Cooke finds the right fit at Iowa
In high school, Gaven Cooke was jack of all trades playmaker for Coach Mazi Moayed at Marin Catholic High School, lining up at quarterback, receiver, and safety. We caught up with Moayed to learn more about the 6-foot-1, 180-pound Cooke, who decided to walk on at the University of Iowa, and what led to his interest in the Hawkeyes.
Q: What kind of led to Gaven deciding to walk on at Iowa?
MOAYED: Part of it initially was his relationship with Spencer Petras. That’s what his intrigued his curiosity about Iowa and then second was just his makeup. Football is very important to him. He loves it, he lives it, he breathes it, and the football culture there is second to none. So once he took a visit out there, met the coaches and had a chance to see everything, he loved it and just really felt at home and it all kind of came together for him.
Q: Looking through his film and some of the articles, he has been quite a playmaker for you all over the field. Does Iowa project him at safety in college?
MOAYED: Yeah, they like him as a safety. Really, they like his overall skill set because that guy can catch anything, but they love him as a safety and that’s more of their need as well. He’s a guy that just wants to play football. He’s a ball hawk, he can really track the ball in the air, he’s physical, and he’s a really good tackler. He’s as smart as they get. For us, he played quarterback, he played slot, and he played wideout, so he knows what everybody on the field is doing. Bringing that perspective to the free safety position is big and should work out well for him in the long run.
Q: Was it just his top end speed or what kept schools from offering a scholarship?
MOAYED: That’s a great question. I think it was a couple things. One, his junior year during the summer he got mono, so he missed all of the camps and combines that year, which was unfortunate. That really affected his recruiting because then teams had to wait and see his junior film and he came into that year a little behind physically because he lost some weight from mono. Regardless, he still had a great season and made a lot of plays. Then the other part of it was his top end speed at the time. Some of the schools are only looking for guys that run sub 11 second 100 meters in track, but that didn’t faze him. He was just looking for an opportunity where he can prove himself.
See highlights from Cooke's senior year at Marin Catholic in the video below.
Iowa's Class of 2020 walk-ons:
Gaven Cooke - 6-foot-1, 180-pound DB from Kentfield, CA
Eric Epenesa - 6-foot-3, 185-pound LB from Edwardsville, IL
Jameson Witte - 6-foot-5, 265-pound DL from O'Fallon, MO
Wyatt Wegener - 6-foot-2, 190-pound WR from Algona, IA
Josef Smith - 6-foot-4, 205-pound LB from Britt, IA
Asher Fahey - 6-foot-5, 265-pound OL from Waukon, IA
Sean Ormiston - 5-foot-11, 197-pound LB from Lena, IL
Zack Lasek - 6-foot-8, 245-pound DE from Ainsworth, IA
Andrew Wilson - 6-foot-4, 225-pound TE from Sterling, IL
Jamison Heinz - 6-foot-0, 191-pound WR from Humboldt, IA
Jake Fisher - 6-foot-2, 180-pound DB from Treynor, IA
Jeremy Chaplin - 6-foot-2, 245-pound DT from Waverly, IA
Jack Johnson - 6-foot-0, 180-pound WR from West Des Moines, IA
Isaiah Wagner - 6-foot-4, 212-pound WR from Pleasant Hill, IA
Aaron Blom - 5-foot-11, 165-pound K from Oskaloosa, IA