Cooper Hackett

Physical Profile

The frame is the headline: 6-6.5/6-7 with arms measured beyond 34 inches and large hands, on a build carrying 250-270 pounds that still looks lean through the midsection and lower body. That length is a functional advantage at tackle, not just a measurement — it lets him make first contact before a rusher can close to his chest and gives him the reach to recover on an inside counter he initially misreads. The 4.9 forty as a sophomore and two-sport basketball athleticism (14.0 ppg, 7.7 rpg on 74 percent shooting, leading Fort Gibson to the Class 4A state quarterfinals) show up as short-area foot quickness and change-of-direction rather than straight-line speed. Projected mature weight in the 300-315 range is realistic on this skeleton without cutting into his mobility, which is the single most important physical question for any tall tackle prospect and one he answers favorably.

Play Style

A movement tackle, not a maul-first tackle. In protection he plays with quick, short first steps and lets his length do the initial work, and his best reps come when a rusher tries to beat him with speed to the outside and he simply runs him past the pocket. He is at his most comfortable in space — pulling, climbing to a linebacker, working to the second level on a stretch play — where his body control lets him hit a moving target. In the phone booth he currently wins by getting his hands on a smaller defender and finishing through him rather than by generating displacement from his hips, which is exactly the trade you expect from a 250-pound junior. The concerning film pattern is not a technical flaw so much as an absence of evidence: he is rarely tested by an opponent who can beat him with power, so the anchor is projection rather than proven.

Strengths

• Reactionary athleticism in pass protection — 247's Gabe Brooks specifically cites this, and it is the trait separating him from other tall 2027 linemen. He redirects to late movement and second moves instead of committing his weight and losing the rep, and his foot quickness lets him extend the arc against speed off the edge rather than kick-sliding into a fixed depth.
• Length plus hand size he actually uses. At 34-inch-plus arms he can strike first, lock out, and steer a defender past the pocket, which shortens the technical learning curve because it lets him win reps his footwork alone would not.
• Basketball-derived body control and balance — mirroring in space, playing through contact without losing his base, and locating moving targets in the second level. This is the transferable part of the two-sport profile, not the vertical.
• Finishing temperament on the run game side. Fort Gibson head coach Ryan Nolan says Hackett grades out highest among the team's linemen on film with a high volume of pancakes; at his size that is leverage-and-effort dominance at the 4A level, but the willingness to bury a beaten defender is a real trait scouts weight.
• Recruiting trajectory itself is a data point: an unranked-to-consensus-top-50 rise inside one cycle, with 13 offers including Oklahoma, Texas Tech, Arkansas, Auburn and Florida, means multiple independent staffs re-evaluated him upward on the same film.

Areas to Improve

• Play strength and anchor. He is 250-270 pounds against Oklahoma 4A defensive fronts; he has not yet been asked to hold ground against a 290-pound interior power rusher or a long-armed edge who converts speed to power. Expect him to get walked back on initial college contact until he adds 30-plus pounds of functional mass, and prioritize posterior-chain and grip strength over raw scale weight.
• Pad level and pass-set consistency. Tall tackles with basketball backgrounds default to playing high, and against overmatched competition he can win upright without consequence. He needs to learn to sink his hips at contact, keep his hands inside the framework rather than reaching for the outside shoulder, and vary his sets (vertical, 45, jump set) rather than relying on length to cover a late first step.
• Competition level and technical baseline. Brooks flags an expected learning curve, and it is real — the number of legitimate high-major defensive linemen he has faced is small, so his hand placement, run-game footwork off combo blocks, and second-level tracking are all developing rather than proven.
• Position lock. He projects to left tackle but has not settled there; the frame would also carry right tackle, and if the anchor lags the athleticism a guard look is not out of the question, though that would waste the length.

College Projection

Redshirt or developmental year one at Oklahoma, spent almost entirely in the weight room adding functional mass and learning SEC pass-set technique — he should not be counted on as a true freshman, and the staff should resist it even if injuries create a need. Realistic path is a rotational or swing tackle role as a redshirt freshman, a starting tackle job by year three, and a multi-year starter from there; Brooks' 'potential multi-year starter at the high-major level' with left tackle upside is the right center of the range. The variance is wide in both directions: if the strength gains come and the pad level cleans up, he is an all-conference left tackle, and if he stalls physically he is a good right tackle who never quite anchors.

NFL Outlook

Legitimate early-round traits, contingent almost entirely on strength development. Length beyond 34 inches, a 6-7 frame, and pass-protection foot quickness are the exact tripwires NFL evaluators look for in a left tackle, and prospects with that combination who also start multiple years in the SEC routinely go in the first two rounds. Two honest caveats: he is a 2027 high school prospect, so any draft projection is three-plus years of development away from meaning anything, and his current profile is trait-heavy rather than production-heavy against real competition. Best-case is a first-round left tackle; a fair expectation is a Day 2 selection with the anchor as the deciding variable.

Best Fit

A program that will redshirt him without apology and has an offensive line coach with a track record of adding 40 pounds to a tall, athletic frame without costing mobility. Schematically he is best served by an offense that puts him in motion — outside zone, stretch, pulls, and screens — paired with a spread passing game that asks him to protect the edge in space rather than sustain double-team power in a heavy downhill run scheme. Oklahoma is a defensible fit on those terms in addition to the obvious in-state and Cherokee Nation ties, provided the staff treats year one as pure development. A zone-heavy, tempo-based system maximizes what he already does well; a gap-scheme, drive-block-first offense would ask him to play against his current strengths for two years.