Omarion Cooper and Tar’Varish Dawson Jr. were stars together in high school. Now they’re planning to team up in Boulder.
On Monday, Cooper, a former cornerback at Florida State, and Dawson, a former receiver at Auburn, both announced that they are transferring to Colorado to play for new head coach Deion Sanders.
“Let’s make history!! COMMITTED,” Cooper wrote on social media.
Cooper is the third player from Sanders’ alma mater, Florida State, to commit to the Buffs in the past week. Edge Derrick McLendon II and linebacker Brendan Gant both committed last week.
A four-star recruit coming out of Lehigh Senior (Fla.) High School in 2021, the 6-foot, 188-pound Cooper appeared in 20 games, with seven starts, during his two seasons at FSU.
Last season, he played in 12 games, starting four. He had 14 tackles, one interception and a forced fumble. In 2021, he played in eight games, starting the last three, while racking up 16 tackles, two interceptions and four pass breakups. He was FSU’s Devaughn Darling defensive freshman of the year.
In 2021, Cooper ranked as the No. 23 cornerback recruit in the country by the 247Sports composite rankings. He had 28 scholarship offers, picking Florida State over 21 other Power 5 schools. Cooper was also recruited out of high school by Sanders, who was the head coach at Jackson State at the time.
Dawson is the latest new receiver in a group that has been completely overhauled this offseason by Sanders. CU has 10 receivers projected to be on scholarship, none of which were with the Buffs last season. Dawson committed to Cincinnati on April 21 before flipping to CU.
After redshirting in 2021 and appearing in one game for Auburn, Dawson played in four games last season, with two starts, catching two passes for 30 yards.
As a senior at Leigh Senior in 2020, Dawson caught 31 passes for 650 yards and eight touchdowns and also ran 34 times for 290 yards and six touchdowns. He’s also been clocked at 10.58 seconds in the 100-meter dash.
Like Cooper, Dawson was a four-star recruit. He had 26 scholarship offers and chose Auburn over Florida State, Miami, Texas A&M and others.
CU has 65 projected scholarship players for next season.
