Alabama’s first two quarterbacks to win national championships for coach Nick Saban went on to be drafted and even start in the NFL.
Jake Coker hopes to follow that same path.
Less than three weeks after helping the Crimson Tide outlast Clemson 45-40 to capture the championship game of college football’s four-team playoff, Coker was the South team’s starter in Saturday’s Senior Bowl in Mobile, Ala.
He compiled the least impressive numbers of the eight participating quarterbacks, completing 3 of 8 passes for 23 yards, but he scrambled 8 yards for a first down and handed a 10-0 lead after the first quarter to Mississippi State’s Dak Prescott in the South’s eventual 27-16 triumph.
“I think Jake has a chance to get drafted,” Senior Bowl executive director Phil Savage said. “He’s 6-foot-5 and 236 pounds. He’s 14-0 as a one-year starter for Alabama, and he’s got more athletic ability than people realize. He needs to quicken his eyes, his feet and his delivery, but he showed some traits this year as far as leadership and toughness.
“All he needs is one team. He doesn’t need all 32. He just needs one team to notice his upside and work with him for a year or 18 months and see where they are.”
Prescott, who guided Mississippi State to its first No. 1 ranking midway through the 2014 season, was named Senior Bowl MVP after completing 7 of 10 passes for 61 yards and a touchdown.
Yet it was Coker who had the longest lines last week when it came to those seeking autographs and pictures. Coker played at St. Paul’s Episcopal School in Mobile before signing in 2011 with Florida State, where he spent three seasons before transferring to Alabama.
“It’s been a long week, that’s for sure,” Coker told reporters Saturday evening, “but it was good. It was something I’ve always dreamed of.”
Following Greg McElroy and AJ McCarron to the professional ranks would be an even bigger dream come true. McElroy quarterbacked Alabama to the 2009 national title and was a seventh-round selection of the New York Jets in 2011, breaking into the starting lineup for one game late in the 2012 season.
McCarron, who preceded Coker at St. Paul’s, led the Crimson Tide to the 2011 and ’12 national championships and was a fifth-round selection of the Cincinnati Bengals in 2014. He started the final three games this season after an injury to starter Andy Dalton and rallied Cincinnati to a late-game lead over Pittsburgh in the playoffs before the memorable meltdown by Bengals defenders Vontaze Burfict and Adam “Pacman” Jones.
“Jake and AJ are almost opposites to me,” Savage said. “AJ entered the NFL draft extremely polished, because he had played so much football. He was a three-year starter at Alabama, so by comparison, Jake hasn’t played very much. He’s basically played in 14 or 15 games in the last five years, and that’s why I think they have entered the draft from two different standpoints.
“At the end of the day, Jake does have a chance at being a late pick. If he’s not, he’ll sign as a free agent, but he’ll certainly get his opportunity.”
One of Coker’s former Tide teammates, running back Kenyan Drake, had a short touchdown run at the Senior Bowl and also collected two receptions for 23 yards.
Savage, a guest Friday on “Press Row” on ESPN 105.1 FM, said the players invited from Alabama and the University of Georgia did well throughout the week. There were four Bulldogs: receiver Malcolm Mitchell, tackle John Theus, outside linebacker Jordan Jenkins and inside linebacker Jake Ganus, who played his final season in Athens after transferring from the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
“I really thought Malcolm Mitchell had a very consistent week as a receiver,” Savage said. “He seemed to be one of the more polished route-runners. They ran a full route tree there at Georgia under Mark Richt, and I thought he did a nice job.
“Jake Ganus wore a UAB helmet to one of the practices as sort of a tribute, and I thought that was a nice touch and something that probably wasn’t talked about enough.”
Mitchell did not play Saturday, when Ganus tallied five tackles, including a lost-yardage stop.
When asked who had the best week out of the 110 players, Savage singled out Southeastern Louisiana cornerback Harlan Miller among the unknowns and Ohio State receiver Braxton Miller among the recognized faces. The latter began his college career as the Buckeyes’ quarterback and was named Big Ten offensive player of the year in 2012 and ’13.
“If you dropped in here from planet Mars, you would think he’s been a receiver his whole life,” Savage said. “He was strong, quick and elusive. He didn’t win a lot of friends down here because he was so extremely competitive, but I think he had the best week overall in terms of proving to people that he can be a legitimate receiver in the NFL.”
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6524.