We thought you might like to see what an offer to a Division I, FBS University, which is also among the finest academic schools in the nation, looks like. It is just as well the offer was extended by a service academy, it being the 4th of July and all.
We are showing this to you, not to rub anyone’s face in anything, but to give some degree of hope to some of the parents out there feeling forlorn about their son’s prospects. You see, prior to Grayson Cook being offered by Air Force, he hadn’t been offered but by a few Division II level schools. Grayson had yet to be offered by even a FCS, Division I, school before getting offered by one of the most prestigious schools in the land.
This was a strange anomaly because Grayson Cook is one of the very elite LBs in all of Kentucky’s graduating class of 2020. His is the type of frame one expects to see offered as either a freshman or sophomore. One doesn’t expect him to be offer-less entering his senior campaign. It isn’t that he was undersized either, as we noted in an earlier article chastising schools for sleeping on this prospect.
Grayson is 6’4″ tall, with an 80-inch reach, and weighs 220-pounds. We know 247Sports and Rivals list him as 6-2 but who are you going to believe, the publication which has selected him as an All-Stater and written about him for years (us) or the one who didn’t know he existed until Air Force offered him (247Sports & Rivals)?
As for athleticism, KPGFootball saw Cook run two 40s in the low 4.5s with his first being 4.52 seconds and his second being 4.51. His fastest pro-agility shuttle (5-10-5) was 4.30 seconds and his fastest L-cone drill was the fastest at our All-State Mountain combine at 6.5 seconds. Grayson has a 32-inch vertical, a 9’10” broad jump, a 19’6″ long-jump, and 40-foot triple jump the later two registered as a member of Belfry’s Track & Field team. Like we said, he’s quite an athlete.
It wasn’t a failure to perform on the field. Grayson has consistently showed, both while playing for Belfry High School and attending different combines, during either the one on one or seven on seven portions, that he has the ability to rush off the edge, close the formation, or hold the point versus the strong-sided run, while exhibiting the ability to make plays as a cutback defender, and display the athleticism to drop in coverage.
This past season, his junior year, while missing two games with an ankle injury, Cook tied for third on the team in tackles with 86, collected 5 tackles behind the line of scrimmage and registered an interception. Grayson was 42 of 46 in PATs, and kicked a couple of field goals.
Grayson also handled the punting duties where he averaged 43 yards per punt-attempt. For all of the above accomplishments, he was selected to the AP’s All-State Football team.
As a sophomore, Grayson registered 51 tackles, caught a pass covering 45-yards, and converted 19 PATs as a kicker. Grayson also blocked a punt. Grayson was selected a KPGFootball, sophomore, All-State football player following that season and honorably mentioned on the AP’s squad though only a sophomore at the time.
There’s nothing wrong with his grades, obviously, or he wouldn’t have been offered by the Air Force Academy. In addition to Air Force, he was invited to Junior Day at Yale and Cornell. Grayson sports a 3.6 GPA in advanced placement classes with a 25-ACT.
At KPGFootball, we knew all along Grayson Cook was a Division I, FBS-level player. After all, he was offered a full ride to come play linebacker at the prestigious IMG Academy. You know, the one in Bradenton, Florida which is considered the world’s largest and most advanced multi-sport training and educational institution. That arguably would make Grayson in the discussion for the nation’s top linebacker in addition to his being at the top of Kentucky’s 2020 linebacker prospects.
So there we were, his father and KPGFootball, talking on the phone about what could possibly be the issue. His father was feeling a level of despair, as was Grayson, but not we.
Why not we? Well, for the same reason we would tell many of you to keep grinding, keep working, and don’t worry so much about WHEN you get there but THAT you get there.
What does his father say today? Well, when reached for comment on this article, Mark Cook told us As a retired Army Officer, there is no better opportunity than this for my son but this is his decision to make. My wife and I will support him either way.
Grayson, who has aspersions to become a doctor, has learned the Air Force Academy is willing to continue to pay for his education even through the post-graduate degree necessary to fulfill that aspiration. How many non-academy schools would do that? According to Mark Cook, that is exactly why the US Military is the best in the world.
Here is what you need to take with you from this article. Grayson, like so many of you, was a D-oner all along. Eventually, if he gave schools the opportunity to see him, and camped at schools which wanted him at their camp, he was going to pan some gold, if you will pardon the metaphor.
Grayson Cook, like many of you, had an offer in the mail. The matter was not whether it would arrive but exactly when. If you have been faithful to your craft and worked your tail off like so many who have gone before you, your offer is also in the mail.
Grayson was handling his part of the equation on the field, in the weight room, at practice, on Friday nights, and during prospect camps. Grayson was vigilant, thorough, persistent, and patient. You do the same!
Come to think of it, Cook exhibited all the attributes of a top-flight officer in the United States’ Air Force, didn’t he? Didn’t that turn out to be entirely appropriate?
This is Coach HB Lyon, reporting for KPGFootball, and we’re JUST CALLING IT LIKE WE SEE IT!
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