In an all-star game worth watching, C.D. Gill shows he would be quite a catch and K.J. Lacey shows he’s on another level

 

 

 

 

MOBILE — Their final high school game complete, K.J. Lacey, C.D. Gill and Antonio Coleman posed for one last photograph for posterity with Saraland coach Jeff Kelly. It was the closing of one era for all four and the beginning of another in college football for Lacey, Gill and Coleman and, after deer season, for Kelly as he constructs another team.

Coleman, who dislocated his left hand late in the proceedings, held the hefty trophy that goes to the winner of the Alabama-Mississippi All-Star Classic, then handed it off and began thinking of the future, of the next time he and Lacey will meet on a football field in an SEC game.

“I’m going to sack him,” Coleman said of Lacey while engaging in some good-natured picking and imagining some Auburn-Texas game over the horizon. After promising to shake Lacey’s hand after sacking him — “He’s my dawg,” Coleman said — the Big Man who is headed to the Plains concluded: “Of course, I gotta sack my boy. He’s just gonna be another dude during the game.”

But Lacey proved in Saturday’s 35-29 victory over Mississippi at Hancock-Whitney Stadium that he’s not just another dude, even while being chased by a stout Mississippi defensive line that clamped Alvin Henderson — the state’s all-time leading rusher and the first running back in Alabama history to surpass 10,000 yards in a career — down to 1 yard.

Lacey, the Alabama MVP, was not clamped, damped, tamped nor sacked on Saturday, which for Mississippi was most regrettable. He completed 21 of 36 passes for 327 yards and four touchdowns — phenomenal numbers for most any other quarterback but somewhat routine for the Texas signee, who finished his high school career the week before as the No. 2 passer in Alabama High School Athletic Association history.

O’er the field he went, Lacey was laughing all the way against Mississippi as he threw crisp out routes and perfect fades and dropped 50-yard dimes on the fly, showing he’s adroit at escaping pressure and is toxic for any defense that can’t force him out of the pocket. In any other circumstance, a degree in aerospace engineering would be required to fully appreciate the precision. And talk about elevating your game: At one point, a scrambling Lacey faked Mississippi linebacker Martavious Brown so far off his feet that Brown sprang into the air as if on a trampoline. His flight might have been picked up by radar at Brookley Field.

Lacey is leaving for the Forty Acres on Jan. 12 knowing everything — including his potential for college stardom — is bigger in Texas.

“I’m going out there and learning, that’s the main thing,” he said. “I’m going to get used to the system, meet everybody else I need to meet at Texas and then just enjoy the experience, learning from coach Sark (Steve Sarkisian), (quarterbacks) coach (A.J.) Milwee, and Arch (Manning) is still going to be there. It’s just learning from all that and doing the best I can. I want to get prepared for when it’s my time to play.”

On Saturday, his time to play began in the second quarter, when the quintessential, classic, improvisational Lacey appeared at just the right time, with Alabama trailing 12-7 and trying to dry out a wet fuse for the pyrotechnics that were to come in the second half. To that point, Lacey was a pedestrian 8 of 15 for 56 yards.

But on a first-and-10, Lacey looked for Gill, who got jammed. With white jerseys swirling all around him, Lacey moved up and away from the gauntlet and had to flag down Miami signee Daylyn Upshaw of Central-Phenix City a few yards away.

“Daylyn wasn’t looking at me,” Lacey said. “I yelled his name and tossed the ball to him. He caught it and it was on from there.”

The 87-yard touchdown play seemed to transfuse Lacey, who went on to complete 13 of his last 21 passes for 271 yards, including TD fades of 13 yards to Gill and 30 yards to T.K. Norman to give Alabama the lead for good at 32-29 with 6:53 remaining.

Kelly had seen this before but still found it difficult to describe.

“It goes back to every Friday night, something happens where you just kind of scratch your head and you hold your breath and there’s no other explanation but, hey, K.J. found a way to make a play,” said Kelly, who coached the Alabama All-Stars. “That was a big part of the game when we were really struggling to get rolling.”

Aside from Gill, the rest of Alabama’s receivers had to get accustomed to seeing Lacey make throws that most quarterbacks can’t make and do it before the receiver got open.

“I threw a slant one time and it ended up getting dropped,” Lacey said. “(The receiver) said he didn’t think I was gonna get it through there and I was like, ‘I’m always gonna get it through there.’”

Upshaw had five catches for 131 yards against mandatory man-to-man coverage but the diminutive Gill showed once again why colleges are mistaken if they undervalue him, retrieving five passes for 91 yards and grabbing a two-point conversion pass from Lacey.

After the game, the 5-foot-8 Gill stretched up to put his autograph on shirts draped over the grandstands from admiring fans. He should soon be autographing a scholarship from a major program if any of them can look beyond his height. Mississippi players called him a shrimp and paid for it.

“If he was six feet tall, everybody in the country would know about him,” Kelly said of Gill, who averaged nearly as many yards per catch in his high school career (16.3) as former teammate Ryan Williams (17.4). “He’s a great player. And he’s going to find a home somewhere. He was a matchup problem for Mississippi’s defense, especially in the red zone. He made some big plays in there. I’ve seen it for years and it’s good to see him come out and do that on this stage.

“Clearly, his size really wasn’t an issue today. He’s a football player. He’s a tough kid. Size has always been something that he’s had to deal with and he’s found a way to make that an advantage for him. He’s just really tough to cover. He gets in and out of breaks as good as anybody I’ve ever coached. He really showed today against really good people why he belongs.”

Gill — who is nicknamed “The Thrill” and has a reputation as a masterful route runner — felt he helped himself.

“One-hundred percent,” he said. “I should have had a little more but it is what it is.”

Gill sent chills when he froze defenders with a couple of his patented separation moves on the TD fade from Lacey (“like a layup in basketball,” Gill said) and a 40-yarder in the fourth quarter, when he got matched up on linebacker Ronnie Blossom, who discovered he couldn’t go in two directions at once (“Another bread and butter we have been running forever,” Gill said). The long pass and run set up Cleat Forrest’s 32-yard field goal for a 35-29 lead with 3:15 to go.

The chemistry between Lacey and Gill was obviously beneficial.

“He was telling me how he was going to run his route and I was like, ‘All right, just be open. I’ll get you the ball,’” Lacey said. “I told him to come out here and be ready. That’s my receiver, so I’m going to look out for him and get him the ball. He made plays when it came to him and I feel like everybody saw that.”

North Alabama and UAB have expressed the most interest in Gill but the list should expand.

“It’s wherever I can play first at,” he said. “I’m just trying to get on the field. It’s whoever wants me the most.”

In the end, Alabama’s players wanted it more in a rare all-star game worth watching.

“Our players showed a ton of maturity,” Kelly said after six lead changes. “We asked them early in the week to come in here and let’s learn, let’s work, let’s not go through the motions. They did a great job there. They played fast and executed. I think the kids had fun.”