Amari Cooper Is College Football's Most Unassuming Superstar
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Amari Cooper is better than you, and he knows it.
“Could you have envisioned the start that you’ve had through the first three weeks?” he was asked on Monday at a routine press conference.
“Yeah.”
“You talked in the spring about Lane Kiffin and how you’d seen Marqise Lee and you were looking forward to that. Is this that why you anticipated this?”
“Yeah, that’s the exact reason.”
It’s not arrogance.
He was asked, after all, if there was anyone who could cover him. He said no, because there’s not.
The difference, though, between Cooper and other top wide receivers is that he won’t go out of his way to tell you he’s better than you.
“He is sort of a quiet guy when it comes to how he plays," Nick Saban said. "He's not a trash-talker. He doesn't say much. He listens. Very respectful of his coaches to do what they're asking him to do and tries to do it and get better. I have a tremendous amount of respect for guys that go about their business like he does. He's just a really good person as well as a very, very good competitor.”
At a position that is so prone to extracurricular antics, Cooper will just let his play do the talking.
This isn’t a story, though, about another blue-collar, lunch-pail, me-first player, because Amari Cooper is not just another wide receiver.
Cooper is humble but confident. Mature beyond his years. He is a superstar who knows it, but he doesn’t feel the need to rub it in your face.
| West Virginia | 12 | 130 | 0 |
| Florida Atlantic | 13 | 189 | 1 |
| Southern Miss | 8 | 135 | 1 |
| Total | 33 | 454 | 2 |
The best wide receiver in college football is off to a scorching start and doesn’t appear interested in slowing down any time soon. He’s in an offense that loves to get the ball to him anyway it can, with a new quarterback who has found a security blanket he can lean on.
Ability
It’s hard to pinpoint the one thing that makes Amari Cooper so good, because there isn’t really one.
He has the speed to burn you over the top, the size to tussle with SEC cornerbacks, the route running to get open, the moves to break ankles in the open field and the body control to go up and get jump balls.
“Coop’s got really good size, very quick for a guy his size. He’s got explosive speed,” Saban said. “He’s exceptionally good against press, coming off the ball, but he’s also very good coming out of a break. Most of the time the defender gets beat either on the release or out of the break. A lot of guys are pretty good at one and maybe not as good at the other. And he has really good hands and good ball skills.
“He’s the complete package when it comes to a guy that is a pretty complete player.”
Brett Goetz coached Amari Cooper with the South Florida Express, a seven-on-seven team that showcases the area’s top talent at skill-position players.
Cooper was hurt during his junior year of high school football—a critical year for scouts and coaches to evaluate players—so he didn’t quite garner the hype that other players in his class did.
Later, in the spring of 2011, Cooper joined Goetz and the Express. Goetz knew he had something special right away.
“His greatness was seen from one of our first practices,” Goetz said.
Cooper dominated that season and into his senior year, among his own team and against the top players from around the South. "Easy" is how Goetz frequently described his style of play. It never looked hard for the Miami Northwestern receiver.
“There’s a lot of good receivers,” Goetz said. “But the great ones just make it look so easy and so fluid.”
That continued into his college career.
Cooper took off his freshman year, playing a bigger and bigger role on the 2012 Alabama offense as the season went on.
His biggest catch came at the end of the SEC Championship Game that year, a play-action pass over the top that gave Alabama a lead late. Cooper nearly stopped, unaware the ball was coming his way. Once he realized what was happening, he turned on the afterburners and came away with the score.
“They’ll throw a bomb to him, and he’ll just come under the ball,” Goetz said. “He always finds a way.”
Goetz sat in the stands at the BCS National Championship Game against Notre Dame later that year, since it was in South Florida. He was with Sam Madison, a four-time Pro Bowl cornerback with the Miami Dolphins.
Cooper caught two touchdowns that day and almost had a third. AJ McCarron uncorked a deep shot his way, Cooper finding an inch of separation behind the two-deep safeties he had just split like a log. The ball landed just inches in front of Cooper.
Madison turned to Goetz.
“You know he’s hurt. Something’s wrong,” Madison said. “He always finds a way to get under that ball.”
Work ethic
Kynon Codrington worked on Saban’s Dolphins staff during the 2004 season and has since covered recruiting in that area, most recently for Bleacher Report.
When Mario Cristobal took Alabama’s offensive line coach job in February of 2013, Codrington texted the former FIU coach congratulations after he had gotten settled down. Cristobal told Codrington that Cooper was the hardest working player he’s been around.
“Of the wide receivers?” Codrington asked.
“No,” Cristobal replied. “The whole team.”
Alabama strength coach Scott Cochran runs a notorious strength and conditioning program called the "Fourth Quarter," designed to get players in shape before spring practice and in the summer.
New offensive coordinator Lane Kiffin thought the workouts were hard enough as they were. But Kiffin noticed Cooper regularly working out two hours before the rest of the team came in for Cochran’s grueling training regimen.
“Amari is completely dedicated to being the best football player that he can,” Kiffin said at the start of fall camp. “He’s completely focused, so he’s great to work with. He wants to be great, and he also wants to expand his game. He comes in and asks question about how you move around and how do you get to these spots. He’s been great to work with.”
Cooper has never really been one to go out much on weekends or at night, either. He has a social life, to be sure, but doesn’t feel the need to engage in other activities.
“I just abstain from doing activities that won’t help me with football or school or where I want to be,” Cooper said. “Sometimes it just seems like there’s not enough time in the day as far as in the spring and the season you have school and football. So you just try to work around that. You just try to get better. There’s always something you can do to get better. Sometimes it just doesn’t seem like the day is long enough to do all of those things.”
Saban said a coach's dream is when his best players are also the hardest workers. He certainly has that in Cooper.
Mindset
Even with all of the skill and determination, Cooper doesn’t have any interest in showing off.
He never has.
"Most humble, quiet kid I’ve ever been around. The most humble superstar I’ve ever seen,” said Goetz, who's coached area stars like Ryan Shazier, Geno Smith and Duke Johnson. “Amari was just so quiet. Zero arrogance. Just got the job done. Never talked about it, never showboated, just a great player on and off the field. ... He doesn’t need to do anything above what he does by catching the ball and scoring a lot of touchdowns.”
Still, Cooper is not the type to deflect praise or give the straight for-the-good-of-the-team company line.
He said that he knows his statistics. He’s aware of his climb up Alabama’s record books. And he knows how much better he is than the rest of college football.
That quiet confidence is almost more terrifying for a defensive back than an in-your-face receiver.
Where the latter gives you ammo and motivation for the next play, Cooper just moves on.
No, Cooper would rather just beat you—whether that's over the top, across the middle or in open space like he's done so often this year so far. It wouldn't be like Cooper to brag or show off. He doesn't have to.
He still knows he’s better than you, because he is. He just won’t tell you.
“You can tell he's a confident guy,” right tackle Austin Shepherd said. “I have all the confidence in the world in him. I would be too if I was that guy. He's different.”
Marc Torrence is the Alabama lead writer for Bleacher Report. All quotes were obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted. All stats come from CFBStats.com. All recruiting information comes from 247Sports.
Follow on Twitter @marctorrence.
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