Despite Injuries, FSU’s Cook in Elite Company

It’s hard to believe that Dalvin Cook was listed as “questionable” heading into Saturday’s match-up against Miami. Many thought he would be limited in carries after suffering an apparent hamstring injury against Wake Forest. Usually, that’s something that requires a good amount of rest.

Unfortunately for the Hurricanes, it looked like nothing was going to keep Cook from yet another spectacular performance. The Miami native rushed for 222 yards on 22 carries for a 10.1 yard-per-carry average and 47 yards receiving on three receptions. Add in three total touchdowns and you have perhaps the greatest performance of all-time by an FSU running back against Miami.

A deeper look into the numbers reveals that Cook’s play this season should warrant more national attention — or at least the same amount that his peers are getting.

Before the season started, the main running backs to watch went something like this: LSU’s Leonard Fournette, Georgia’s Nick Chubb, Royce Freeman of Oregon, Ohio State’s Ezekiel Elliot, Samaje Perine of Oklahoma, and Cook (not necessarily in that order).

Through the first six weeks of the season, the picture became clearer and a few of these names were tossed out. Chubb suffered a very unfortunate injury against Tennessee on Saturday that ended his season, while others like Perine saw his role in the offense diminished. A bare bones comparison in basic stats produces this chart:

Of all the running backs on the list, Cook has gotten the second fewest amount of carries in the group in front of only Perine. Cook’s injury status against Boston College and Wake Forest limited his number of carries and made him unavailable for large portions of both games. Despite this limitation, Cook leads the pack in yards-per-carry and does not register below fourth place in any listed category.

But the basic numbers still aren’t fully depicting the ways that Dalvin Cook has thrust himself to the top 2 or 3 of the discussion. His eight touchdowns in 88 carries means he’s scoring a touchdown around every 11 attempts — once again good enough for second in the group behind Fournette (9.9).

Keep in mind that Cook is doing this while also seeing a fair amount of plays get diverted in the offense to quarterback Everett Golson, who has 146 pass attempts this season. Fournette and LSU’s running game in general has been the focus of its offense, considering that quarterback Brandon Harris has only attempted 89 passes. Some would argue that this is an advantage to Cook because it keeps defenses guessing, but the next segment shows that this advantage hardly helps in the long run.

S&P rush defense ratings would seem to suggest that Dalvin Cook and the Seminoles’ offense in general, have faced the second hardest competition so far this year out of the group mentioned above. Florida State played the 91st, 19th, second, 45th, and 99th ranked run defenses, which averages out to 51st.

The only other team with a back on the list that’s faced a tougher slate is Oklahoma and Perine, whose opponents come out to an average ranking of 45th. Fournette’s competition by comparison is around 84th. Keep in mind that each backs’ totals against these opponents are included in the numbers.

Truthfully the discussion would be much more inclusive if team results were separated from individual achievements. Note how the three frontrunners (Fournette, Cook, and Elliot) are all on undefeated teams. Meanwhile, Royce Freeman is having as good a year as anyone, but isn’t getting the attention he deserves because Oregon is essentially out of any playoff or conference championship discussion.

No matter how you slice it, Cook’s numbers this season are phenomenal in context. The only thing holding him back from running his way into the record books is injuries.

His hamstring and how he deals with it will certainly be something to keep an eye on, especially if it means he has to tone back on the amount of carries he’s getting. But if he is even operating at around 80 percent capacity, the results could be just enough to propel FSU to a fourth straight ACC championship.