IOWA CITY -- One of the most popular suggestions as the Iowa offense has struggled over the past few seasons has been to play Cooper DeJean on offense. That notion has only gained steam since Cade McNamara suffered a season-ending knee injury against Michigan State.
DeJean was a great two-way player in high school at OABCIG -- and he was especially dominant on offense. As a senior, he threw the ball for 3,447 yards and 35 touchdowns and ran for an additional 1,235 yards and 24 touchdowns while leading the Falcons to a second-straight state championship.
On Tuesday, Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz addressed the idea of using DeJean on offense. "That's a discussion and a thought. Believe me, we've all had that discussion," Ferentz said, on the idea of designing a package of plays for DeJean.
"In baseball, a couple weeks ago, I think I mentioned a guy getting pulled after seven innings throwing a no-hitter. If you did a pitch count on Cooper, he's getting a lot of snaps," Ferentz noted. DeJean has played 370 of Iowa's 384 defensive snaps this season and has had a heavy presence on special teams as well.
"I suppose you could do it, but you don't want to compromise what we've got defensively right now," Ferentz offered. "That's a consideration. He's been a pretty big factor on special teams. Yeah, what I'd love to do is have five of them. I wish he had five brothers. If they were quintuplets or whatever you call it, but that's not the case."
Asked again about the possibility of using DeJean on offense, Ferentz reiterated his belief that doing so would compromise DeJean's impact on defense. "You have to think about how is that going to impact our defense," said Ferentz.
"We've seen that in the past, and it's pretty dramatic actually. Typically, you don't have players like him. If you've got a great player -- [back in the early 2000s] we didn't have another Bob Sanders on the shelf. And they're totally different players, but they're both impactful players. So if you move this guy over here, what are you going to do over here? Always have those equations to balance," added Ferentz.
"It's great to talk about, but it's a little bit more complicated in terms of the impact and the ripples that it causes or the impact it could have on several places."
Ferentz also discussed the uniqueness of DeJean and the traits that make him such a remarkable player. "In my opinion, you could put him on any team in the country, and he'd be unique and rare. He played that way last year. He had a fantastic year," said Ferentz.
"The best play I remember is the one in the bowl game, where he chased down the guy on that short pass, long run deal. To me that spoke to who the guy is. He came from that side of the field and chased him down the other sideline, just inside the 10 yard line.
"So it says a lot about the kind of guy he is, and he just does things -- I hate that word natural because there's a connotation there that this guy just goes out and plays. A lot of the stuff he does is because he knows how to play. He's smart. He studies. He's in the right place. And then some of the stuff on the punt return stuff, I helped him out and gave him some tips on how to be a better return guy," Ferentz joked.
"In all seriousness, he just does a lot of things really well, smoothly. That's pretty unusual. It's unusual to have a guy with that kind of skill set," explained Ferentz. "It's not the same as Micah Hyde, but Micah was the same kind of player too. Talk about playing a guy two ways, Micah could have been a great receiver in my opinion, but he was a pretty damn good defensive back too and a great return guy."
INJURY UPDATES
Ferentz also updated the injury status of several players during Tuesday's press conference.
* As noted earlier today, Cade McNamara was officially confirmed as being out for the remainder of the 2023 season with a torn ACL.
* Jaz Patterson is still out this week. Kaleb Johnson "has a chance to play" on Saturday.
* Beau Stephens is back and available to play. Connor Colby (who missed most of the Michigan State game with an injury) and Nick DeJong (who exited the Michigan State game with an arm injury) are "banged up," but could be ready to play on Saturday.
