24 Days Until FSU Football: Andre Cooper Catches 24 Career TDs

There are 24 days left until Florida State football starts the 2018 season. As part of the offseason, we’re highlighting players, games, and specific moments from FSU football history.

On Thursday, it was Florida State holding USC to 25 rushing yards in a dominant defensive performance to open the 1997 season.

Today, it’s former FSU wide receiver Andre Cooper and his 24 career touchdown receptions.

Originally a 2-sport athlete out of Jacksonville, Cooper would be worked along slowly as a freshman during the 1993 season. More than two decades after graduating from FSU, Cooper remains in the top 20 all-time at Florida State in receptions and yards. Throughout his career however, there’s few things he did better than catch touchdowns.

During the 1994 season, Cooper burst onto the scene as a sophomore in a 56-14 win over Wake Forest with 105 yards receiving and his first career touchdown. Cooper found the end zone a week later against a top-15 North Carolina team and closed the year by catching the second of four FSU fourth-quarter touchdowns against rival Florida as the Seminoles erased a 31-3 deficit to force a 31-31 tie.

As a junior in 1995, Cooper quietly had one of the best seasons ever for an FSU wide receiver. That season, Cooper and teammate E.G. Green became the first tandem of receivers in Florida State history to go over 1,000 yards receiving in the same season. Cooper officially caught a school-record 15 touchdowns that year and eclipsed the 100-yard receiving mark on five occasions.

Bowl stats didn’t count toward the official tally in 1995, but Cooper closed the year with arguably his most memorable performance as a Seminole. In a 31-26 Orange Bowl win over Notre Dame, Cooper caught three touchdowns from quarterback Danny Kanell including the game-winner from three yards away with 6:09 remaining in the contest.

Andre Cooper caught three touchdowns for Florida State in an Orange Bowl win over Notre Dame to close the 1995 season. (Doug Pensinger/Getty Images)

With Kanell graduating, injuries, the switch to a more run-heavy offense and the emergence of a young Peter Warrick, Cooper’s production dipped in 1996 as he finished with 26 catches for 338 yards and four touchdowns. Throughout the course of Cooper’s career, 18 percent of his catches went for scores.

Cooper currently ranks sixth all-time at Florida State in touchdown catches and considering the names above him and many below, Cooper is in elite company. The only FSU players to catch more career touchdowns than Cooper are Peter Warrick, E.G. Green, Greg Carr, Rashad Greene and Barry Smith.

Just behind Cooper? The legendary Ron Sellers.

Cooper would spend two years in the NFL with the Denver Broncos.

Mike Ferguson is the editor of The Daily Nole. Follow Mike on Twitter @MikeWFerguson