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June 19, 2017

Davis ready to get cookin’

Defensive lineman Ja'Gared Davis on July 29, 2016 (Photo by David Moll)

Father’s Day supper at Big Daddy Biscuit’s place seems to have been a pot-luck affair.

“This guy,’’ DeVone Claybrooks is announcing to one and all in that unmistakeable basso voice of his, “makes one mean peach cobbler.

“Mmmmmm-mmmm, good. Good? No, better than good.

“I am telling you, the best.”

Ja’Gared Davis seems pleased at the culinary compliment.

“My mom,’’ he says by way of explanation, “expected her kids to know how to cook.”

So Gayla Davis taught young Ja’Gared his way around a kitchen back home in Crockett, Texas.

She’d learned early herself, pre grade-school age, cooking for her grandfather and terminally-ill grandmother.

“My best Sunday dinner to cook?’’  Davis thinks on that a moment. “Ooooooh. I’d say smothered pork chops, green beans, corn bread, beans and rice and then …”

Yep, you guessed it.

So for the Father’s Day repast at Casa Claybrooks post-practice Sunday, the Stampeders’ second-year rush end out of Southern Methodist University whipped up his signature dessert speciality.

“Coach Claybrooks,’’ says Davis, “is, in a way, kind of a father figure to a lot of us. He looks out for us, he protects us. Guys come to play from different areas and we’re up here for five, six months at a stretch.

“It’s not like our family can just fly in all the time.

“So he’s a great stand-in dad.”

As an amateur chef of no small skill then, Davis fully understands the absolutely vital importance of ingredients in making a popular success.

And with the influential Cordarro Law sidelined sustaining a fractured ankle during the pre-season skirmishes, there’ll be more of No. 95 in the Stampeders’ defensive recipe – book-ending the sack master, Charleston Hughes – for the foreseeable future.

“To see what happened to my brother, it hurts,’’ says Davis. “But at the same time we both know it’s part of the game. It could’ve just as easily been me that was injured.

“Do I feel more responsibility? In a way. Yes and no.

“I go into every game with the intention of preparing to be a starter, even if I’m not. I put in the workload, put in the time in the film room. The way Coach Claybrooks coaches, if you’re between those lines, you are a starter, so act like one. Whether you’re first on the depth chart or last. That’s got to be your mindset.

“When you’re between those lines, you’re being counted on.”

Photo by David Moll

Playing in all 18 regular-season games through 2016, 10 of those as a starter, Davis registered a tidy 32 tackles, seven sacks, had a pick and scored a touchdown off a fumble recovery.

“He had a great first year to build on,’’ says Claybrooks. “In order to improve, he’s been putting in his time on details.

“We’ve had that Next Man Up philosophy since I’ve been here, since ’08-’09. We expect no different of (Davis) now.

“He’s very unorthodox. You watch the way he plays, his style, and another guy woulda torn his knee up. But he has that flexibility, that jitterbug – that you just can’t coach.

“Some players have it and some don’t.

“If you’re able to build upon that with a wider skill set, then he can grow as a player. We’re trying to add crafts to his natural ability, clean it up to make everything smoother.

“He’s done a good job embracing the coaching. ’Cause it’s tough for a kid to be successful doing things a certain way and then convincing him that to develop as a player he needs to make subtle changes.”

Adjusting to the nuances of the Canadian game, Davis admits, hasn’t been an easy snap-of-the-fingers.

“The first year,’’ he sighs self-deprecatingly, “I was kinda just running around like a chicken with my head cut off. This being my second season and knowing the game and the league better is going to help me tremendously.

“Studying film more, studying my opponent more, understanding the keys to read is going to take my game to that next level.

“I just want to be as good a player as I can possibly be.”

As good on a 110-yard field as he is, say, puttering around a kitchen, whipping up that signature peach cobbler?

“Better.”