NFL Draft prospect Cooper DeJean believes he can take the greatest scorer in NCAA history.
DeJean, a former Iowa defensive back who is projected by some to be a first-round pick in the 2024 NFL Draft, boldly claimed he would beat fellow Hawkeye and the No.1 pick of the 2024 WNBA Draft, Caitlin Clark, in a game of one-on-one.
“I wouldn’t say it’s really weird but a lot of teams have asked me if I could beat Caitlin Clark one-on-one, just being from Iowa. I said I think I can,” DeJean, 21, told Yahoo Sports. “She’d probably score a few buckets on me but I think I could pull it off.”
While perhaps this seems like brash confidence from a future NFLer, DeJean actually has some legit basketball chops from his prep days.
DeJean, an Odebolta, Iowa, native, lettered three years in basketball while attending OABCIG High School in Ida Grove, Iowa, according to his Iowa profile.
He scored 1,832 career points, which put him 45 points ahead of Warriors forward and former North Carolina first-round pick Harrison Barnes in the state’s record books.
Vikings tight end T.J. Hockenson is actually ahead of DeJean by 55 points.
The Athletic’s 2021 profile stated that basketball was DeJean’s favorite sport and he scored the third-most points in the state his senior year.
“We always thought he would play college basketball,” DeJean’s mother, Katie, told The Athletic. “I mean, he loves all the sports, but that just kind of took to him.”
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DeJean’s athleticism also shined, as he could dunk despite being just 6-foot-1, as seen in a clip he tweeted in January 2021.
“Good size, rocked-up guy,” Iowa recruiting director Tyler Barnes told The Athletic. “I think he had four or five dunks in that game, one of which he dunked over two guys. One was about 6-5. To see a quiet kid like that, once he jumped on the basketball court, his switch flipped. To see him operate the way he did, I was texting everybody on staff, ‘This kid is an absolute no-brainer.’”
That basketball excellence factored into why Iowa recruited him.
“We’re looking for guys that are leaders, good football players, but leaders,” Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz said, according to The Athletic. “Think about Cooper DeJean. He probably sparked our interest through basketball prowess. The football part took care of itself.”
For all his gaudy high school stats, though, they pale in comparison to Clark’s historic numbers at Iowa, where she cemented herself as the greatest scorer in both men’s and women’s history.
Shortly after this month’s national championship game, when the Hawkeyes fell to the South Carolina Gamecocks, 87-75, Clark was selected first overall by the Indiana Fever in this year’s WNBA draft.
That teams asked DeJean about whether he would win a hypothetical one-on-one game may seem odd but teams are known to ask curious questions to prospects.
The Post’s Steve Serby does not have DeJean being selected in the first round in his mock draft, but Fox’s Peter Schrager and NFL.com’s Daniel Jeremiah both have DeJean going to the Packers at No. 25.
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