3 key injured Texas football players vs. Oklahoma State

Anthony Cook, S

What looked to be another driving factor as to why the Longhorns were having so many issues in the secondary against Oklahoma State in the second half was the injury to senior safety Anthony Cook. The injury that turned out to be a broken arm for Cook kept him out for the entire second half.

And that caused a lot of issues for the Texas secondary as they tried to limit senior Oklahoma State quarterback Spencer Sanders in the second half. Texas looked fine for a while in the third quarter, as Oklahoma State put up just three points.

But the pass defense started to fall apart in the fourth quarter, giving up more than 100 passing yards to Sanders and the Pokes and two touchdowns.

One of the major reasons why Texas was having a hard time shutting down Oklahoma State’s passing game in the second half was the play at safety in the absence of Cook. There were some blown coverages from junior safety Kitan Crawford, who filled in for Cook after he left the game due to the broken arm he suffered.

Later in the second half, Texas was forced to turn to walk-on sophomore safety Michael Taaffe as Crawford was not performing well enough in pass coverage. Taaffe did play pretty well in place of the injured Cook and the sliding Crawford in this game.

However, it does look as if Cook could be dealing with a long-term injury here. With just over one month left in the 2022 season, the Oklahoma State game might be the last for Cook wearing the burnt orange. But we will continue to monitor the status of Cook for any updates that come about in the next couple of weeks.