With Alabama heading into its second open date, let’s take a look at some of the ridiculous numbers behind Amari Cooper’s incredible season.

  • 1. Cooper is already just a single yard short of NFL star Julio Jones’ best season in Tuscaloosa. In 2010, Jones had a stellar campaign with 78 catches, 1,133 yards and 7 touchdowns over 13 games. Cooper, in just eight games this season, has 71 catches, 1,132 yards and 9 TD.
  • 42.2. According to statistics website ncaasavant.com, Cooper has been targeted on 42.2 percent of Alabama’s pass attempts this season, the highest target percentage in the nation. Despite all the attention he draws from defenses, he’s still catching 68.9 percent of those targets.
  • 5. More than half of Cooper’s 9 TD so far this season have been long distance strikes. He’s had five scores of 40 or more yards, and he’s doing them in a variety of ways. Against Tennessee last week, he caught a pass near the line of scrimmage and took it the distance, 80 yards to paydirt. On the next drive, he got behind the secondary and hauled in a long toss from quarterback Blake Sims, showing again that he’s capable of beating defenses in a variety of ways.
  • 4. Cooper is tops in the SEC in four major receiving categories: catches, yards, touchdowns and yards per game. The only major category he doesn’t lead the conference in is yards per catch, although if he was used like the current leader in that category — Travin Dural, who runs deep routes almost exclusively and has about a third of Cooper’s receptions — there’s no reason to think Cooper wouldn’t be right up there.
  • 224. Cooper set an Alabama single-game record against Tennessee, putting up 224 receiving yards. That performance topped Jones’ 221-yard game against Tennessee just over four years prior. It was Cooper’s second 200-yard game of the season, the only Alabama receiver to ever top that total twice in his career.