FSU Football loses commitment from 2018 recruit James Cook

FSU football has long been where top 2018 running back James Cook has been committed to – but that all changed on July 4th with one tweet.

For close to 16 months now, FSU football has known that it has one of the top running backs in the 2018 class verbally committed to them. Since March 2016, James Cook – a four star back from Miami Central High School and the brother of Seminoles legend Dalvin Cook – has been with the Seminoles and part of their group.

However, in recent months, things have come into play that has some fans of the Noles wondering if this longtime commit could be looking elsewhere. Earlier this year, Cook said he would look at other schools while being committed to Florida State – adding that Dalvin was putting no pressure on him to follow the family tree to Tallahassee.

In the 2017 class, FSU football signed two of the top running backs in the nation – Cam Akers, the top back in the country who likely will be the opening game starter against Alabama, and Khalan Laborn, who was the top player in Virginia – along with Zaquandre White, a top 10 back from Fort Myers. All that is in addition to Jacques Patrick, Ryan Green and Amir Rasul already being on the team.

On Tuesday, Cook sent out a tweet saying he was, in fact, no longer committed to Florida State:

The number three rated running back in 2018 by 247 Sports gave an interview to the website over the weekend where he praised the Georgia Bulldogs – a school he has visited twice this year while not being in Tallahassee since last year:

"“UGA, UGA, UGA, and that is about it,” Cook said when asked about what visits he has taken this year.Cook visited Georgia in April and brought his mother back for the June 13-15 trip to Athens, Ga.“She loved it,” Cook said. “Their running backs are leaving,” Cook said. “I would be next up.”“RBU,” Cook said, when asked to describe his thoughts on Georgia.“I would start as a freshman,” Cook said. “Zamir White, we would be thunder and lightning.”"

The truth of the matter is that there are going to be some that say “If he doesn’t want to play for FSU football, we don’t need him”. At the same time, we all could be reading too much into it and he ends up coming back with the Seminoles come this December and enrolls early – and this all was just part of the process.

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Of course, he could also end up heading to Athens and the Seminoles could be wondering what more could have been done to keep him in the FSU column. The Noles are counting on Akers and company to do great things – but hopefully, they didn’t take James Cook coming to Tallahassee for granted and ended up losing him completely because of it.