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I put together my thoughts on Jacob Coker and what he brings to Alabama, where he stands in the quarterback race and what to watch for as the QB competition begins.
Some background: Before taking this job at TideSports.com in mid-August, I covered Florida State for two seasons. My first year on the beat was Coker's first on campus at FSU. I'm very familiar with him and his game, I had a chance to watch him practice in fall and spring, interview him several times, interview coaches about him, etc.
So here's my take on Coker and Alabama:
The QB race
The second Coker decided to transfer to Alabama, he became the man to beat in the 2014 QB competition. You can talk familiarity and playbook (I'll go into more detail on that later) but in my opinion, Coker would have never agreed to leave FSU if there wasn't some relative certainty that he would be the man this fall barring unforeseen circumstances.
Yes, Jameis Winston is at QB at FSU. But he is draft eligible after the 2014 season. That means that if Coker stuck it out, he was the clear No. 2 behind Winston next year and slides in as starter if there is an injury. On top of football duties, remember, Winston is going to pitch for the FSU baseball team this spring (as FSU fans clinch their collective teeth for four months).
If Winston stays healthy, he's a shoo-in top five pick in the 2015 draft, probably No. 1 overall, and if Coker stayed around he would get to be the starting quarterback as a senior in 2015. He would have worked in the offense for four years, known his surroundings, and it would be much safer to just stick it out for one guaranteed year as a starter.
So when you're wondering where Coker stands in Alabama's QB competition as of today, I ask myself why he'd be giving up a full year as a starter at FSU to be at some sort of great risk to become No. 2 or No. 3 QB at Alabama.
What Coker brings
I have to admit I laugh a little bit when I've seen people say Alabama will be "counting on an ACC backup quarterback" as if Coker falls in the same category as the second-stringer at Boston College or Wake Forest. He's a very good player who just happened to show up before a once-in-a-generation player, so clumping him in with a blanket "he's a backup" statement is short-sighted.
I mentioned this on Twitter a couple of times already, but I have no doubt in my mind that Coker is not only the most physically gifted quarterback on Alabama's roster, but that he's the most physically gifted QB Saban has had at Alabama.
That doesn't mean he'll be the best, of course, because he's still an unproven commodity to go with that very high ceiling.
Let's start with he does well: He is as athletic of a big body (6-foot-5, 230 lbs.) quarterback as you'll find. He can make plays with his feet. Not just evade the rush, but give Alabama a guy who can gain yardage on the ground. FSU had plenty of designed runs for its quarterbacks and even in limited work, Coker was not an exception to that. He's not Nick Marshall on the ground, but he's much more than a guy who buys time in the pocket. That's not an option Alabama has had with its starters under Saban.
His other major attribute is his arm strength. It's obvious in practice and in game action that Coker had the biggest arm on FSU's team. You've probably seen the quotes from Fisher, FSU QB coach Randy Sanders and Winston himself about his arm talent. It will take one or two throws for you to notice difference in arm strength between Coker and former Bama starters like McCarron, McElroy and JPW. IN a best case scenario, that strength will only increase Alabama's advantage with about 78 percent of the catches from a season ago returning in 2014 to go with three talented tailbacks.
The ultimate question with Coker will be between the ears. How his talent translates to the field will swing heavily on his ability to make smart decisions, be careful with the football and execute under pressure. There have been question marks about his decision making speed in limited work, but I don't put much stock into that stuff on any quarterback with such a small sample size until we've seen those "bullets are flying" reps (more on that later, too).
Like every other quarterback in Alabama's competition in 2014, has never taken a significant college snap. He has only seen mop-up duty behind EJ Manuel and Winston the past two seasons. Talent is what brings Coker to Tuscaloosa. But no thinly veiled promise of depth chart positioning will change the fact that he'll still need to prove he's the best quarterback as Saban and Co. obviously believe as of now.
What about the playbook?
One concern I've read from several people on the message boards is about his familiarity with the playbook. Since Coker won't graduate until the spring, he won't be on Alabama's campus until the summer, so will he be familiar enough with the offense to win the job?
First, Coker would not be on scholarship at FSU while he finishes up classes in the spring. So if he commits to playing at Alabama as we all expect, there's really nothing limiting him from digesting the playbook immediately on paper, then practicing it when he would arrive in the summer. If for some reason he can't graduate until the summer and arrive just before fall practice that could put him further behind. But I believe Nick Saban is too calculating to not have vetted his academic situation and have any concern about getting him on campus as soon as possible.
Secondly, I don't agree with the perception that you have to be a quarterback in a system for a year or more to be successful. Auburn's Nick Marshall turned out pretty good by showing up just before the fall, didn't he? If experience in an offensive system was important, then every team in the nation would be starting a senior. Point is, more often than not, talent trumps lack of experience. If it couldn't, then why would Saban be courting Coker in the first place knowing full well his current quarterbacks would get experience in the new system all spring?
There are some other factors to consider when it comes to Coker's ability to adapt. Coker has spent three seasons digesting one of the most complex college offenses for a quarterback. And Jimbo Fisher is an absolute perfectionist when it comes to his quarterbacks understanding the game.
Remember FSU's EJ Manuel, a first round pick who Coker backed up in 2012? A first round pick who set ACC completion percentage records at FSU was berated by Fisher coming off the sidelines often enough to force an agreement that then-QB coach Dameyune Craig would be brought down from the press box to the sideline to serve as a buffer during Manuel's senior season. First round pick and ACC career completion record holder couldn't dodge the ire of making mistakes in Fisher's system and hearing about it.
It's not an easy system to understand, and for Coker to even stick in a QB competition with a player like Jameis Winston, it means he at least proved to coaches he has the ability to digest a difficult offense.
So yes, Coker may not know the playbook. But how well do Bateman, Morris, Sims, McLeod and Cornwell know Lane Kiffin's new scheme? Will the one month of spring practice and voluntary workouts be helpful? Of course. So magical and miraculous that they will become experts and Coker is lost? No.
There are little advantages Coker will have on some of the candidates, too. Coker has been traveling with FSU since he was a true freshman. He has sat in on three years of position meetings, he has proven he can gain the respect of teammates, he learned from a proven QB coach in Fisher.
He has dealt with the media and shown maturity in the face of a tough situation. He sat through an entire preseason last fall berated with questions about how it feels for the fanbase to already crown Winston the starter and to not feel like he's given a chance. He answered every question.
Misconceptions
By now you've probably heard people say that Coker was running a similar offense as the one at Alabama. These people are only saying that because of an assumption; Jimbo Fisher used to be an offensive coordinator for Nick Saban so that must mean a decade later they are running the same thing. Not to say it's Georgia Tech-to-Texas Tech different, but unless Kiffin is coming in to make some real changes outside of what Saban's offenses have run of late, it's going to be a different offense. Fisher plays out of the shotgun or pistol formation primarily, mixes in a lot of zone read, reverses, tunnel screens, shovel passes with receivers in motion, all of which Alabama rarely employs.
As mentioned earlier, I don't think learning a playbook is going to be a problem for Coker, but it will be a noticeably different scheme even if he's coming from a Saban disciple .
Another misconception is judging too much by watching the tape on Coker. You may have seen the cut-up of all the throws he made in the spring game at FSU in April with an absolutely pathetic second-team offensive line - (OL depth was a massive weakness for FSU in 2013, which luckily made its way through 14 games without a single significant OL injury to a solid starting five) against one of the nation's best defensive lines while battling through a foot injury that kept him in a walking boot throughout fourth quarter drills in the offseason and into the start of spring practice.
Coker battled through the injury because this was his shot to compete for the starting job. If he would have been the guaranteed starter, who knows how much he would have even participated in spring. He also never made it an excuse publicly.
Good or bad, the only tape on Coker is in 40+ point blowouts and on a bad wheel with a BAD second-team offense in the spring game.
I could sit here and break town the 40-50 throws he has on tape and try to tell you what kind of player he's decision maker he's going to be, his passing strengths and weaknesses, we really don't know what we're going to see from Coker and I wouldn't put my hat on any of the film you've seen so far given the circumstances. I just wouldn't put a lot of stock in about 40 throws on tape either way for a multitude of reasons.
Injuries
Something to keep an eye on is injuries. If you've seen any tape of Coker throwing at FSU, you've likely seen him in the spring game. He injured his foot and was in a boot throughout offseason workouts (fourth quarter drills) and into spring practice. He toughed it out as he fought for the starting QB job, but we got to see a few full open practices in the spring and he just never moved around the same as we had seen before.
He'll also be coming off a meniscus injury suffered at Wake Forest in November. It will be fully healed long before he arrives in Tuscaloosa, but two injuries to a backup is a slight cause for concern.
