3 Texas players excelling in their new positions in spring camp

Anthony Cook, S

Another position change to the boundary safety spot took place with the former blue-chip cornerback recruit and converted nickelback Anthony Cook. Texas has moved Cook around to a few different spots over the course of his four years playing for this team. Cook started out his collegiate career playing at the cornerback position.

He then made the switch to get more reps as a spur hybrid under former defensive coordinator/safeties coach Chris Ash in 2020. But Cook wasn’t getting many game reps for Texas in 2020. He got just over 200 snaps during the 2020 season, which was his lowest total since his true freshman campaign.

Moreover, Cook would then make the switch to play at the nickelback position in his first year playing under co-defensive coordinator/linebackers coach Pete Kwiatkowski last fall. Cook definitely had the best season of his collegiate career to date last fall playing at nickelback under Kwiatkowski.

If Cook can play with this same consistency at boundary safety as he did at nickel/star last season, then Texas will be able to make some necessary strides at the back end of the defense. And all accounts are pointing to Cook having a very smooth transition this spring. Much like Crawford, he’s becoming even more vocal in camp.

Cook is also primed to take on one of the big leadership roles for this team in 2022.

As we talked about before, there is still a lot of value that Cook can bring to the table as a boundary safety for Texas. This secondary had a big gap at the boundary safety spot last fall with some of the inconsistencies that B.J. Foster had. If Cook continues this smooth transition from nickel to boundary safety this offseason, he could help take this defensive backfield as a whole to the next level this fall.