Cooper, Hoosiers Flash Potential in Spring Game
Pete DiPrimio | IUHoosiers.com
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Receiver Omar Cooper Jr. flashed his typical touchdown potential in a game that didn’t count, part of Thursday night’s Memorial Stadium spring scrimmage that didn’t matter, except it did, to coach Curt Cignetti, to the coaching staff, to the players, to every Hoosier who wants relentless improvement, who seeks to prove that last season’s 11-2 performance will be the norm and not an aberration.
This not-for-TV event revealed little of next season’s offensive and defensive complexity, and a lot of the possibilities.
“It was a good night,” Cignetti says. “Nobody got hurt. We had some good, some bad, some ugly. I thought the players competed well.
“Like I told the players, when we come back in the fall, it’s on. It’s real. We need our good players to play well every day, every rep, every drill. We’ll get what we put in. We have a chance to be as good as we want to be. We need a great summer and fall camp. We have a long way to go.”
Cooper will have a big role. So will new quarterback Fernando Mendoza, new running backs Roman Hemby and Lee Beebe Jr., new center Pat Coogan, and returning veteran standouts such as receiver Elijah Sarratt, linebacker Aiden Fisher, cornerback D’Angelo Ponds and defensive lineman Mikail Kamara.
Thursday night was the first public display of what Cignetti’s second Hoosier team could look like when the season opens Aug. 30 against Old Dominion. IU’s 30 football minutes came with modified rules -- six points for a touchdown, three points for a field goal, one point for an extra point, four points for a turnover gained, three points for a defensive stop or forced punt, and two points for a safety -- and some big priorities: avoid injury, play hard and focused, improve.
Statistics weren’t kept, but the score was. The Red (offense) won 31-23. Cooper caught touchdown passes of 13 and 12 yards from Mendoza, plus had a 7-yard catch for a first down in which he showed some nifty moves.
Hemby, a Maryland transfer, and fellow running back Kaelon Black displayed break-away speed. Linebacker Rolijah Hardy had a 43-yard pick-six off a deflected Mendoza pass. Kicker Nicolas Radicic had a 32-yard field goal. Defensive back Seaonta Stewart Jr. recovered a fumble. Beebe scored on a 5-yard touchdown run. Receiver Lebron Bond caught a 7-yard touchdown pass from Alberto Mendoza, Fernando’s younger brother. Grant Wilson, an Old Dominion transfer, also played quarterback.
“We have a lot of the pieces we need if those pieces play to their full potential day in, day out, play in, play out,” Cignetti says. “In the spring, you don’t tackle till this day. It was about managing guys making sure the key ones don’t get dinged up. In the fall, you have to cut them loose.
“There are some positions where we might look stronger right now. There’s not an area where we are deficient.“Coach Shanahan and Coach Cig have really good schemes,” Cooper says. “They watch a lot of film. They know what the defense will do against us. The plays we put together for a team are well designed for what defenses will try to do to us. That’s what makes our offense really explosive. Once we start building chemistry and knowing what each other likes, that will make it even better.”
Leading the offensive way Thursday night was Cooper, a redshirt junior with 25 games and six starts as a Hoosier. Last season, he led the Big Ten in yards per catch at 21.2, two yards better than the next closest -- Illinois’ Pat Bryant. He totaled 28 catches for 594 yards and seven touchdowns.
Cignetti wants more, expects more from Cooper, and pushes to get it.
“He has the ability to be an outstanding football player,” Cignetti says. “He has to do it day in, day out. He has to get rid of the inconsistency and set higher standards for himself. He has to have the discipline and the commitment to achieve his goals and become what he wants to be.
“The talent is there. The flashes are there. We’ll see if he can play game in game out. I have very high expectations for him.”
Cignetti has coached for 44 seasons -- including assistant jobs at Alabama, North Carolina State, Pitt, Temple, Rice and Davidson -- and has “been around some really good receivers.”
“Cooper can be one of those kind of guys,” Cignetti says, “but you have to be able to count on guys, day in, day out, play in, play out. You can’t be up and down. You can’t be a guy who flashes on home games or the end of games.
“Part of that is maturity and growing up. He’s not a young guy anymore. He can be as good as he wants to be, and 98 percent is between his ears.”
Cooper says he has to improve on “everything.”
“At the receiver position, there is so much you can learn. I’m focused on top of the routes and getting better getting out of the routes. Then, also, just learning the defensive schemes so when I am out there, I am not just loose in the mind. I’m trying to understand (what the defense is doing) and know what works best against that defense.”
After 13 spring practices, Pond vouches for Cooper’s improvement.
“The sky is the limit for him,” Pond says. “He’s come a long way from last year. He’ll have a big year.”
Cooper and senior Elijah Sarratt project as one of the Big Ten’s top receiving tandems. Sarratt finished sixth in the conference with 53 catches for 957 yards and eight touchdowns. Both are versatile enough to handle outside and inside roles.
“It helps us learn more positions and be able to rotate,” Cooper says. “It also makes it so a defense can’t focus on one person. It comes down to us knowing the offense and being able to move around help us expand our (attack).”
The key is building chemistry with Fernando Mendoza and the rest of the quarterbacks.
“We’re continuously getting those reps and see how we like to run a certain route,” Cooper says. “We’ll ask him what he wants us to do in that route. Continue to get the repetitions in and make sure we don’t change it up.”
Receiver group chemistry is also important, and if it adds an element of humor thanks to veteran E.J. Williams Jr., all the better.
“We’ve known each other for three years,” Cooper says. “We’ve grown each year. He’s the funniest guy in the room. With him, it’s always a laugh because he’s a clown.”
Injuries and then a decision to transfer limited Williams to two catches for 49 yards last season. In three years and 33 games at Clemson, Williams totaled 40 catches for 442 yards.
Appalachian State transfer Makai Jackson has experience and talent with seven 100-yard receiving games in 20 career starts and 37 games.
“He’s doing well,” Cooper says, “but he’s still learning the offense.”
Bond and Myles Kendrick are among a group of talented freshman receivers.
“They add a lot,” Cooper says. “As a freshman, it’s different in college. They have some bumps and bruises, but they’ve been doing well. They’re looking good. They can help the team a lot. It will be interesting to seeing what they can do. I’m looking forward to it.”
Much was expected from Tyler Morris, a Michigan transfer who suffered a season-ending injury during spring practice.
“It's really tough,” Cooper says. “Tyler was a really good player, and he was going to do well in the slot position this year. It makes us have to work harder, take more reps and learn more about the offense to play inside and outside. It sucks for Tyler and the whole receiver group, but it helps us to learn the slot and outside and be able to rotate.”
Cooper was a key player in last year’s dominating offense that led the Big Ten in scoring (41.3 points) and averaged 426.4 yards per game. He expects that offensive success to continue.
“Coach Shanahan and Coach Cig have really good schemes,” Cooper says. “They watch a lot of film. They know what the defense will do against us. The plays we put together for a team are well designed for what defenses will try to do to us. That’s what makes our offense really explosive. Once we start building chemistry and knowing what each other likes, that will make it even better.”