Week Four's Overnight Sensation: Keldrick Carper, Defensive Back
Each Monday during the 2019 Texas A&M football season, we’ll identify a first or second-year Aggie player who delivered an exceptional performance and earned the distinction of being the week’s ‘Overnight Sensation.’
This week’s ‘Overnight Sensation’ will have to involve a bit of cheating on my part. The Aggies were dormant throughout most of the game offensively, and the only first or second-year player who made a genuinely positive impact on that side of the ball was wideout Ainias Smith, who logged a touchdown on his lone reception of the afternoon, but he took home the award last week.
Defensively, the main standout when you look at the stat sheet was Justin Madubuike who registered a sack, but the Aggie defensive stalwart along the line in no way is a breakout ‘sensation.’ The Aggies’ leading tackler on Saturday afternoon, could, however, fall into that category, despite it being his third season on campus.
Keldrick Carper, a junior defensive back out of Plain Dealing, Louisiana, registered seven tackles and one-and-a-half tackles for loss during Saturday’s loss to help calm things down on the backend after the rocky start for the Aggies.
The junior defensive back saw little action last season for the Maroon & White, registering only 13 tackles on the entire season (he already has 13 thus far in 2019). However, A&M head coach Jimbo Fisher raved about Carper and his reliability during Spring Practice.
”Very steady guy, you know what you’re going to get from him every single day. Come’s to practice with a smile every day... he’s smart, and he’s doing a really solid job.”
That appears to have carried over into the season now as Carper, who ran with the ones a lot during the open portion of practice throughout fall camp before the emergence of true freshman safety Demani Richardson, was who the Aggies turned to when they needed to make a change in the back end on Saturday afternoon.
Carper and the rest of the Aggie defense will have to be ready for another test next Saturday as they head to Jerryworld to face off against the Arkansas Razorbacks. It’ll be interesting to see how the junior safety factors into the rotation moving forward.
Carper’s stats against Auburn:
Tackles: 7
Solo Tackles: 3
Tackles For Loss: 1.5
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