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Laquon Treadwell vs. Amari Cooper: Who had better junior season?
By Chris Wright
Published:
Ole Miss star Laquon Treadwell led the SEC with 1,042 receiving yards in 2015.
Former Alabama star Amari Cooper led the SEC with 1,742 receiving yards in 2014.
Treadwell caught 8 TD passes in 2015, tied for third in the conference.
Cooper doubled that total, pacing the SEC with 16 in 2014.
Pick any receiving stat, and it’s difficult to make a case that Treadwell — or any receiver of recent memory, really — had a more dominant final season in the SEC than Cooper.
Not Julio Jones. Not A.J. Green. Not Mike Evans. Not Odell Beckham Jr. Not anybody.
Cooper had three 200-yard receiving games during his final season with the Tide. He came within 14 yards of breaking Josh Reed’s single-season SEC record. He came within two TD catches of tying Reidel Anthony’s single-season SEC record.
So there’s no shame, certainly, in Treadwell finishing a distant second in a head-to-head final season comparison. Virtually every receiver in this league’s history would.
But what if we shift the conversation and project their NFL impact? How much closer can Treadwell get to Cooper?
A lot, in this estimation, even if Treadwell, a projected early first-round pick, can’t match Cooper’s draft position — No. 4 overall last April.
Few NFL receivers run routes with more precision than Cooper, who has the rare ability to create separation off the line and and at the top of his route. His first step and breakdown are elite, even against the world’s greatest defensive backs.
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Treadwell can’t match that, but he doesn’t necessarily need to.
Even after losing weight this season, he’s still bigger than Cooper and plays even more physically. He can comfortably get back to 225, 230 pounds and it won’t hinder his play. That style and comfort level with beating press coverage and making plays in traffic will bode particularly well in the NFL, where corners are bigger, windows are smaller and separation is measured in inches instead of yards.
We saw evidence of that this past season, not only catching balls against multiple defenders …
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but also in his willingness to get involved in the run game. Seemingly each week Treadwell delivered a crushing block.
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Like Cooper, Treadwell showed off his hands …
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and his shiftiness.
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He did all of that while recovering from a gruesome leg injury last year that left him at less than 100 percent this season.
Was his junior season as spectacular as Cooper’s? No.
Can he have every bit the impact as an NFL rookie next season that Cooper has had this season? Absolutely, thanks to a physical style, stature and skill set that compares favorably to another NFL star.
No, not Cooper, but Dez Bryant. There’s nothing wrong with that, either.
Managing Editor
A 30-time APSE award-winning editor with previous stints at the Miami Herald, The Indianapolis Star and News & Observer, Executive Editor Chris Wright oversees editorial operations for Saturday Down South.
