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By Gary B. Graves AMARI COOPER
1,727
RECEIVING YARDS IN 2014
BLAKE SIMS
3,890
3,487
PASSING YARDS IN 2014
2014 TEAM RECEIVE YARDS
44%
T.J. YELDON
3,890
979
89%
2014 TEAM RUSH YARDS
33%
ALABAMA PASS YARDS SIMS ACCOUNTED FOR IN 2014
ALABAMA RECEIVING YARDS COOPER ACCOUNTED FOR IN 2014
2,893
RUSHING YARDS IN 2014
2014 TEAM PASSING YARDS
ALABAMA RUSH YARDS YELDON ACCOUNTED FOR IN 2014
Picking up the slack The Tide lost the majority of its playmakers last year, so new personnel will have to step up in a hurry By D.C. Reeves Sports Writer
The Tuscaloosa News takes an in-depth look at Alabama’s offensive metrics from 2014 to get a glimpse at the tasks at hand for the Crimson Tide this spring:
Plenty of questions at wide receiver You don’t need advanced stats to explain something you already know: Alabama will need some fresh faces to step up at receiver. Heisman fi nalist and Biletnikoff Award winner Amari Cooper is gone along with the team’s No. 2 and No. 3 options DeAndrew White and Christion Jones, three players who, as Nick Saban pointed out Friday, have been key contributors for three seasons, not just 2014. Alabama’s wide receiver personnel lined up either out wide or in the slots for 2,428 snaps last season. The departed trio of Cooper (816), White (586) and Jones (434) made up a whopping 75.6 percent of those snaps. In terms of targets — complete or incomplete attempts to a pass-catcher — Alabama loses almost 70 percent if you include the receiving trio and T.J. Yeldon and Brian Vogler. In SEC play, the numbers are more daunting. The Cooper/ White/Jones trio took 86.5 percent of the work. Chris Black leads the 2015 returnees in SEC plays with 96. All told, tight end O.J. Howard, with just 19, returns with
the most SEC targets. At receiver, the leading SEC target coming back is Cam Sims with seven. Black, Sims, A rDarius Stewart, Robert Foster and Raheem Falkins headline the group of receivers jockeying for those open positions this spring. “We’ve got a couple talented receivers that need to develop into the kind of players that can play with a winning performance at their position,” Saban said. “We’re going to work with them so we hope that they can.”
Jake Coker
How far ahead is QB Jake Coker? Expect to hear plenty about Jake Coker coming into spring as the most experienced quarterback on Alabama’s roster. That’s accurate, but how much more experienced is the rising senior and former Florida State backup? Compared to his competition — namely Cooper Bateman, Alec Morris and David Cornwell — Coker is the only one who has taken SEE SLACK | 7C
The Associated Press
NASHVILLE, T ENN. | Top-ranked Kentucky reached high gear quickly and poured it on against an Auburn squad that lost two players in less than 24 hours. Considering the Wildcats’ effectiveness in many areas Saturday in a 91-67 victory that put them in the SEC final, chances are a full-strength Tigers squad wouldn’t have done much to change it. Willie Cauley-Stein scored 18 points and Andrew Harrison added 15 to help Kentucky improve to 33-0 and break the school-record winning streak of 32 games set from Dec. 5, 1953, to Jan. 8, 1955. The Wildcats will face Arkansas, seeking their 28th tournament title and fi rst since 2011, for the tourney title. Their effort against the Tigers was certainly a good tuneup. “It was a good game, a hard- INSIDE fought ga me and we played BASKETBALL: well,” said Ken- Roundup from t uck y c oa ch Saturday’s conferJohn Calipari, ence tournament w h o s e t e a m games | 3C shot 56 percent and outrebounded Auburn 39-25. Trey Lyles, Aaron Harrison and Devin Booker each added 12 points for the Wildcats. They led by 28 with 6:04 left. The Wildcats had their way against a short-handed opponent. Auburn forward Jordon Granger was suspended for fighting in Friday’s quarterfinal win over LSU, and the school announced just before the tipoff that forward Cinmeon Bowers had been suspended for a potential rules violation. Antoine Mason had 23 points for Auburn (15-20), which shot 33 percent and had won its previous three games. Malcolm Canada added 16 points, and KT Harrell had 13. Coming off a 15-point quarterfinal victory, Kentucky started stronger and didn’t let up. More than anything, the Wildcats quickly deflated an Auburn team that upset fourth-seeded LSU 73-70 in overtime Friday. “We wanted to have a faster start than yesterday (against) Florida, and that’s what we did,” guard Aaron Harrison said. Whatever euphoria the Tigers enjoyed from the LSU game faded in a hurr y against Kentucky, which drilled them by 35 points last month in Lexington. The challenge was all the more difficult without Granger, who sat several rows behind the Auburn bench with fans dressed in warmups. T hen came the pregame announcement of Bowers’ suspension that made Auburn’s task even tougher. The forward sat on the bench dressed in a warmup, left with the role of playing cheerleader.
BIG PIECES OF THE PIE ARE GONE Here is a breakdown of last season’s numbers at the receiver position. Departed players Amari Cooper, DeAndrew White and Christion Jones accounted for the majority of playing time. TOTAL PLAYS AT WIDE RECEIVER FOR 2014
TOTAL PLAYS AT WIDE RECEIVER IN SEC FOR 2014
COOPER/WHITE/ JONES PLAYS AT RECEIVER
COOPER/WHITE/ JONES PLAYS IN SEC GAMES
2015 RETURNEES PLAYS AT RECEIVER
2015 RETURNEES PLAYS IN SEC GAMES
2,428
1,521
1,836 (75.6%)
1,316 (86.5%)
592 (24.4%)
205 (13.5%) THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
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t’s Selection Sunday, or Silent Sunday as it has been in Tuscaloosa for the past couple of years. Technically, Alabama’s basketball team could get a phone call, not from the NCA A Tournament but the NIT. The Crimson Tide hopes to keep playing in that event, although a bevy of conference tournament upsets, along with the new NIT rules that include regular-season champions that get bounced in those conference tournaments, may make it a tight squeeze. Until that gets sorted out, Alabama’s season isn’t technically over. That may make it a Silent Sunday of another sort, as the UA athletic administration seems set on maintaining a policy of not making any major announcements until “after the season.” That’s what happened last year. T here was an announcement about Anthony Grant’s coaching status as soon as the SEC Tournament ended — but with no postseason hopes beyond that, the season was over at that point. So, today might bring no official word about anything. There is plenty of unofficial word, of course, and you can choose any version of that you want. My observation on Friday night was that UA director of athletics Bill Battle was getting plenty of 11th-hour pressure from people seeking to make their position on the UA basketball program known. That was still the case Saturday and shows no sign of relenting. With things in limbo, other programs around the state had a good weekend. UAB won the Conference USA Tournament and earned an automatic bid to the NCA A’s, breaking a state of A labama drought that stretched back to the Crimson Tide’s 2012 appearance against Creighton. Auburn had a nice three-game run in the SEC Tournament before taking the inevitable drubbing from No. 1 Kentucky on Saturday. In one sense, anything that elevates the profi le of college basketball in the state is a positive. The sport needs all the positive publicity it can get. But that’s a double -edged sword, and the sharp edge bites when it is other programs in the state garnering the media love. Two former Alabama players who are now head coaches elsewhere (Mark Gottfried at North Carolina State and Mike Davis at Texas Southern) will hear their name called today. So will former UA players Trevor Lacey (now at N.C. State with Gottfried), Charles Hankerson (Wyoming) and the much-travelled Jason Carter (at TSU with Davis.) People can read too much into those things, but the fact is every one of those mentions make Alabama’s absence, for a third straight year, sting a little bit more. Small stings do accumulate. So does landing outside of the conversation, and in basketball, the conversation that matters occurs in March. Alabama isn’t a part of that. It wasn’t discussed this weekend as the Auburn coach sopped up air time like a biscuit in a gravy boat, selling its positives. UAB will be a national story, even if it is a one-and-done in its NCAA appearance. That is publicity you cannot buy. Regardless of what news comes out when the UA administration comes out with some statement, Alabama has some catching up to do. The NCAA probably lost a bubble team or two in Nashville, but the league — as we observed a couple of weeks ago — seems to have turned the corner and entered an upward trend for the future. Standing still means falling behind.
Kentucky steamrolls Auburn
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It will be a Silent Sunday for the Tide
SEC TOURNAMENT
ALABAMA FOOTBALL
CECIL HURT
Chris Black is the Crimson Tide’s leading returning player at receiver. He was involved in 255 plays last season, including 96 in SEC games. He was targeted 19 times overall and seven times in SEC games.
Kentucky forward Willie CauleyStein (15) celebrates his dunk against Auburn during the first half of the SEC Tournament semifinal in Nashville, Tenn. Kentucky won, 91-67.