FAU Grades: The Report From The Tire Store

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Good edition of the Grades, Commissioner.  We probably would have graded it pretty much the same.  Because we were feeling just a little like the brake pads were half worn down after last Saturday, watching this week made us feel a little better.  The pads are still better than half there and no need to turn the rotors. 

Good things we saw this week.

OK, Amari Cooper is a good football player.  A really good football player.  How good?  Well, we heard from at least three people trying to sort out if he was better than Julio Jones.  There is a long way to go, but after Saturday Cooper is nearly half way to his production from all of last year, both in yards and receptions.  I presume defensive backs at other schools are drawing straws and hoping they aren’t one of the two guys assigned to cover him.

Blake and Jacob both played better than we expected.  Admittedly, after A-Day our expectations were not that great, but Sims seemed much more comfortable this week.  We think he made the wrong play on the goal line, but in this game it was not a disaster -- got that out of his system.  Sims’ nice little cutback move is something that will draw cheers in film review.  He is proving very efficient at getting the ball to the playmakers and with the talent at running back and wide receiver, that will be enough to win a lot of football games. Lots of folks seemed to be wrapped around the axle of whether he can throw it far downfield.  At this point, it sort of invites the question, when have we needed to?  We will in a couple of weeks, to be sure, but for now we have over 1100 offensive yards in less than two full games.  That’s good enough.  We liked that Coker wasn’t afraid to run and stick his nose in there for an extra yard or two.  He stood up and made a good pass with defenders bearing down on him as the pocket collapsed.  For a player who hasn’t taken a snap in the second quarter since, what, probably his senior year in high school, we thought he did fine.  We don’t understand everyone staking out positions on who should be “starter”.  If the fans would just take the attitude that the young men seem to be taking towards each other, Coach wouldn’t be getting snippy. 

The competition was a notch lower, but having both Jackson and Depriest back on defense made a noticeable difference.  Lots of defensive players got valuable repetitions in this game.  We hope for more of the same next week.  We expect tackling drills this week will focus on wrapping up and taking the ball carrier to the ground, not as Coach Saban said, trying to butt people to the ground.  Still some kinks to work out and they need to be gone by this time next week.  Still, it is hard to shut out any team in the current age of college football.  The defense deserves credit.

We like Adam Griffith.  We like him a lot.  It was only this week that we learned he was actually living in a Polish orphanage until he was adopted and moved to Calhoun, Georgia when he was 13, not speaking English.  Let that sentence sink in for a minute.  Add this one, in addition to our offer, he also had a scholarship offer to Vanderbilt.  Kickers can be a little, um, free spirited, but for now we are comfortable.  How comfortable?  At one point Saturday Alabama lined up for a PAT and we were so confident in it that we didn’t even watch it, much less hold our collective breath.  Of course, that is how it should be, but still.  Placekicking is becoming a weapon.

Like the Commissioner, we certainly hope the television crews will slowly tire of having a camera dedicated to our offensive coordinator.  We suppose they are waiting for Saban to explode like a volcano over some call or another.  We are tired of the silly constant cut-aways and even replays (if you can believe it) of our assistant coach.  While we are on the subject, we have been quite pleased with the play calling thus far.  Problems experienced by our offense seem to be more of the execution than scheme variety (e.g. on the fumble play, if Blake only fakes the inside handoff and bootlegs to the left side of our line, we think he would have had choices of how to score the touchdown.)

What appears to have gone missing in action are plays involving the tight end carrying the football.  We have seen passes to several very good receivers (and one terrific one); the running backs are very, very deep and not a group you particularly want to try to tackle; we’ll be interested to see how many different ways Drake gets used this year if he can stay healthy and out of the dog house….  But unless we missed something, we have more throws to the full back for touchdowns than we do completed passes to tight ends.  Maybe that was on tap for the missing 7 minutes of Saturday’s game.  Or maybe there just aren’t enough footballs to go around to the talent we have on offense.  There are worse problems to have.

Roll Tide.  Beat Southern Miss.