The week started off very sad for Florida faithful. 5-star Miami Central RB Dalvin Cook Gator chomped all week at the Under Armour All-American Game practices before flipping to rival Florida State. Then Cook proceeded to pour salt on the already deep open wound by taking shots at Florida fans and Florida’s “lack of athletes” in an interview with Gators beat writer Edgar Thompson.
Cook in an interview with The Orlando Sentinel said about angry Florida fans, “It came already, and you know everybody had their own opinion when it came to me. I just had to take it in. But I just laughed at it all……I know once November comes, hey man everybody is going to have it out for me.”
Cook is the poster boy for what is wrong with recruiting. You give 17 year olds the empowerment to drag people along on social media and on television and of course they will go about it the wrong way. I was 17 once, and I definitely did a ton of things the wrong way. Give me a camera and popularity and I would have probably been an arrogant fool too.
With that being said, I have good reasons to believe that Dalvin Cook and the staff at FSU carefully calculated this entire charade to embarrass the University of Florida and dragged Cooks commitment along. My source tells me Florida State head recruiter and coach Tim Brewster told Cook to stay committed to Florida all the way until his announcement. And Muschamp’s staff got wind of this in the days leading up to Cooks announcement and quickly offered 4-star RB and Minnesota commit Jeff Jones. Cook even acknowledged yesterday that he knew FSU was his destination the week after Florida lost at home to FCS school, Georgia Southern (That was 6 weeks ago). As everyone knows, Cook is best friends with 5-star Homestead WR Ermon Lane and 4-star Athlete JC Jackson is Lane’s cousin. Those two will not be far behind Cook. I expect both to de-commit from Florida within the next 2 weeks and end up at FSU.
Florida has also just offered 4-star RB Derrell Scott out of Havelock, NC after the Cook flip. Scott is scheduled to take his last OV on January 17 to Gainesville.
On a more positive note, Florida picked up a commitment 5-star DT Gerald Willis at yesterday’s Under Armour All-American Game. Willis was a heavy favorite to pick LSU over the Gators. Willis is an early enrollee and will be on campus and in classes on Monday.
Switching over to the Army All-American Game in San Antonio, TX. Florida prized 5-star OL recruit David Sharpe will be on display as will prized 4-star QB Will Grier. Florida 4-star DT commit Khairi Clark will be playing as well. Florida DB commit Chris Lammons will be someone to watch in this game, and there are rumblings that Wisconsin is making a late push for his services. He is on my “flip watch”.
