Grade the starters through 5 games

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Trey DePriest: C+

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Trey Depriest has been playing tentative football for three years now. I was so excited about him his Freshman year but God he has been disappointing. He lunges at ball carries more than any linebacker I have ever watched at Alabama. I'm sick of it.

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Landon Collins: C-
Nick Perry: C-

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I would like to see Geno replace Nick. Geno has the coverage ability to play the deep third, which would allow Landon to play underneath more and provide a thump to any pass catcher.

Blake Sims: C+
TJ Yeldon: B
Cam Robinson: A+
Arie Kouandjio: B-
Ryan Kelly: B
Leon Brown: D
Austin Shepherd: B+
Amari Cooper: A+
DeAndrew white: B-
Christion Jones: D
Brian Vogler: C
Jalston Fowler: B+

Jon Allen: B+
A'Shawn Robinson: B-
Jarren Reed: B
Xzavier Dickson: A
Denzel Devall: C+
Trey DePriest: C-
Reggie Ragland: B
Cyrus Jones: B+
Tony Brown: C+
Landon Collins: C
Nick Perry: C -
Adam Griffith: D
JK Scott: A+

Thoughts:
1. Cam Rob is the best o-line we have. I only wish he were a year older so he could provide some leadership on the line. He seems like the leader type, and he took a lot of responsibility in building the 2014 class.

2.) Our safeties have been the most disappointing of the CNS era.

3.) Cyrus Jones seems to have improved. He is very physical, and that may lead to more PI calls. I wish we would ditch the field/boundary and just match up best corner to best receiver.

4.) Man, I miss Eddie Jackson. I hope he gets healthy in time for TAMU, or that will be a long game.

5.) Christion Jones has been disappointing this year. Not sure what he brings to the field as a starter anymore, but I wonder if it is enough.

DePriest is slow on the blitz and terrible in pass coverage. He's a good run stopper but I'd like to see him take a seat in Nickel and Dime.

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lol at you giving Tony Brown a higher grade than Collins. Brown has been as bad as anyone and Collins has had a ton of good plays to go with his occasional screw ups.

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I guess it is how they have lived up to expectations relative to where they should be at this point. A guy who is declaring for the draft shouldn't make Bo Wallace look like Joe Montana. A kid who can at least stay in the hip pocket of the receiver most of the time is doing well considering it is still early in the year. Now if Tony still looks like that against Auburn I'll be a lot more critical with how I'll grade him.

I didn't figure in the different roles with LC. If so, I agree that he has been a bigger contributor. I am just disappointed with his play. That might as well have been Trevor Knight burning LC for as little as he seems to have improved from then. I hope that it changes and we get to see the first round LC when we play TAMU.

I've given up having extreme expectations for freshman because, with the exception of JK Scott and Cam Rob, they typically look like freshman.

Sims: B
Yeldon: C+
C. Robinson: A+
Kouandjio: A-
Kelly: B
L. Brown: F
Shepherd: B+
Cooper: A+
White: B
Ch. Jones: C-
Vogler: B
Fowler: A

Allen: B
A. Robinson: B
Reed: A
Dickson: A
Devall: B-
Depriest: D+
Ragland: B+
Cy. Jones: A-
T. Brown: B+
Collins: B+
Perry: B--
Griffith: F
Scott: A+

I get the seniority thing, but I wish Yeldon was a backup. Brown looked soft as frick against Ole Miss. The line is obviously not in good shape, and I hope Mario Cristobal can work some magic. White has been laying solid screen blocks when he's been out there this year. Christion Jones has seemingly made no progress since 2012. This is likely due to his lack of size. Vogler is there I guess. Howard is (I guess?) not important in a Lane Kiffin offense that I have lost confidence in quickly. Fowler has been a sturdy contributor to the team his entire time there.

I am definitely encouraged by the talent Bama has developed in the front-seven, minus DePriest. I like most everyone else was sold on him pretty quickly coming out of HS. He's too slow and will often over-pursue ball-carriers. Hoping this is ironed out for whoever takes over that spot next year. Ragland is a grown man. The secondary has stepped up BIG-TIME imo, even in spite of the trouble against the bunch-formation. Cyrus Jones is Kareem Jackson 2.0. Nick Perry is a solid hitter, but I think he's gotten bad about roaming from his assignments.

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I think Kiffin planned to have OM be Howard's breakout game. We all saw during OM how inadequate OJ looked during the game. I was disappointed with the playcalling, but I can't help but think that it was more CNS doing than CLK. A combination of that and our other receivers not being able to get open and we were in for a long day on Saturday.

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All valid points, although I must say that I may have misspoken a bit. I did drink way too much of the Kiffin kool-aid after the Florida game, but regardless of who had bad playcalling, they were likely trying to play conservative because of the terrible amount of mistakes the line made after Kelly went out.

The high rating for Collins is likely because he has had to take on additional zones with the lack of overall depth at corner this year. (even though the cb's are learning very quickly) He's doing pretty well for how much he's being asked to do.