THREE THINGS WE LEARNED
1. Terrence Cooks is a priority target for Texas
The Longhorns have one 2021 linebacker committed in Derrick Harris, but with that position being such a big need in the 2021 class, you can expect the Texas coaches to continue to target a number of other linebackers, both in-state and out-of-state. One guy that’s squarely on the radar is Terrence Cooks.
The Pearland Shadow Creek standout was a recent visitor to Texas during the Longhorns’ Elite Day. It was his first time to really get a good look at a college program, and Cooks said he felt right at home.
“It was good. It was a good family environment,” Cooks said. “It didn’t feel awkward like it can at some schools. I fit right in. The coaches showed love, answered all my questions. They made my family feel loved. It was good.”
At that event, Cooks was a popular recruiting target of Texas commitments Harris and Jalen Milroe.
“They really worked on me. They were telling me Texas is the best college for me,” Cooks said.
Cooks followed up his UT visit with a trip to College Station just before the dead period began. That trip also made a strong impression.
“It was good. I learned about the Aggie network, which is cool. I really liked that. They answered my questions,” Cooks said.
During those visits, Cooks got some time with head coaches Tom Herman and Jimbo Fisher. He’s hoping to continue to build those relationships and has a timeline for committing early in his senior season.
“I’m probably not going to narrow it down soon. I plan on committing before the fourth game next season (to do it before district play starts), so I’m probably not going to narrow it down until the end of summer,” Cooks said.
The 6-3, 208-pound Cooks holds close to 20 scholarship offers. He says everyone who has offered is on the same level, but admits the Longhorns will receive strong consideration.
“Texas is for sure up there. Texas is different,” Cooks said. “Also, that’s the first school I really visited. It was just different.”
Cooks’ former Shadow Creek teammate Xavion Alford is a freshman early-enrollee for Texas. The two stay in touch and the reviews from Alford have been overwhelmingly positive.
“He says there’s not any other place like Texas, tells me I should stay at home and play,” Cooks said. “He loves it there. He said college is different but he loves it there.”
2. Former Longhorn Tim Crowder is passionate about training other athletes
When I bumped into former Texas and NFL defensive end Tim Crowder last week at Alfred Collins’ commitment announcement, it reminded me that I’ve wanted to occasionally feature some former Longhorn players in “where are they now?” segments. What better place to start than with Crowder, who now trains youth, college and pro athletes in the Austin area?
A former standout at John Tyler High School, Crowder signed with Texas back in 2003. He went on to be a four-year starter for Texas before becoming a second-round NFL Draft selection. Crowder spent five years playing for the Denver Broncos and Tampa Bay Buccaneers. After hanging up his cleats and taking a bit of time off, Crowder returned to one of his passions that is training athletes. He now owns Round Rock-based Nuclear Athletes.
I caught up with Crowder this week to talk about his path to training other athletes and to reflect on his time as a Longhorn.
When did you start Nuclear Athletes?
“When I went to UT, I was a kinesiology major. I was always fascinated with how the body moves and with performance.
“What happened, from 2007, all the way to when I retired in 2012, I would train myself in the off-season, along with guys like Derrick Johnson, Brian Orkapo and a lot of other guys coming out of college. They would basically join my training group that I started at UT. We were all playing in the NFL and coming back and training together. A lot of guys didn’t realize I was the one writing the programs behind the scenes. They were like, ‘Man, that was you coming up with all that stuff?’ After I retired, I took a couple years off, Brian Orakpo and I had stopped training for a couple years. He was training with someone else and he got injured when he had the (torn pectoral). He called me and said I needed to start training him again. I started back training him, Derek Johnson and some other guys.
“Then I made it legit, made Nuclear Athletes in 2014. I’ll never forget that summer. At first I didn’t want to train kids. I had heard the horror stories about parents and things. They (Orakpo, DJ) told me to train kids, that I had some methods that nobody else was using, that I was ahead of my time. That’s what I eventually started doing. I had about four athletes that first year, still had some pro athletes as well. In the summer of 2014, I had four of them and three went to college, their 40 times dropped significantly. I have continued to evolve over the years and that developed into what I do today.”
Can you describe your passion for what you do and where that comes from?
“It’s just something I’ve always been fascinated with, how the human body moves. Even in my high school days, I loved training, seeing how the body develops. I looked up to Arnold Schwarzenegger, all the body builders back in those times. I wanted to be a body builder. My dad used to get all the magazines for me. I had a bench press in my room. It was a small room, the bench press took up most of my room. There had been many nights, I woke up and forgot and basically had a bar hitting me across my face.”
What do you feel sets your practice apart from others?
“When I retired from football, I had the same mentality I did when I played. I said when I do something, I want to be the best at it. I went out and studied. I studied methods, continued to evolve, different coaching studies. I studied speed, studied why I didn’t get faster in certain times in my career, broke all that down, made one melting pot program. Not to get too technical, but I studied force output, rate of force production.
“Basically, what separates me, number one, I personally work with all the athletes. I only train kids in semi-private groups, mostly 2-8 athletes at a time. I train the kids no differently than I train my pro guys. I train them in progression phases. In the off-season, the high school guys, it’s speed and power development. We still focus on positions, but mostly finer details. In spring ball, we pick it up on position work. We always work around the high school program. I tell the high school coaches, tell the athletes, tell the parents, this is not your main program. We are like a tutor to your high school and middle school programs. We’re not all going to speak the same language, but football is football, technique is technique, and I have played in them all. I’ve been told I have a real player’s perspective, played at a high level. It’s technical, but not overly technical in that guys are thinking too much. You have to know when to tell a guy to just cut it loose.”
Talk about the pride in what you’ve done with helping develop some young athletes …
“It’s phenomenal. That’s why I love what I do now. They also keep me young. I’m not that old, only 34, but they keep me young. I’m hip to the new music that’s out there, new words they’re using. But I also keep them hip to some of the old schools ways. I’m that bridge between the new and the old.
“It’s a big deal, but you really get a chance to see the kids start out as clay, get a chance to mold the kids. I have concluded over the years, there’s not a crisis of bad athletes out there, but a crisis of bad coaches. That’s really what it is. I’m a coach so I can say that, but it’s a problem. A lot of coaches can’t relate to the athletes out there. They’re too worried about establishing their culture and can’t relate. It should be, ‘Let’s start a partnership.’
“That’s what happened when I was at Texas. Mack Brown, I never heard the word culture one time. That’s the new word out there. I’m pretty sure they all use that term now. He used the word swagger and confidence more than he used the word culture. Mack was too concerned with we have to get these kids and we want an environment around here that’s so good that kids love to come up here. That’s what we focused on. We loved being around those coaches. It was all love and was a real family environment. We would all bring our girlfriends up there, everybody hung out with everybody. Everybody was busy knowing each other, it was just a relationship and partnership and it started at the top.”
Reflect on your Texas career. What highlights stand out?
“What really stood out was just the build of it. I was there, I remember we had that soft label. People would say we were soft but we were winning 10 games a year. I can just remember, I was there for the beginning when it really stated clicking. So many things I learned during that time that I use now with my athletes and my own personal kids, how I run my household, how I relate to my wife, how I run my life.
“There are so many things I learned that I use today. It’s like ‘wow,’ something I learned in my freshman year to do this and that. Then to put it all together and win a national championship, it was really such a sigh of relief. When that (clock) turned to zero, that’s really what it was for me, was ‘Whew we finally did it.’ The way I was, I didn’t enjoy it like I should have at the time. I think I enjoy it more now. We had a lot of guys who were like ‘Okay, let’s do it again.’ We had some injuries my senior year, went to the Alamo bowl, but still won 10 games.”
How did playing at Texas prepare you for the NFL and life after football?
It prepared me big time. That’s why I recommend a lot of kids play sports, play a team sport if you can. You learn how to talk to people, which is a lot of what people are missing now. You learn how to socialize, how to communicate. We may not agree on the same things, but when we’re on the field, we’re in harmony out there. It’s learning how to communicate, build relationships, be a man. A lot of people look like they’re a man, but don’t act like a man. Being in sports brings that out of you.”
“It makes you grow up really fast. At 22 I had a house, a mortgage, life insurance, taxes. It really prepared me for a lot of things. I played five years, could have played longer, had concussion, got released in Denver, cut in Tampa, but in the end I was able to leave on my own terms. That’s what gave me peace and happiness. I tell (Quandre) Diggs and those guys all the time, enjoy it, because you have to think ‘When football is taken away from me, will I still be okay?’ I have a lot of conversations with those guys about that.
Are you still involved with the Texas program today?
“I’m still around. I come around, I visit up there. I still talk to some of the guys, train the guys from time to time. I have worked with Joseph (Ossai) in the past, worked with Charles (Omenihu). I’ve worked with some of the guys, mostly the pass rushers.”
3. The recent offer to Florida WR Marcus Burke has caught his attention
The Longhorns put an offer on the table for 2021 Marcus Burke last week, and the Jacksonville (FL) Trinity Christian Academy standout said the Longhorns are a team he’ll seriously consider.
A four-star prospect holding about a dozen offers from the likes of Florida, Georgia, Baylor, Miami, South Carolina and Virginia Tech, Burke says he’ll definitely be on the Texas camps at some point.
“I was surprised (by the offer) but I was really excited and enjoyed talking to the coaches,” Burke said. “I’m definitely visiting Texas for sure.”
Burke said he’s still learning about the Texas program overall but has heard great things about the city of Austin. The 6-3, 180-pounder said he’s still considering most of the schools that have offered. He hasn’t set up any official visits yet, but said one will be reserved for Texas.
“Definitely Texas (will get one). I don’t know about the others yet,” Burke said.
We’ll stay in touch with Burke to see if this one heats up, but the Longhorns are definitely on the radar after last week’s offer.
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TWO QUESTIONS
1. What’s with all the recent out-of-state offers?
The recent run of UT offers has almost been tough to keep up with, and it looks like the new coaches have some freedom to recruit territories they feel comfortable with, be it in the state of Texas or anywhere else.
According to the Rivals.com database, Texas has extended 46 offers to non-Texan players in the 2021 class, and a good chunk of those have gone out in the past couple weeks. It’s a bit of an interesting development when you consider how well the Longhorns recruited in state last year and how strong of a start Texas is off to in-state recruiting in the 2021 class (UT has the two highest-rated commitments in the state in Billy Bowman and Ja’Tavion Sanders and is a strong contender for most of the top 15), but I like the aggressive approach for a variety of reasons.
First off, it’s a common sense approach in that there’s strength in numbers and the more lines you drop in the water, the more chances you’ll have to get a nibble. Look no further than WR Marcus Burke, as mentioned above. Would Texas be the odds-on favorite to land Burke? Probably not, but if you can get him on campus, anything is possible and by extending an early offer the Longhorns have put themselves in position to at least get a visit. We’ve seen Texas have success in recruiting certain areas of the country, including California and Arizona, so those two areas seem like no-brainers. Several of the new staff members have ties to other pockets (for instance, Andre Coleman recruited the state of Georgia well while at Kansas State) so why not tap into those resources?
I don’t expect Texas to look out-of-state at every position, but with an obvious need at a few spots like cornerback, wide receiver and linebacker, targeting elite talent all over the map just makes sense.
Texas has a commanding early lead over its regional recruiting foes in the early part of the 2021 class in the chase for the top in-state prospects (Texas has three commitments in the top 15 … OU, A&M and LSU have zero), but momentum can change in a hurry. The Longhorns did most of their damage in the summer months last year but it’s going to be difficult to match that type of success this summer, with some players wanting to see how Texas plays in the fall under the new coaching staff before jumping into a commitment. Win games on the field in 2020 and Texas will be more than fine. Struggle, as UT did last year, and Texas may have to take a more national recruiting approach to fill some spots.
As always, the UT staff’s primary focus will be on securing the top players in the Lone Star State but if casting a wider net early in the process gives you more seeds to potentially harvest later in the process, why not get them plant them now to get a head start?
2. How would I grade the position groups from the 2020 class?
We’re all of six days away from National Signing Day 2 and putting a bow on the 2020 class, but it feels like it’s been a month. Before we forget about those guys and completely turn our attention to 2021 and beyond, let’s grade the position groups that Texas signed in the 2020 class.
Quarterback (A): Texas signed one of the nation’s top one-two punches in Hudson Card and Ja’Quinden Jackson, and while I think both guys have a chance to be special at the next level, it’s hard to give this group an A+ without a bona fide five-star stud like Bryce Young.
Running Back (B+): Landing Bijan Robinson is nearly enough to push this to an A, but you can’t completely ignore the fact that Texas wanted to get a second back (and had one committed at one time) only to come up empty. Bijan feels like a near lock to be an instant contributor, but the lack of depth dings the grade a bit.
Wide Receiver (C): Texas signed a solid three-man class in Troy Omeire, Dajon Harrison and Kelvontay Dixon, but Harrison and Dixon could be classified as athletes, the Longhorns weren’t able to secure a second outside receiver and the loss of Quentin Johnston to TCU really stings.
Tight End (Incomplete): There was just never any action here, so it’s impossible to grade.
Offensive Line (B+): Herb Hand locked up a very good four-man class very early which made for a very uneventful offensive line recruiting story for most of the cycle. Nothing wrong with that. This group is very good but lacks a truly nationally-elite player to bump it up to an A.
Defensive Line (B+): This group got a huge bump on NSD2 with a commitment from Alfred Collins, but I can’t quite push it to the level of an A because there are only three signees, Texas couldn’t close on Princely Umanmielen and there’s some projection involved if we’re trying to figure out which guys will play inside or outside.
Linebacker (C-): Coleman Hutzler was handcuffed here so there’s nothing he could do, but Texas could have used more bodies here. I think Prince Dorbah has a chance to be one of the better players in this class and Jaylan Ford was a solid pick-up late, but Texas needed more here.
Cornerback (C): I’m a big Kitan Crawford fan but with this being a one-man class, it’s hard to give it much higher than a C. Jay Valai hit the ground running once he was hired and tried to get Texas involved on some guys late, but UT was playing catch-up and couldn’t quite close the gap.
Safety (B): On one hand, the duo of Xavion Alford and Jerrin Thompson gives Texas two Rivals250 members. On the other hand, Texas missed out on some big-time targets like Bryson Washington, Chris Thompson and Lathan Ransom.
Athlete (B): Jaden Hullaby was a good early pick-up for Texas and he’s a guy who could be placed in a couple different position groups.
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ONE PREDICTION – Quay Davis recommits to Texas
Top 2021 wide receiver Quay Davis is a Rivals100 member, a former Texas commit (and SMU commit before that) and it appears things are again trending very well for the Longhorns.
Davis had very positive things to say about the Longhorns at the Under Armour Future 50 camp in January, telling Rivals.com that Texas was essentially in the lead. Last weekend, Davis was rocking UT gear at a Pylon 7v7 Tournament in Nashville, so I checked in with the Dallas Skyline standout last night.
When we talked, Davis was pretty open about UT’s lofty standing.
“Texas is the leader,” he said.
Davis, who has a top five of Texas, LSU, Alabama, Florida and Texas A&M, added that he stays in touch with UT wide receivers coach Andre Coleman pretty much every day, and he wants to make a decision sooner rather than later. Perhaps much sooner. Luckily for me, my FutureCast pick was on Texas from way back and when and I’m not about to change it now.
