UK, WVU and Purdue all want him. What ‘seemed impossible’ is now close to reality.
Tristan Cox has had a while to weigh his college football options, but he’s still taking his time.
Some high school recruits, particularly within Kentucky, are identified toward the end of their prep careers. Take South Warren standout Jantzen Dunn, for example: He was without a Power Five offer until Sept. 26, when Louisville extended one midway through his junior season. Dunn now is ranked as a top-25 athlete, nationally.
Cox, a Pulaski County High School junior, was not as late a bloomer. Kentucky was the first school to offer the 6-foot-3, 218-pound linebacker at a camp in June 2018, two months prior to the start of his sophomore year. Other offers poured in soon after that season ended: Purdue, Louisville, West Virginia and Vanderbilt are among the suitors who’ve extended scholarships. Both 247Sports and Rivals rate Cox as a three-star prospect.
As of yet, Cox doesn’t have a “top-five” list or know where he’ll take official visits, but he’s aware the clock is about to start ticking more loudly. He wants to commit before his senior season starts; that gives him about six months to cram in trips and cement a decision.
With a dream inching closer to morphing into reality, he remains in awe of the opportunity he’s earned.
“Whenever I was playing my freshman year, if you’d have told me I would end up with all these offers and stuff, I would’ve been like, ‘Ah, you’re crazy,’” Cox told the Herald-Leader during a sitdown interview inside the Maroons’ on-campus fieldhouse. “It seemed impossible for a kid coming from Pulaski County to make it out like that.”
Brothers
Two older brothers — Caleb and Cullen — wore Pulaski County jerseys before Tristan. They were part of the program’s only state championship team in 2014. Neither went on to play big-time college football, but they were crucial to Tristan’s development into a prospect worthy of FBS attention.
If not for them, he probably wouldn’t have been wrangling loose footballs for the Maroons in elementary school or using their weight room throughout middle school. He particularly admired the work put in by Cullen, who hoped to become a Division I long snapper but did not get the opportunity; he’s currently an offensive lineman at Lindsey Wilson College.
Focus on the craft has only heightened since offers started rolling in: Cox travels every weekend to the Champions Sports facility in Nicholasville, where he works with trainers on his speed and conditioning, on top of his daily workouts in Somerset. He also stays in shape by swimming for Pulaski County during the offseason.
“He’s learned a good work ethic and that’s going to help him to college, ‘cause when you get to college everybody’s that size and they’re all great players,” said John Hines, Pulaski County’s head coach. “They were all the best player on their high school team and all that, so you’ve got to learn to work to be successful. I think Tristan’s going to have a tremendous career.”
Major college football prospects are not the norm at Pulaski County, an ordinary program before Hines took the reins in 1999 and transformed it into a playoff threat and perennial state-title contender. Only two former Maroons have signed with Division I schools, both in the last three years (lineman Zack Ferris with Marshall in 2017, receiver Jake Sloan with Eastern Kentucky in December). Cox will be the third, and has generated the most fanfare given the level of schools involved in his recruitment.
He also will have a shot to be the school’s first Mr. Football winner, an honor yet to be achieved by a player from any of Pulaski County’s three high schools. Somerset High School, which plays in a smaller classification, will have a contender to boast itself in Kaiya Sheron, a quarterback who’s also been offered by UK. Fall ought to be fun in southern Kentucky.
“We’re gonna promote him as much as we can,” Hines said. “I think he’s a tremendous player and worthy of that distinction. He can play so many different positions. He came up through our system as a running back and plays running back for us. He plays linebacker as well, which is probably his best position. He can play defensive end and rush the passer, can be an H-back, tight end guy and play wide receiver.”
Hines continued with a laugh, “He’s even a wildcat quarterback. You can do a lot of stuff with a guy like Tristan.”
College
Purdue and West Virginia have been after Cox the hardest, but he’s remained in touch with several schools, UK among them. Recruiting coordinator Vince Marrow was responsible for his original offer, but defensive coordinator Brad White and inside linebackers coach Jon Sumrall have been his primary points of contact since.
UK originally offered him as a tight end, but it became clearer that his future was on the defensive side of the ball. Whether it’s as an inside or outside linebacker could depend on where he goes.
“I get the vibe that they’re fighting on what position to play me in,” Cox said with a laugh, referring to Sumrall and White.
It’s an enviable situation in which to be — high school athlete coveted by multiple FBS programs — but it’s tough to whittle a list of official visits and then choose a place to play football and attend school for four to five years.
“It’s really hard,” Hines said. “Kids like Tristan and the others we’ve had, when they get these D-1 offers, there’s a lot of glamour attached to it and obviously they’re excited about that and they realize at that point that they’re going to live a dream. … But now you’ve gotta dig in and figure out which one’s right for you, and that’s the hard part, because these recruiters are so good at pubbing their school. They’re salesmen, and they’re good at it.”
Cox, like every athlete with an opportunity to play at the next level, wants to develop well enough at that stop to have the chance to play professionally. If he believes Kentucky or Louisville fits the bill, terrific, but home-state heartstrings have not yet had an overwhelming influence on his decision.
“It’d definitely be cool to represent the home state and everything, but I just gotta do what’s best for me, and I still don’t know what that is, at all,” Cox said. “I do need to narrow it down.”
Tick, tick, tick.
This story was originally published March 3, 2020 at 7:30 AM.
