HE’S A GAMER
Lobo Dakota Cox embraces the label of overachiever
Years ago, an Albuquerque Journal reporter referred in print to a University of New Mexico basketball player as an overachiever.
The player was furious, believing “overachiever” was a code word for “no talent.”
Dakota Cox is talented, OK? Anyone who has seen him play football is a witness. No one who leads the nation in tackles per game, as Cox did for the Lobos in 2014, does so without talent.
Cox comes from an athletically talented family. His father, Tom, played football at Southern California. His younger brother, Chandler, is a sophomore fullback at Auburn.
Yet, unlike that Lobo hoopster of yore, Cox does not reject the label of overachiever. He embraces it. “I pride myself on being an overachiever,” the UNM
senior linebacker said after Thursday’s practice at University Stadium. “I like to think of myself as a perfectionist, especially on the football field, because I want to be a guy that’s 100 miles an hour all the time, 100 percent knowing what to do all the time and just going out there and playing hard.”
As for physical talent, Cox was neither the biggest guy nor the fastest guy during his high school career at Juan Diego Catholic in Draper, Utah. Despite his senior stats of 144 tackles as a linebacker and nine touchdowns as a fullback in 2012, his only NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision scholarship offers came from Cincinnati and New Mexico. And UNM’s offer came late, after he’d already committed to Cincinnati.
Kevin Cosgrove, UNM’s linebackers coach (and now the defensive coordinator) called Cox out of the blue, saying he had a roster spot in Albuquerque if anything changed.
Something did. Butch Jones left Cincinnati for Tennessee, and new Bearcats coach Tommy Tuberville was uncommunicative.
Lost in the recruiting shuffle, Cox took a visit to UNM. “I fell in love with the place,” he said.
He’s been overachieving ever since.
Four games into his freshman year, Cox became a starter. He finished the season as the team’s leading tackler.
He was leading the nation in tackles as a sophomore when, in the ninth game of the season, he got tangled with a teammate while in the process of tackling Boise State running back Jay Ajayi. The resultant torn ACL ended his 2014 campaign and, Lobos coach Bob Davie believes, limited his effectiveness early in 2015.
“This time a year ago, he didn’t have that little extra juice or that little extra gear,” Davie said. “... Knock on wood, I think he’s back to where he was physically as a sophomore.”
Cox nonetheless led the team in tackles as a junior for the third straight year. He enters the 2016 season ranked 18th in program history with 312 tackles but could find himself in the top five before he’s done.
In Davie’s view, Cox’s primary talent is the stamina required to play at full speed play after play. He rarely missed a snap last season.
Davie agrees, though, that Cox’s accomplishments outstrip his physical talent.
“I would call him, honestly, a maximum achiever,” Davie said, “in that he maximizes everything he has, just because of the intangibles he brings to it.”
The success Cox has helped to achieve at UNM is a tangible thing: a 7-6 record and a bowl game last fall after records of 3-9 and 4-8 his first two years. Cox, whose Juan Diego teams went 47-5 with two state titles during his four years there, wants more.
A Juan Diego-style 2016 season, he said, “is something we’re looking to do . ... Last year is something to build off, and not to be settled for. We’ve been working every day out here with that mentality.”
Cox is by no means a small guy, listed at 231 pounds on the UNM roster. But at barely 6 feet, he doesn’t snugly fit the profile of an NFL linebacker. He’s a big fan of Zach Thomas, the 5-11 former Texas Tech Red Raider who played 13 years in the NFL and is credited with 1,076 career tackles.
In the meantime, Cox will be playing his senior year while in graduate school — having earned an undergraduate degree in finance in just three years.
There he goes, overachieving again. TALKIN’ ABOUT PRACTICE: Thursday’s practice was closed to the public and media. But according to information found on Twitter, a touchdown interception return by senior cornerback Isaiah Brown was quickly answered with a long touchdown run by junior running back Daryl Chestnut.
ROSTER MOVES: Two players who began the preseason as tight ends have been moved to other positions. Jonathan Brys, a true freshman from Lumen Christi Catholic High School in Jackson, Mich., is now an offensive lineman. Aaron Overacker, a walk-on redshirt freshman from La Cueva, is now a linebacker.