Cam Cook entered the 2025 college football season as a relative unknown, but it didn’t take long for the former Jacksonville State running back to establish himself as one of the top players in the country.
During Conference USA Media Day on Tuesday in Arlington, Texas, Jax State head coach Charles Kelly reflected on the impact Cook made during his lone season with the Gamecocks.
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“Not one person asked me a question about Cam Cook last year at media day — not one. Nobody mentioned his name,” Kelly said. “Cam Cook was a great player for us. He was a great young man. … He did a lot for our university.”
Cook earned Conference USA Player of the Year honors last season after leading the nation in rushing yards with 1,659. He entered the transfer portal during the offseason and eventually landed at West Virginia.
Although Kelly knows replacing a player like Cook won’t be easy — “You will never replace a Cam Cook,” he acknowledged — the second-year head coach remains confident in the Gamecocks’ current group of running backs.
“We’ve got a lot of good players in our program. I think that showed in our bowl game against Troy. We had some young players that came out and did some really good things,” Kelly said. “I felt like last year our running back room was the strongest room on our football team, and I still believe that.”
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Cook sat out Jax State’s 17-13 victory over Troy in the IS4S Salute to Veterans Bowl, giving some of the less experienced running backs on the roster a chance to showcase their abilities.
Khristian Lando and Justus Savage both took advantage of the opportunity. Lando led the team with 44 rushing yards on 11 carries, while Savage added 42 yards on seven attempts.
Along with Lando and Savage, who are both entering their redshirt sophomore seasons, the Gamecocks return three other running backs who saw action against Troy: redshirt senior Andrew Paul, redshirt sophomore Jalen Likely and redshirt freshman Lucas Farrington.
It’s a group Kelly believes can continue to produce.
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“I’m confident of the guys that we have, that they’re going to be able to be productive in this conference and do the things that we need to do to run the football,” he said.
Jax State will open the season with a road matchup against North Dakota State on Aug. 29.
