Saraland’s next man up is no ordinary quarterback: Jamison Roberts ready to ‘let it rip’

 

 

By JIMMY WIGFIELD

SARALAND — Such is life in Saraland that the Spartans can lose one of the state’s all-time greatest quarterbacks and not be concerned that they are about to fall into a ditch full of cottonmouths.

K.J. Lacey has gone to Texas’ Forty Acres after three years. Jamison Roberts is now master of The Land with just two starts. Won’t the ground shift?

“We’re doing the same things,” Saraland coach Jeff Kelly declared. “The way we play football here, when I coach, this is a quarterback’s game.”

But Kelly’s quarterbacks are not automatons. You don’t get stamped into the record book, as Lacey was, by being an android and failing to bleed and lead.

Under Lacey, the Super 7 became as traditional as Thanksgiving on the Spartans’ schedule the last three years. Lacey was 39-3 as a starter and finished his career as the state’s No. 2 all-time passer with 10,985 yards and 132 touchdowns, only 40 yards short of setting the record. Missing two games with a minor knee injury his senior year denied him that epochal distinction in a state whose natives include Ken Stabler, Pat Sullivan, Richard Todd, Jamarcus Russell, Jameis Winston and Bo Nix. Stabler is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Sullivan won the Heisman Trophy. Russell was a No. 1 NFL Draft pick. All were pro quarterbacks.

Roberts, a 6-3, 190-pound junior, is no robot himself. He stepped into the breach during Lacey’s recuperation and showed he is far more than a bookmark who held Lacey’s place in history.

In the two games he started, Roberts was 26-of-36 passing for 393 yards and eight touchdowns. In the second game against Baldwin County, his targets seemed as big as the Grand Canyon; he was a perfect 12 of 12 for 152 yards and four TDs.

Just as importantly, Roberts has not been intercepted in seven career games. More significantly, he has a 4.2 grade-point average and a 141.7 career quarterback rating, which blows the top off the barometer. For context, Lacey had a 130.9 career quarterback rating in high school.

“I feel like Jamison’s a returning starter,” Kelly said. “He made big starts last year. What we’ve seen out of Jamison is you get comfortable, you start anticipating and you start understanding how the defense is trying to attack and where your answer’s at. He did an outstanding job figuring out how to attack based on the coverage that he’s getting and he showed great leadership in there, so we’re not going to change anything we’re doing.”

 

What’s the difference?

 

Is there a difference between Lacey and Roberts?

“I’m taller,” Roberts said.

Is there pressure following Lacey?

“I wouldn’t say it’s any pressure,” Roberts replied. “I would say that we are two different paths and I’m just trying to find myself in this position in this next season. I feel like we’re pretty similar, if you ask me. It’s just the height, that’s really it, as far as being different. I’m taller. I feel like I can see over the line.”

Roberts clearly sees what being the full-time starter means.

“It feels amazing,” he said. “With great power comes great responsibility, so I have to lead these guys.”

That might be what Roberts learned the most as Lacey’s understudy.

“I learned how to lead a team and go through every day, just being consistent every single day,” Roberts said. “K.J., when he came to practice, it was really like the exact same every single day — spirals everywhere, perfect balls, everything. And I was just trying to model my game after him last year and trying to model it after him this spring. And leadership, the way the guys followed him and did what he said, didn’t give no talk back, none of that. That’s what I want and I have to work to get their respect.”

Kelly is demanding the same because he sees what Roberts could become. As it is, he has been offered by South Alabama, Troy, Georgia Southern, Appalachian State and UNC Charlotte.

“Coach is very hard on me because I feel like he sees a lot of potential in me,” Roberts said. “I’m not the biggest vocal leader and to be quarterback, you have to be a vocal leader, so he’s pushing me to do that. He’s pushing me to be a better person every single day, a better quarterback, just mentally and physically every single day.”

The new leader will command an offense that should look similar to those of the last three years. The Spartans averaged 45 points per game under Lacey and scored a Class 6A-record 754 points in 2023.

“Honestly, I feel like there’s nothing different,” Roberts said. “We have a little bit more depth in the wide receiver position. Our O-line has gotten better every single day of spring. We have a lot of depth at running back. I feel like we’re going to be explosive. … I know that I have the guys around me.”

Roberts won’t have C.D. Gill and Dillon Alfred to throw to but he will have Deshawn Spencer, a three-star prospect ranked as the No. 73 wideout in the nation according to On3’s collective. Spencer has been offered by Auburn, Arkansas, Mississippi State, Georgia Tech and Kentucky.

“He’s the best receiver around,” Kelly said of Spencer. “He’s primed to have a great year. He’s such a smart player, a tough player and an explosive player.”

 

‘Gonna let it rip’

 

Roberts, as Lacey was before him, prefers to be a high-level distributor who can run if needed and avoid bad plays with his scrambling ability and intelligence.

“I’m a pass-first guy,” Roberts said. “If I don’t have to run, I won’t. But if I have to put my head down, get a first down, keep the chains moving, I will.”

Roberts possesses the qualities of an elite quarterback and needs only to gain more experience, according to QB Country founder David Morris, who also trained Lacey.

“He’s a real accurate passer, quick trigger, been playing it for a long time,” said Morris, who began training Roberts as a seventh grader at Mobile Christian. “Even then, he had kind of a Philip Rivers-type release, kind of three-quarter or lateral even sometimes. But it’s just really quick. He anticipates well. He has a strong arm. He’s a very good athlete. He’d prefer to just be in the pocket but he can run. He just needs reps. He hasn’t had a large body of work yet. He needs live bullets and that’ll help him play fast and at game speed and against great D-linemen and great DBs and good scheme and all that. That’s what he lacks.”

Roberts straddles a fine line with his rhythmical pocket presence, Morris said, but is learning to play faster.

“Sometimes, I’ll challenge him just to speed up a little bit, speed up drops, speed up resets, speed up hitches, stuff like that,” Morris said.

Roberts said his inhibitions as the backup quarterback have disappeared.

“My main goal last year was to try to protect the ball and not try to lose the game for us, make smart decisions, make safe decisions,” he said. “This year, I’m just gonna let it rip.”

It’s still going to be different without big-name veteran stars such as Lacey, Gill, Alfred, running back Santae McWilliams and defensive lineman Antonio Coleman, all of whom made Saraland arguably the best team in the state the last three years. Its 41-3 record is second only to Class 4A Montgomery Catholic (42-1) and its three straight Super 7 appearances are matched only by Class 7A Thompson and Class 4A Cherokee County.

“It’s been a little weird not seeing them around,” said Roberts, who said he looked up to them when they played park football with his brother Jaxon. “I was always that little kid handing them water and just trying to be friends with them. But I want my team to be different from what their team was. Our program is really like somebody goes down, somebody leaves, plug another guy in. I feel like a lot of people are counting us out because we are losing a lot of big names but I’m telling you, this year, it’s going be a lot of new names that y’all are going to hear a lot about.”