for, playing defensive back in the Pac-12 Conference."

John Henderson: jhenderson or Staff writer Tom Kensler contributed to this report.