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I can recall maybe 3 games shortly after his joining the team where it seemed he was the guy we were hoping he would be. Adjustments were made by other teams, but not by him and I really didn't see that ever again.

There was a 3 game stretch before the Texas game where LSU's offense was awful: @ Syracuse, vs. Southeastern where they struggle to pull away, and vs. K-State. Cook's first game was vs. Texas. And he didn't come into that game until LSU was already down double-digits. He provided a little bit of juice for an offense that had otherwise been bad before that game. It carried over in to games vs. Lamar and NW St. While those victories weren't noteworthy, what was noteworthy is LSU dominated two inferior opponents whereas before they struggled to do so most of the season. Maybe not surprisingly (in hindsight) LSU unexpectedly won their first 2 SEC games.

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I do know there were at least two games where we were down by huge deficits thanks in part to his horrific defense and unfortunate shot selection and we made fairly significant runs with him on the bench to get back in those games

The Auburn game was one of those. But then he rebounded to almost singlehandedly will LSU to a win @ Georgia on a night no one for LSU was playing well offensively. LSU was competitive @ Alabama for about 25:00, but it's hard to say the dropoff was all Cook's fault because NO ONE for LSU was playing defense in that game. He didn't play vs. Tennessee and the second Alabama was much of the same story (you don't give up 109 because only one guy plays bad defense. That's a team effort). He didn't start vs. Florida, but was instrumental in the 20 point comeback in the second half...until the brutal TO with 25 seconds to go and LSU only down 1. After that he didn't play again.

He ultimately wasn't the savior everyone thought he would be. But it's hard to argue his insertion in the line didn't give LSU a spark at a time it looked like they were on pace to be worse than last year. Even McMahon called LSU two different teams with and without him.