Saturday was scrimmage day around the football camps of the Southeastern Conference.
It was the first chance of the fall for coaches to get a look at their players in game-type situations, even though it was against their own players. What they saw was mixed results.
At Alabama, the coaches saw what opposing coaches saw a lot of in the second half of last season—AJ McCarron throwing touchdown passes to Amari Cooper. The pair hooked up for three touchdowns.
McCarron finished 13 of 21 passing for 267 yards and the three scores. Cooper caught four passes and 182 yards. Oh yes, and T.J. Yeldon was up to his old tricks by rushing six times for 35 yards. The Tide defense also had interceptions by C. J. Mosley and Ha Ha Clinton-Dix.
“For the first scrimmage I would say that the first teams on both sides of the ball made some good plays, executed well and showed some mental toughness that you have to have to be a good football player,” Nick Saban said afterward. “I’m not at all disappointed in where we are. We’ve just got to keep on keeping on.
“We had some outstanding performances today. AJ played pretty well. Coop had three touchdowns; four catches; several big plays. Jalston Fowler did a good job in the passing game. We played a lot of backs and they all did some good things,” he said.
At Auburn, the school did not release any stats but observers thought the receivers stepped up in a big way.
“We’re starting to figure out what the receivers’ strong points are and what they’re good at and what they need to improve on,” head coach Gus Malzahn said. “We work very hard without the ball, playing without the ball, blocking, being physical, releases, everything that goes with that.”
Although there was no official word on the quarterback race, there were hints that junior college transfer Nick Marshall and true freshman Jeremy Johnson performed well. Many expect Marshall to win the job, but Malzahn and his staff are still evaluating.
“Our goal was after this scrimmage to narrow things down at all positions, but, specifically, at the quarterback position. Hopefully, after we watch film, we’ll have a chance to do that somewhat. …
“We’re learning a lot. It was hot, and that’s a good thing to see how guys respond to the heat. There were lots of ups and downs in the scrimmage, which is always good to evaluate your guys. We’re to the point now — and I told our coaches and I told our players — that we’re going to start narrowing some things down. What that means, I can’t tell you how specific, but it will be narrowed down”
At Kentucky, Mark Stoops did not hold a scrimmage but followed up an unsatisfactory Friday night practice with another workout on Saturday that went much better.
“Good practice,” Stoops said. “I really felt good. We got a lot of work in today. We got really good meetings, good walkthrough this morning, good physical, long practice today so I feel pretty good about the practice.”
“I’ve said it before: I really like this group’s attitude, their mentality,” Stoops said. “I feel like they care and are doing the things necessary to be the best they can and they responded today with a good practice.”
Georgia coach Mark Richt gave his team the Saturday off … sort of. Richt believed his players needed a break after 11 straight days of practice, so he took them to the Gabrielsen Natatorium where they took turns diving off the high dive.
“Today meant a lot to us,” junior offensive tackle Mark Beard said. “A lot of guys are tired, and this was Coach’s way to show us some love. We really enjoyed it.”
Arkansas coach Bret Bielema took a more conventional approach on Saturday with a workout in Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium.
“I liked what went on out there,” Bielema said. “I couldn’t be happier with their football IQ growth. That’s something that we’ve really been stressing. It’s one thing to be a football player, but it’s a better thing to be smart football players.
“Just taking everything one step at the time. Now we’ve taken a certain amount of steps to get ourselves in position. I think you only get good at football by playing football. It’s a very unique sport, in that manner.”
Defense got the best of the offense at Ole Miss, where only one touchdown came on a pass from Barry Brunetti to tight end Nicholas Parker.
“(The defense was) ready to go, and I knew that,” Rebel coach Hugh Freeze said. “I knew that from our pregame on. When we did our substitution meetings and then watched them in our walk through, they had a little edge about them.”
Vanderbilt coach James Franklin was pleased with the effort he got from quarterback Austyn Carta-Samuels in a Saturday night scrimmage. The senior quarterback was 14 of 18 passing for 171 yards and three touchdowns.
“I thought he was able to get the ball out quickly tonight and being decisive. I think that is important. We just have to build on that,” said Franklin. “He made some plays and put the ball where our guys could make plays on it.”