Taking on Caitlin Clark, growing up in Iowa, more

On the latest episode of The Inquirer’s Eagles podcast, unCovering the Birds, cornerback Cooper DeJean joined host Jeff McLane ahead of the Birds’ divisional round matchup against the Los Angeles Rams to talk about growing up in the small city of Odebolt, Iowa, his transition from quarterback to cornerback and his brother Jaxx’s future in college football.

Here’s an excerpt from McLane’s “Pick Six” segment with DeJean …

Q: What’s the best part of growing up in a small town and what’s the worst part?

DeJean: I think the best part is you can create your own fun, pretty much. Like you can do whatever you want, really. Me and my friends from back home, we just ran around town and rode our bikes around. We had dirt bikes growing up, four-wheelers, all that type of stuff. … There were no cops in my town. There’s like county police. They’ll come through like, not very often. But, pretty much just creating your own fun.

And then the worst part, if you wanted to go out, we got a couple bar and grills. But the grocery store, you got to go about 30 or 45 minutes if you want to get good groceries. So, that kind of sucked. I loved it though. And then there’s no malls.

Q: We all know at this point that you were a pretty big hooper in high school. … I think you had 1,832 career points, right? And then you were 58 behind someone else in Iowa that plays in the NFL [T.J. Hockenson]. I mean there’s a chance that maybe you could even see him in the postseason. Do you have a relationship with T.J.?

DeJean: I’ve never talked to him, no. But I heard he was a ballplayer.

» READ MORE: Cooper DeJean’s last playoff win made him a ‘folk hero’ in his tiny hometown

Q: You got into a little bit of heat with women’s basketball fans and Caitlin Clark aficionados, after saying you could beat her one-on-one. If it were strictly a three-point contest, who’s winning that one?

DeJean: Three-point contest, I don’t know. I haven’t shot in a while so she would probably get me on that. I wasn’t the most consistent three-point shooter.

Q. How well do you guys know each other?

DeJean: We’ve talked a few times. We’re not like super close, but we’re cool with each other. … She’s cool to get to know, very down-to-earth person.

Q: You played quarterback in high school, could you have played in college?

DeJean: Yeah, one offer to play quarterback in college.

Q: It happened during COVID, I’m wondering if things were different do you think you would have ended up pursuing that path?

DeJean: Virginia was recruiting me for quarterback also. But yeah, I don’t know, if I got to take some more visits. The thing is Iowa is the school I always wanted to go to and they wanted me as a DB. It definitely would have been more tough though if I could have taken visits and if more schools were recruiting me for quarterback because I wanted to play quarterback in college.

Q. What was the best part of your game as a quarterback?

DeJean: I think being able to scramble and create plays was probably the best part of my game. We ran the five-wide, we threw the ball a lot, so it was a lot of fun playing quarterback in that offense.

Q: My guess is that you could be the emergency, emergency quarterback with the Eagles? Is that correct?

DeJean: Maybe … If they asked me to, I would go in there. They probably would throw Saquon [Barkley] back there, I don’t think I have enough experience on this offense. Now, in college I might have been able to step in there. There was a point where we were down to one quarterback playing in our bowl game my sophomore year and then I got to play on offense a little bit last year too. Never got to sit back there and throw the ball.

» READ MORE: Everyone’s still talking about Cooper DeJean’s big hit

Q: Beckett is in South Dakota and then you have a younger brother who is kind of starting to pop on recruiters’ radars. His name is Jaxx, he’s a sophomore in high school. You tell me. I want you to almost play GM. Where’s he play? Give me the lowdown on him.

DeJean: He plays receiver and corner right now. He won’t play either of those in college probably. He’ll be a tight end. He can run pretty well, he’s pretty athletic but we still got to work on the physicality part a little bit. But he can catch the ball really well, he’s got good hands. He’s about 6-foot-4 and about 215-220 pounds. So, he’s pretty big.

Q: Is he leaning anywhere? I mean if he gets an opportunity at Iowa I can imagine that’s hard to turn down.

DeJean: Kansas State and Iowa offered him. I want him to go to Iowa. I think since watching me at Iowa, he’s strongly considering going that way, but you never know. He might want to create his own path and go somewhere else. I would love for him to go there.