UNLV To Purdue Flip Profile: Vinaz Cobb

A safety from Missouri commits to Purdue sight unseen.

Barry Odom brings with him some of his recruits from UNLV. Remember: these aren’t transfer portal players, this is high school talent that was juuuuuust about to enroll at the university out west.

Today we have a player who made the commitment sight unseen. Purdue University was literally an unseen site for him, having taken his official visit a week after he flipped. Vinaz Cobb, a three star safety out of St. Louis, Missouri, has entered the fray.

Cobb, who also had an offer from Indiana (gross!), had been committed to UNLV since June.

What he brings to Purdue:

He’s a longer safety at 6’1” and 190 pounds, which is already the nearly prototypical height and weight for a college-ready safety.

Great north-south speed here. Obviously you need that from a safety, but I’m especially impressed with some of these plays where he sees the ball has been handed off and he sprints from the deep backfield to tackle a running back. Also a great candidate for safety blitz situations.

His length gives him the reach to rack up PBU’s (pass breakups) as you can see in his highlights above. It’s just PBU after PBU in the state championship game played at Mizzou’s Memorial Stadium (for visual context).

Let’s get back to that run game though: you see him shed blocks from tight ends a good bit larger than he. There’s a good one in there where Cobb overpowers a block to assist in the tackling of a tailback behind the line of scrimmage. Good diagnosing ability, fast, long, strong. I like that.

Projection:

A redshirt is likely, but he’ll see special teams duty in his four allotted games nearly certainly. Especially given the 12 safeties on the roster, a learning year would be both ideal and, as mentioned, likely.

Beyond freshman year, I don’t see why he can’t become a starter. He clearly reacts to plays well in addition to being tall, being able to outmuscle blocking receivers, and having the wingspan do disrupt any sort of deep passing game.

Maybe get a little more muscle on him to get him peak college-ready, but that’s the great thing about redshirts: one and a half years of the university’s strength and conditioning program in conjunction with the aide of team nutritionists and you’ve got a grown man with four years left to play.

I can see him becoming an eventual starter, but these things are so hard to read with defensive backs. I do not see him switching positions to corner; if anything I could see him in a sort of “STAR” or Rover role, the hybrid linebacker-defensive back position.

But ultimately I see him staying right where he is and developing into a very disruptive safety.