With a Busy Itinerary, Cook Will Head for Hula Bowl After Alamo Bowl

The UW senior safety receives rewards for a long college career.
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Safety Alex Cook has played six long seasons for the University of Washington football team, but he still has a few high-profile stops to make over the coming month.

After he appears in the Dec. 29 Alamo Bowl against the Texas Longhorns in San Antonio, the veteran defensive back will head for the 77th Hula Bowl All-Star Game for some individual attention on Jan. 14 in Orlando, Florida.

Cook is one of 100 players invited to the Hula Bowl, which formerly used to be played in Hawaii before switching sites last year, and serves as an NFL audition of sorts.

He is the third Husky football player to receive a postseason all-star game invite, joining fellow sixth-year seniors and offensive guards Jaxson Kirkland and Henry Bainivalu, who each will participate in the East-West Shrine Bowl on Feb. 2 in Las Vegas.

It's a chance for Cook and the other UW players to put their games out there for inspection and catch the eye of NFL personnel with a good showing.

"I'm going to ball out there, get my name in front of some scouts and some GMs and try to make a good impression," Cook said.

Alex Cook hits a Colorado ball carrier.
UW safety Alex Cook slams into a Colorado ball carrier.  / Skylar Lin Visuals

While his Husky secondary was fraught injury and young players going through some rather painful learning experiences on game day, the 6-foot-1, 196-pound Cook was the only one of the five starters to stay healthy and open every outing.

Serving as one of six UW co-captains, he finished the regular season as the Huskies' leading tackler with 77, including 3.5 for lost yards.

Last week, Cook was rewarded by a league coaches' vote as a second-team, All-Pac-12 selection, an honor he treated philosophically.

"You kind of just go week to week, just trying to be the best person of yourself, to be best football player for your team," he said. "At the end of it, hopefully you're recognized with Pac-12 honors or whatever accolades. I don't really think about it, I kind of just play the game."

Alex Cook shares chest bump with a Husky assistant coach.
Alex Cook and a Husky assistant coach chest bump during a game / Skylar Lin Visuals

Put another way, Cook was asked if this individual attention showered on him possibly served as redemption for a UW secondary that struggled at times with so many players coming and going or even as justification that there was talent on the Huskies' back row of its defense?

"We had a new coaching staff, a new defensive scheme — it's not going to be perfect," Cook said. "That's just a reality. How many new head coaches come into a program and go 10-2? Not too many. For us to do what we did this year, I don't see why people are complaining. Nobody expected us to do what we did this year."


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Dan Raley
DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.