Chris Rogers kicked off this week’s edition of former players featured on In My Own Words with Stephen Smith of Touchdown Alabama Magazine. He was one of few recruits from the Mike Shula era to usher in the Nick Saban regime and won a conference and national title in 2009.
Rogers, a native of Lakeland, Fla., signed in the Crimson Tide’s 2005 recruiting class as one of the nation’s top cornerbacks and played in 48 career games. After proving to be an exceptional player on defense and special teams, Rogers started thinking about life after football in 2008.
Not getting the chance to play in the secondary during the Southeastern Conference Championship Game versus Florida that year, sparked Rogers into putting his successful project into action.
His brand, Together Assisting People or TAP, started in 2010 and since then, it has become the largest non-profit organization in the state of Alabama.
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Located in Birmingham, the mission statement for TAP, Inc., is to be an education and career-focused mentoring program for the inner-city youth. TAP accepts students in grades 8-12 and helps them reach their goals such as preparing for standardize testing, submitting quality college applications, and securing scholarships.
Along with this, Rogers prepares today’s youth for the working world in making sure they know how to get a good job and have a financial plan. When it comes to Alabama football, Rogers said Scott Cochran will have the team ready and thought there may be some question marks, the former standout believes they are good ones.
Despite playing on a team with Julio Jones, Rogers really likes Jerry Jeudy.
“I think he’s special,” Rogers said. “I played with Julio Jones and I have seen Amari Cooper, but this kid [Jerry Jeudy] is dynamic. He’s like Antonio Brown. Nobody is better than Julio, but just Jeudy’s explosiveness and takeoff… I would have loved seeing Julio in this offense, where they throw the ball 30, 40, 50 times a game. Everyone marvels about the numbers Julio put up, but he would have broken all records if he had a quarterback to throw the ball 30 to 40 times a game.”
Defensively, Rogers likes both Trevon Diggs and Patrick Surtain II.
While he feels like Surtain may probably be better fitted at safety, the business mogul does see potential in him becoming an elite cornerback.
Rogers specifically dropped Ben Davis’ name in the mix, seeing how the former five-star linebacker has yet to make an impact since arriving.
“I really want to see if he can pan out,” Rogers said of Davis. “He had a lot of hype coming out of Gordo High School, but he has not touched the field yet. I don’t know what’s going on, but I would really like to see what he does.”
Rogers will be watching his Alma mater as it looks to capture a national title.
You can also listen to the audio version of the podcast via Spreaker.com.
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Stephen M. Smith is the managing editor and senior writer for Touchdown Alabama Magazine. You can “like” him on Facebook or “follow” him on Twitter, via @CoachingMSmith.
