No. 5 safety still thinking same three

It's Final Four time in the state of Florida and the state playoffs are littered with some of the best players - including St. Augustine's Willie Cooper. Cooper and his teammates are set to battle Crestview in the Final Four, a week after whipping Seabreeze 49-21.

“I played all right,” Cooper said. “I threw two touchdowns, got one interception and made a few tackles.”

He also directed the band at halftime and drove the buss home from the game. Well, Ok, he didn’t do that, but there wasn’t much that Cooper, who is ranked as the No. 5 safety in the nation, didn’t do last week and so far this season.

While recruiting is always a distraction, he’s got his sights set on getting a gold state championship ring.

“It’s all about getting the ring,” he said. “The ring is the most important thing for me.”

But Cooper (6-2 and 190) is starting to realize that recruiting is also important. After setting up a visit for Florida State on December 20, Cooper will now re-work that trip for some time in January. He’s also thinking about visiting Florida, Oklahoma and Miami.

“It’s mainly been Florida State, Florida and Oklahoma on my list for a long time,” Cooper said. “But Miami is starting to make a push for me. Those are probably going to be the schools that I’m going to visit, but I don’t have anything solid on paper. I just generally know that I’m going to see those schools in January.”

Cooper said Miami and Florida State have talked to him about making in-home visits this week but nothing is set in stone at this point.

Cooper is still working on reaching his qualifying test score and achieve the minimum grade-point average. He’s taking SAT prep classes and has been spending more time working on a few classes that he’s struggling in.

“I’m going to make it,” he said.