Texas Football: Terrence Cooks now in the NCAA Transfer Portal
In a bad day of news in terms of potential losses for new head coach Steve Sarkisian and the Texas football program, one concrete entrance to the NCAA Transfer Portal came in the form of freshman linebacker Terrence Cooks. The former highly-touted four-star recruit and native of Pearland, TX, Cooks was originally recruited by a different coaching staff, though.
With the way things are going on the field lately for Sark and the Longhorns, it’s honestly not all that surprising to see at least a couple of names showing up in the transfer portal. Roster attrition was going to happen next offseason given how things are currently going in terms of lack of success in the win column for the Longhorns.
According to a report confirmed by Horns247 on Nov. 3, Cooks put his name in the transfer portal this week after spending less than one full year with the Texas program. Cooks was originally one of the few blue-chip commits that former Texas head coach Tom Herman and his staff signed in the 2021 recruiting class.
This is also the second former Shadow Creek blue-chip recruit that wound up in the transfer portal from the Longhorns. The other is the fellow former four-star recruit and safety Xavion Alford, who landed with the USC Trojans and former Texas defensive coordinator Todd Orlando last offseason.
Cooks apparently wasn’t a fan of where the future of the linebacker position was headed for Texas in the new defensive scheme under Pete Kwiatkowski. He also just didn’t have the same connection with the current coaching staff that he had with Herman’s last regime.
The top recruiters after Cooks when he was coming out of Shadow Creek High School during the 2021 recruiting cycle were former defensive coordinator/safeties coach Chris Ash and special teams coordinator Coleman Hutzler. Ash is now on staff with the Jacksonville Jaguars. And Hutzler is now in a similar role on staff with the Ole Miss Rebels.
The only game that Cooks had any snaps in this fall was the non-conference finale during the regular season against the Rice Owls. He was on the field for 10 snaps in that game but didn’t really rack up any stats in the process.
Cooks had three-dozen offers coming out of high school. And he ranked as the nation’s No. 306 2021 high school prospect, No. 35 linebacker, and No. 47 prospect out of Texas (247Sports Composite).
Next. Ice cold players during the losing streak. dark
Given the fact that he’s still very young and has a lot of potential, Cooks likely is going to draw a good amount of interest out of the transfer portal. But his reasons for leaving make it sound like he’s a pretty sure thing to leave by way of the portal heading into next offseason.