The Football Brainiacs

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Fahn Cooper is a December grad with two years to play two. Out of HS he originally signed with Bowling Green and started 13 games as a RS Freshman but wasn’t happy there so he transferred to College of DuPage. It sounds like Texas Tech may end up being the team to beat for Fahn’s commitment and my personal feeling is that they’re going to be tougher to beat than you might expect.

He’s got really good size at 6’5″ 314.  This man knows how to finish people off in the run game.  You can tell that he’s worked a lot on his footwork and his pass drops but it doesn’t appear to be part of his muscle memory just yet. When he gets more reps all that work will engrain the technique in him and he won’t have to focus on his feet. He has the athleticism; the fact he appears focused on his feet and still handles his defender tells you a lot about his athleticism. He just needs more repetitions.

Fahn isn’t the archetypal dancing bear but he’s athletic enough. He played left tackle for Bowling Green but he might end up as a right tackle for us. He’s another step in, what appears to be, a concerted effort by Coach Bedenbaugh to build a mauling offensive line. He’s aggressive in the run game, which I really like, but he lets defenders get in on him a little too much.  Once he locks on to the defender, he uses his hands well, but I gotta see a punch from the big man.  He catches people instead of initiating the contact, but fear not, that’s something that Coach B can teach him.  He has adequate strength in the upper body, but after a year in our S&C program he could be really good.  I see him as a right tackle since he can be a little stiff.  He doesn’t strike me as a natural knee bender, but he bends well enough.  Coupled with the punch he needs to develop, in his pass sets he can sometimes lunge at a defender at the bottom of the well (the point where the rusher and the protector first make contact). He’s not afraid of contact, and with refinement of technique he could develop into a ferocious run blocker.  Don’t write him off yet either on the pass pro as that’s just technical stuff as well.

As I said, I can see that Fahn has worked very hard on his footwork in pass protection, so I’m not worried about him at all coming in and taking to the technique Coach B will provide.  Bottom line is this.  Fahn has all of the tools you’d like to see.  He’s aggressive, tough, very strong and seems to have a great attitude and work ethic.  He was selected as team captain by his teammates at the College of DuPage, so he is very respected by his teammates.  You can’t have that on a football team unless you are a tough, hard-working, strong guy. Overall Fahn is a really good player that we’d do well to get.  The only issues I see are technique refinement and development of upper body strength.  The fact that he’s a December grad is huge since he’d have two springs and offseasons to go through.  Pretty decent player.