As bowl nears, Cook happy he picked Noles over Gators

Miami-born running back helps FSU reign over in-state rivals.

ATLANTA — Dalvin Cook has gone a combined 6-0 against his hometown school (Miami) and the program he was once committed to (Florida) since arriving at Florida State in 2014.

His Seminoles have dominated their in-state competition, allowing the junior running back to hold his head high when he returns home to play what is likely his final college game in the Orange Bowl — fewer than 10 miles from his high school — on Jan. 2.

“It’s all about the bragg i n g r i g h t s , ” C o o k s a i d during media availabilit y at the College Football Hall of Fame. “That’s why you go out there and leave it on the field. After the game, when you get phone calls and stuff like that, you always want to say, ‘I beat you.’

“It’s something I came to school for. The majority of our players come to school to play in that rivalry. The Florida rivalry. The Miami rivalry. We circle that on the calendar, and we look forward to it.”

The Seminoles have beaten the Gators by a combined score of 58-15 over the past two seasons, and Cook said staying injury-free has been a big factor in the final game of the regular season.

He also credited the FSU defense for shutting down the Gators’ offense for two years running but failed to mention that he’s also been a huge factor in those victories, rushing for 153 yards this season and 183 yards last fall.

Cook committed to the Gators in April 2013, then de-committed seven months later. The Gators program wasn’t a comfortable fit, and neither was the school down the street from his house.

“You’ ve go t to make a business decision,” he said. “Because you’ve got your friends going to Miami that you grew up with. You want to go play with them, but it’s something (where) you’ve got to go better yourself, and say, ‘I want to see something different. I want to go to a different environment and meet new people, and that’s what I did.’”

Up next for Cook and the Seminoles i s a date with Michigan in the Orange Bowl. Cook first got into organized sports by joining an Orange Bowl-sponsored Pop Warner league in grade school, and he’ll be playing in the modern equivalent — Hard Rock Stadium — on Dec. 30.

“I t ’s d e f i n i t e l y s o me - thing that you grow up as a child dreaming about,” he said. “You going out there and playing a bowl game in Miami, your hometown. It’s something I definitely dreamed about, and it came true.”