For several glorious moments, it looked like junior defensive back and punt return magician Cooper DeJean had delivered another storied chapter into the Hawkeye book of ages.
Instead, a replay review wiped away his potential go-ahead, 54-yard punt return touchdown against the Minnesota Golden Gophers. What appeared destined through his heroics to be an Iowa win for the ninth straight time over Minnesota instead soured into a 12-10 loss.
Afterwards, DeJean commented on the bizarre sequence of events and reiterated that he wasn’t signaling for a fair catch.
“I did not personally. I was just trying to run, pick up the ball. I’ve never called for a fair catch with my left hand ever. I was kind of just keeping my balance I guess, trying to run to the ball. But, it happens. Frustrating, but got to move on,” DeJean said.
DeJean said he wasn’t told by any of the officials that they might be reviewing for the invalid fair catch signal.
“Yeah, I just thought they were reviewing it for, because I was close to the sideline, I might have stepped out of bounds, but I didn’t know it was for that,” DeJean said.
“Yeah, it’s tough. I’m still kind of in shock of what all happened. It’s frustrating for this team. We just kept fighting through the end of the game. Seems like it was all just taken away in that one play,” DeJean said.
DeJean thought the officials would blow the whistle if they had ruled for a fair catch.
“No, I mean, I assumed they would blow the whistle if it was a fair catch. I didn’t hear a whistle, though, so I just kept going,” DeJean said.
Iowa (6-2, 3-2 Big Ten) has a full bye week to get back to work and to try to wipe its memory clean from the craziness and frustration that was the end of this Minnesota contest.
The Hawkeyes’ next game will be at Wrigley Field versus Northwestern (3-4, 1-3 Big Ten) on Nov. 4.
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