Husky Cook Book: Converted Wideout Brings Big-Play Recipe to Free Safety

The biggest surprise on the Husky defense is a junior from Sacramento who initially caught passes for the UW. He even started in the Rose Bowl on offense.

With talented safeties, you never see them coming. They just show up in a hurry and leave you splattered all over the turf.

Such is the case of Alex Cook, who has gone from wide-receiver recruit to Rose Bowl starter to special-teams scourge to starting free safety for the University of Washington

When the Huskies finally open the 2020 season against Oregon State on Saturday night, Cook will represent the most notable change on defense. No one on the outside saw his dash up the depth chart, mainly because practices are closed. Yet there were subtle hints.

"There are going to be some tough decisions," defensive-backs coach Will Harris said of Cook last April after spring practice was scrubbed. "Alex Cook is going to play safety for us. After getting that year under his belt and coming over from the offensive side, he's going to show tremendous growth." 

The 6-foot-1, 200-pound Cook came to the Huskies from the Huskies — as a talented two-way player from Sacramento's Sheldon High School, which also sports the canine nickname.

He made the UW's most radical position change since Will Dissly, now with the Seattle Seahawks, switched from defensive end to tight end in 2016. 

Cook initially sat in then-defensive coordinator and DB coach Jimmy Lake's office on his Washington recruiting visit. 

Yet he accepted his scholarship offer from the since-departed offensive coordinator Bush Hamdan, determining his position fate as a wide receiver at the outset. Yet the other side of the ball was never far from him.

"We always saw a guy with a physical mindset who liked contact," Lake said. "Which is one of the reasons we flipped him over to defense."

Cook spent two seasons catching passes because there was a position need, redshirting his first year and finishing up the second year as a starter against Ohio State in the 2019 Rose Bowl.

He moved to defense the following spring, again going where the opportunity for playing time seemed greatest.

"I loved playing receiver but defense is a natural thing for me," Cook said. "I just wanted to play at this point."

As a junior, he made his move up the depth chart over the past month. While people widely assumed sophomore Julius Irvin might get elevated to free safety starter, or sophomores Asa Turner and Cam Williams would start side by side at the two safety spots, Cook pushed all of those ideas aside and won the job.

The Huskies are looking for playmaker in that No. 1 free safety role and Cook brings essential ingredients. Namely, he should come up with some interceptions and maybe more. 

"He has really good hands," Lake said. "We like guys who enjoy scoring and getting the ball back for our offense."

The Husky coach, unlike those opposing wide receivers and runners, can see and hear Alex Cook coming.

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