Life wasn't fair for Deontae Cooper

By Kshell

On national signing day whenever you land a four-star running back from the state of California you are excited. Deontae Cooper was one of 11 four-star's for the Washington Huskies 11th ranked 2010 recruiting class. Cooper led the state of California in rushing during his junior and senior seasons and his future appeared very bright for the Washington Huskies. Instead the hardest working Husky has been dealt some bad luck in his time at Washington. Before the season even began in 2010 Cooper who looked great in the spring game blew out his left ACL, heading into 2011 he blew it out again for the second time. Now Cooper who was poised to be an inspirational story for his hard work and perseverance  was tragically hurt once again tearing his right ACL this time. Life can be cruel to anyone at any given time. We've seen talented stars get big money then eat their way out of the league, can't stop breaking the law, or just have a piss poor attitude. For Cooper he was the hardest working guy in the weight room and despite his injuries he always had a positive attitude. This wasn't supposed to happen to him as he will have three more ACL injuries than carries at Washington.

In High School for Citrus Hill out of Perris, California. As a junior he ran for 2,953 yards with 47 touchdowns. During his senior year had a game where he ran the ball 59 times for 412 yards with four touchdowns. The Huskies had beaten out Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, Fresno State, Nebraska and Stanford. The Huskies fans will never have a chance to experience what Cooper could have done due to his ACL tears. For Steve Sarkisian who has recruited well recently this doesn't hurt his program. This just hurts seeing a hard working good kid taken down by injuries. I'm not an emotional guy in sports but I'm truly sad for Cooper this isn't fair at all. Just like life can be cruel in this case it is awful. Cooper came into this class as a four-star 19th ranked running back and came into this class with fellow three-star Jesse Callier. Due to Sarkisian recruiting this doesn't sting as much as it should far as the team goes but this still hurts so much.

The Huskies are still in good shape since fellow three-star Callier has produced. Callier is a junior now who has spelled Polk the last two years. Callier came in as a three star recruit in the 2010 class and produced right off the bat as a freshman.
Callier as a freshman had 413 yards rushing (5.4 YPC) with 18 catches with 98 yards (5.4 YPC). Callier ran for a career high 107 yards against UCLA in a 24-7 win on a special ESPN thursday night game.

Callier also started off the Holiday Bowl upset with a 16 yard pass to Jake Locker. Callier also had 733 kickoff return yards.

As a sophomore Callier battled injuries and thus his production fell off. Callier had just 260 yards rushing (5.5 YPC) with a touchdown. He had seven receptions for 65 yards and had 576 kickoff return yards. With Callier the Huskies are in good shape it is just rather unfortunate to see Cooper go down this way and was really looking forward to seeing how he'd do.

With the news today this doesn't hurt the Huskies program as they have Callier, Bishop Sankey plus other guys coming off redshirt seasons. This just hurts as a fan to see this guy go down this way. I was hoping to see what Cooper was going to give us after hearing so much about him these past three offseasons. At some point you are going to have to call it quits. I know Cooper isn't a quitter but it appears football isn't in the cards for him. This is a terrible day for the Husky fan base seeing Cooper go down once again the hard working kid we all had hopes of seeing. For Cooper due to his work ethic you know he'll be successful in life and for that he has a lot to be proud of.