Lane Kiffin Addresses The Media In New Orleans-bamahammer

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Alabama WR Amari Cooper’s confident approach: ‘I know when I have a guy’-sds

Ever wondered what goes through an elite wide receiver’s mind before the snap at the line of scrimmage? For Alabama’s Amari Cooper, a player who has cemented himself as one of the SEC’s all-time greats this season, the end-result is less subjective than you’d think.
“I would say after you’re playing a guy in the second or third quarter, he can tell that he can’t really play on the field with you,” Cooper said during an interview with Saturday Down South earlier this month. “You can see it in their eyes.”
Cooper comes out of his break like a cheetah chasing a gazelle, seconds away from a kill. In his case, a mid-afternoon snack comes in the form of a predictable touchdown reception over a hapless defender, something he’s done a school record and SEC-high 14 times as a junior.


His lethality is unmatched in college football, a deadly first step that often thwarts the opposition and has transformed Cooper into an unguardable weapon in Lane Kiffin’s spread attack. Cooper’s freakish ability after the catch has strengthened a first-round 2015 projection and has made the Alabama sideline, notably Kiffin, become a viral sensation.

“When you get up on a guy, especially a safety, you can fake another route and read his body language,” Cooper said, referencing several long touchdown receptions he has made this season. “You know when you sell one route he’s going to bite on it. I’ve been playing the position for so long, I know when I have a guy.”
On Thursday, Cooper will try and make Buckeyes senior Doran Grant his latest victim, a player he has by two inches and nearly 20 pounds. Grant is a reliable defender at the back end who has rarely been over-matched during Big Ten play this season, one of the better cornerbacks Cooper will have faced.
The only wideout who noticeably got the best of Grant was Devin Funchess of Michigan, a Megatron-sized target at 6-foot-5, 235 pounds. Cooper poses a more fine-tuned — and faster — threat with better ball skills.
Over his last two games, the SEC’s top offensive player has caught a nation-best 25 passes for 307 yards, exposing defensive coordinator Ellis Johnson’s fatal error of single coverage against Auburn and enjoying a screen-heavy game plan via Kiffin during the Crimson Tide’s win against Mizzou.
Rest assured Ohio State’s developed a plan on how to attack the Biletnikoff award winner over the last two weeks after bottling up another Heisman finalist, Wisconsin running back Melvin Gordon, in the league championship game.
“Sometimes I worry about teams keying on me,” Cooper said. “But it seems like every time we get into a game, defenses are not as focused on you as you think they are because at the end of the day, they have to focus on (all) 11 people.”
The South Florida native has until Jan. 15 to declare for the draft, but a safe assumption can be made which way he’s leaning.

Sugar Bowl Q&A: Ohio State offense-sds

Ohio State’s offensive players had their turn with the Sugar Bowl media on Sunday afternoon. Here’s some of what they said:

OL TAYLOR DECKER
(on the experience so far in New Orleans) “It has been a lot of fun. I’ve never been down here and experienced a city like this. There has been a lot going on. There has been a lot of ‘distractions’, but it hasn’t taken away from our preparation. We still have our goal in mind, but it has been a good experience so far.”
(on keeping focus in the playoff environment) “We know that we are here to play a football game, and if it weren’t for that, we wouldn’t be here. That is our main focus of this whole trip. Yeah, we want to have a good time and experience the city and enjoy our time here, but the purpose is to play the game.”
(on what it means to be a part of college football history) “Without a doubt, I appreciate it. It is very humbling. In my time at Ohio State, we’ve won a lot of games and done a lot of things, broke a lot of records. I am just fortunate to be a part of this team and playing on this team. The week before, we didn’t even know if we were going to get a shot at the first ever college football playoff. It has been exciting and a really good experience.”
(on if the team takes being an underdog personally) “I wouldn’t say so. I would say that they have respect for us and we have respect for them. They’re ranked number one for a reason. They’re kind of the pinnacle of football right now, the standard. That’s deserved. They have done a lot of good things over the past couple seasons. It’s a great opportunity for us to show what kind of team we are and what we are capable of.”
(on the confidence of QB Cardale Jones throughout practice) “He has taken every rep, with the ones and twos. I definitely think he is going to be ready for any and all situations that he is going to face in the game. I think he is getting really comfortable with his checks and reads, not that I know a lot about quarterback, but he just seems more comfortable. He has gotten all kinds of reps since training camps. We run just as many reps with the twos as we do with the ones. So, he has seen a lot of the looks. He has played against a lot of different defenses. He just hasn’t gotten to do it on a big stage until the Big Ten Championship. And I think the way he performed then is a testament to how he has taken those reps seriously throughout the season.”
RB EZEKIAL ELLIOTT
(on being the most underrated player in the game) “I feel like I may be a little bit underrated, but I just attack every game as just a chance to put my name out there, perform on big stages.”
(on the importance of setting the tone of the running game early) “They’re a great team. They have a big front seven. You don’t really get much movement off the line of scrimmage. The key to our offense is getting the running game going so we can take shots down field, so establishing the running game is going to be very important.”
(on practicing in the Superdome) “It wasn’t too bad. A lot of the guys thought it was very humid and warm, but I didn’t feel any problems. I thought it felt fine. It’s a big dome; I mean I’ve never been in a dome that big. I’ve been in the Arizona dome and obviously the Indianapolis dome, but it’s a different venue.”
(on the Alabama defense) “They are a very big, physical team. Their d-line, their linebackers are just big guys and so they are a lot bigger than the guys we play. Their linebackers are all 250, interior d-linemen all 300 pounds, so getting some momentum early in the game, getting movement off the line of scrimmage is going to be important.”
(on Coach [Urban] Meyer advice on playing a [Nick] Saban-coached team) “They’re going to be good. They’re going to be the same talent level as us. They are going to be a well-coached, fundamental team; just going have to go out there and it’ll be our will versus their will.”
(on team having strong faith in Cardale [Jones]) “It’s just kind of the mentality of our team; you know just the brotherhood of trust. We’ve been through so much together, through thick and thin. He proved himself at the Big 10 championship. We’re going to do whatever we can to keep him comfortable. We don’t want him to feel like he has to do too much and he won’t have to do too much. All he has to do is spread the ball around and we have to keep him comfortable in the pocket.”
TE JEFF HEUERMAN
(on how you avoid distractions in a city like New Orleans) “Curfews. We have curfews at night which helps. Also, keeping the team together and make sure when guys do go out they are all together. The coaches haven’t said you can’t go out and have a little fun we just have to be smart about what we do. It’s Tuesday of a normal game week is how we look at it. [Being in New Orleans] is an education too. You don’t know if you will ever be back to New Orleans, so we have an opportunity to get out view the city and sample what it has to offer.”
(on SEC speed vs. Big Ten Speed or the preconceived lack thereof) “I’m not sure what it means exactly. We have quite a few fast guys on our team. I don’t really pay a whole lot of attention to that or the talk about the SEC vs. Big Ten talk. All four teams [in the playoffs] are good football teams with strengths and weaknesses and anyone can be beat on any given day. You just have to come out and execute your game plan. Execution is the biggest thing.”
(on what he sees on Alabama’s defense) “They are a very good defense. They know what they want to do and they do it very well. They have a very good secondary. They don’t do a whole lot of crazy things schematically. They know what they want to do and they do it well and execute. It’s going to be a good challenge for us”
(on Alabama’s defensive vulnerability and defensive performances late in the season) “They are a good defense. I don’t know much about their previous history. They have quite a few talented, All-SEC guys on defense. We just need to execute, honestly. We have the skillset and our execution is going to be the key to this game. Which team executes better and executes more plays will win this game.”
(on team’s success with third-string quarterback starting) “We have great leadership on this team. Every time something bad has happened to us we’ve just rallied even more. It has brought us closer together as a team. We’ve fought so much adversity and kept kind of building on top of it. It’s got us to the College Football Playoff and to the final four where we wanted to be.”
QB CARDALE JONES
(on scouting Alabama) “Countless hours, dating back to last year’s Sugar Bowl versus Oklahoma. We’re just trying to be ready for any and everything.”
(on whether it is an advantage, in regards to being scouted, to have only played in two games) “Nick Saban and Alabama’s coaches have seen it all. We’re not trying to fool anybody here. We’re trying to come out and play football.”
(on getting comfortable as the starting quarterback) “Of course game speed and practice speed is completely different. It’s so different for a quarterback. It’s more mental than physical to me, especially with the type of offense that we run. Just getting that to work from all the mental reps has helped a lot.”
(on what it means to be a starting quarterback in the Playoff Semifinal) “It’s humbling, because this is a point in my career that I always wanted to be at. Then again, we still have to get the job done as far as winning this game goes.”
(on the magnitude of this game for him) “Personally, this is the biggest game, hands down. It’s a one-game season, the first ever college football playoff. This is the game that goes to the national championship, so it is the biggest game.”
(on facing Alabama’s defense) “By far, this will be the best defense we’ve played against all year, the most physical defense we’ve played all year, and the fastest defense we’ve played all year. They’ve got some unbelievable guys on defense that we do our best to simulate and get that look. That’s going to be a challenge for not just me, but the offense.”
WR EVAN SPENCER
(on Alabama’s SEC speed) “They’re fast and they’re a great team. They’re really talented, but I think we’re pretty talented too. We got a lot of speed and we got pretty much everything we can do on the field, as do they, so I think it’s going to be really exciting to watch.”
(on getting tired about hearing about Big Ten speed) “Yea, I mean I do, but it’s out there and you just kind of have to deal with it. You have your own thoughts about it, but go with what’s there I guess and show up to play and prove everybody else wrong.”
(on Urban [Meyer] modeling this program after Alabama) “They’re a really successful team and as of late they’ve been number one and they’ve proven themselves really. I think every team in the country for the most part is striving to be the best team in the country, and I think that’s just kind of the nature of football in general. I mean you want to be number one and when a team’s been number one for a while you want to get up there and knock them off and prove that you’re the better team.”
(on he [Urban Meyer] bringing up past battles with Nick Saban) “I mean it’s interesting to us and it’s good to look at on TV, but I mean he hasn’t really brought it up much because it’s different team, different atmospheres and really just different kind of feels for it. We got our things that we have to do well to win the game. They’re mutually exclusive in the sense that now is the present and we have to do what we can now. What happened in the past is past, but it does prove for a good storyline.”
(on noticing anything different with Coach [Tom] Herman since his announcement) “No, I mean he’s, I don’t want to say a happy-go-lucky guy, but he’s a really good guy to talk to. I mean he’s really personable and none of that’s really changed, so it’s the same old Coach [Tom] Herman we’ve known to love and that I’ve been with for three years now. So it’s weird to think about him leaving, but all throughout when we’ve been here it doesn’t even seem like he is, because we’re going day to day business as normal, and if nobody had told me he was leaving I wouldn’t have known.”
(on preparing for Landon Collins) “He’s a great player. He’s really physical and you can tell that he really knows the game, but I feel our offense has a good plan for him and the entire defense as a whole. He’s a great player and I look forward to playing against him.”

Can the Mississippi State game help Alabama against Ohio State?-sds

The University of Alabama football team hoped that having a schedule predominately full of teams using no-huddle, hurry-up offenses would be helpful when facing those types of schemes, and for the most part it did.

Now it hopes for something similar when playing Ohio State in the Sugar Bowl on Jan. 1 (8:30 p.m. ET, ESPN).
While Nick Saban and some of the other Alabama coaches are familiar with Urban Meyer’s offense from his days at Florida, when the Crimson Tide and Gators played in back-to-back SEC Championships (2008-09) and met during the 2010 regular season, the same can’t be true of the UA players.
“If I had to compare them to anybody, I’d say their offense is similar to Mississippi State,” sophomore defensive end Jonathan Allen said.
That’s not a coincidence. Before he took over as the head coach at Mississippi State, Dan Mullen was Meyer’s offensive coordinator at Florida (2005-08).
So as part of its preparation Alabama has been looking at film of Ohio State, a little bit of Mississippi State, and even Florida.
“Mostly the up-tempo, kind of the run game,” senior safety Nick Perry said was the biggest comparison. “They like to incorporate the quarterback into the run game more, similar to what they used to do with Tim Tebow back in the day. They are a physical team.”
Statistically, Ohio State is similar to Florida with Tebow in that it uses the spread to run the ball effectively. The Buckeyes are 10th in the nation in rushing offense, averaging 5.78 yards per carry and 260.8 per game.
Meanwhile, OSU is 50th in passing, but the big unknown is how third-year sophomore Cardale Jones (6 foot 5, 250 pounds) will do making just his second career start after the two players ahead of him on the depth chart were lost to injuries.
In the Big Ten Championship Game against Wisconsin he completed 12 of 17 passes for 257 yards and three touchdowns, to go with eight carries for nine rushing yards. Perhaps most importantly the Buckeyes didn’t have a turnover while the Badgers had four.
With running back Ezekial Elliott amassing 220 yards on 20 carries as Ohio State tallied 301 rushing yards and 558 total yards, the Buckeyes won in a rout, 59-0. In the days to follow, Wisconsin coach Gary Andersen would leave for Oregon State.
So between Wisconsin’s questionable play and the limited number of plays for Jones, there’s not a whole lot for Alabama to go on.
“I really don’t have enough information with the one game to pinpoint him with somebody else,” Alabama defensive coordinator Kirby Smart said when asked for a comparison on Sunday. “I’ll tell you what he’s got, he’s got great poise. Played in a great high school program. Very intelligent. Very good leader. You can tell he’s well prepared.”
But how will he react to a good pass rush? Will he make adjustments when Alabama shows one thing and does another? How might he handle being behind in a big game like this? Can he get rattled on third down.
Those are things Alabama can only guess at, along with trends, preferences and other indicators.
Meanwhile, Mullen’s quarterback, Dak Prescott, came into this season with 23 games of experience including a 4-3 record as a starter. The junior had helped lead the Bulldogs to their first-ever No. 1 ranking before they visited Bryant-Denny Stadium on Nov. 15.
In his first career start against Alabama, Prescott completed 27 of 48 passes for 290 yards and two touchdowns, but also had three interceptions.
His running game tallied 40 carries for 138 rushing yards, with Prescott leading the way with 82 yards on 22 carries. But after falling into a 19-0 hole Mississippi State actually outgained Alabama 428-335 as the Crimson Tide was finally able to put the game away, 25-20.
“There are similarities, they certainly have different kinds of players, very good skill players, very good running back, you know, we’re not sure about how much we’ve seen of the quarterback but their quarterback has done a really good job the past two years whether it was Braxton Miller when he played or (J.T.) Barrett when he played because they were great runners and great athletes and that combination was very, very difficult on a lot of people and difficult for us when we played a team like that.
“Dan and Urban were together at Florida, but I think the way they do it, they have their own style of doing it, and I think they’ve progressed. This is a very, very good offensive team that has been very, very productive and they’ve got really good players and they do a great job with them and this is going to be a real big challenge for us in this game.”
So that’s the challenge for Alabama’s defense, against a talent offense that has good speed for a Big Ten team and according to Smart features receiving corps that’s deeper than Auburn’s. Granted the Buckeyes faced only three ranked teams this season, the highest being No. 8 (a 49-37 victory over Michigan State), but they also scored 42 points or more nine times – the last with the third-starting quarterback.
“It’s hard. He’s a mystery,” Perry said about the prep work. “We really don’t know what we’re going to get from that team, so we have to prepare for everything.”

Sugar Bowl: Tide prepares for Ohio State team that is SEC fast, rather than Big Ten slow-annistonstar