Cooper Named to Walter Camp All-America First Team
Dec 08, 2023 | Football
Cooper was an unstoppable force in his junior season, helping the Aggies rank seventh among Power 5 teams in total defense (295.0 y/g), while also boasting top-three season totals in tackles for loss (96.0) and sacks (42.0) as a team. The linebacker led the SEC and ranked fifth among Power 5 players with 17.0 tackles for loss on the year. Cooper's team-best 84 total tackles and 8.0 sacks ranked sixth and fourth in the SEC, respectively. The Covington, Louisiana, native tallied at least six takedowns in nine of the team's 12 games this season, matching his career high with 11 tackles against Alabama and Mississippi State. He had at least 1.0 TFL in seven of the eight SEC games, including 8.0 tackles for loss and 6.0 sacks through the first three league games of the season. For his impressive play this season, Cooper received First Team All-SEC accolades from the league's coaches and was also named a First Team All-American by The Athletic and CBS Sports.
The 2023 Walter Camp All-Americans will be honored at the Foundation's annual Awards Weekend, March 15-16, 2024, in New Haven, Connecticut.
Walter Camp, "The Father of American football," first selected an All-America team in 1889. Camp – a former Yale University athlete and football coach – is also credited with developing play from scrimmage, set plays, the numerical assessment of goals and tries and the restriction of play to eleven men per side. The Walter Camp Football Foundation – a New Haven-based all-volunteer group – was founded in 1967 to perpetuate the ideals of Camp and to continue the tradition of selecting annually an All-America team.
The Walter Camp Football Foundation is a member of the National College Football Awards Association (NCFAA). The NCFAA was founded in 1997 as a coalition of the major collegiate football awards to protect, preserve and enhance the integrity, influence and prestige of the game's predominant awards. The NCFAA encourages professionalism and the highest standards for the administration of its member awards and the selection of their candidates and recipients.
