What you know of Darwin Cook thus far may be limited. He is, after all, a redshirt sophomore who played just sparingly last season, but has this spring introduced himself on a more formal and more frequent basis as the guy looking to replace Sidney Glover at the bandit/boundary safety spot who just so happens to light up offensive players.

In short, he’s a lot like Glover, who he followed and studied these past two years. It looks like he’ll have a chance to start in the fall and unleash his combination of fast and furious football that is required of that position.

Not bad for a 5-foot-11, 180-pound defensive end in high school.

“I was better than Bruce Irvin. Way better,” Cook said. “When I’d get a sack they’d say ‘Coooook’ instead of ‘Bruuuuuce.'”

Understand Cook is a highly, constructively confident person, which is also needed where he plays because there will be times he’ll need to bring that little something extra to make up for where he comes up a little short.

His teammates like him. You should see Irvin laugh when he’s told Cook believes he was a better defensive end — and this is something Cook has told Irvin about before. Jeff Casteel praised Cook’s growth from the ground up. He called Cook a “wonderful kid,” which, I don’t know, you don’t hear very much.

He’s also from Cleveland, which matters.

It is there where he played for Shaw High and was put at defensive end before his junior season. The following summer, despite little interest in how to play defense or how to get better at it and only slightly more concern for a future in the game, he was committed to the Universityof Cincinnati.

In two years with the varsity team, he had 191 tackles and 42 sacks. Jeff Mullen, the  former offensive coordinator who recruited that  part of Ohio, would later tell Cook that one sack on the final play of a Lake Erie League game six weeks his senior season was what got him to Morgantown.

“He was about to throw the football and I was coming full-speed,” Cook said. “I hit him and lifted him up and we were both up in the air. We went flying. It sounds crazy, but that’s the play that got me a scholarship.”

Cook pauses and lets that sink in before he says, “It’s on Google. Search for ‘Darwin Cook, No. 12.’ It’s the last play on the highlight.”