Texas Football: Junior CB Anthony Cook persistent to enter transfer portal

In the midst of the 2020 offseason, the Texas football program continues to lose depth to the transfer portal, this time with cornerback Anthony Cook.

The writing was on the wall that the Texas football program was going to see rising junior cornerback and former four-star recruit Anthony Cook walk off the Forty Acres this offseason. Cook had a post on his Twitter timeline, that was quickly deleted, stating that he would no longer play a snap at the University of Texas.

There were other names to follow that stated they might not represent the University of Texas entering the 2020 season, including junior linebacker Juwan Mitchell and junior wide receiver Brennan Eagles. But Mitchell already entered the NCAA Transfer Portal once this offseason, and later returned. There also seems to be some level of rhetoric between the athletic administration and Eagles too, which is a good sign for that communication.

Now it’s Cook that intends to put his name in the transfer portal and see where things go. According to a report from Inside Texas/The Football Braniacs on June 23, Cook is no longer with the program and intends to enter the transfer portal. This move shouldn’t come as a surprise to many by this point.

It wasn’t all that long ago that Cook posted that tweet in the first place. Since summer workouts began earlier this month around the college football landscape, what’s actually happening on campus is the least of the significant headlines. The novel coronavirus pandemic rages on, and all of the social activism in communities around the globe continues to fill the national headlines.

However, the Longhorns do lose some key depth in the secondary with Cook on his way off of campus. He was expected to potentially compete for a starting role this fall, either at a nickelback type of position under recently hired defensive coordinator Chris Ash or back at cornerback.

If he were to still stick around at cornerback, he would’ve competed with the likes of juniors Jalen Green and D’shawn Jamison, and sophomore Kenyatta Watson II for playing time among the top four at the position. But the Longhorns will be losing that depth now, and it’s a very good thing they landed the retroactive commitment to the 2020 signing class from four-star former Baylor Bears cornerback pledge Jahdae Barron.

Cook also immediately becomes one of the more talented and proven cornerbacks in the transfer portal. Most names of this caliber don’t appear in the transfer portal this late in college football’s offseason.

In his two years playing at Texas, Cook registered 42.0 total tackles, two tackles for loss, one sack, three pass deflections, and one forced fumble. He got action in the Longhorns secondary in 15 games over the last two years.