Welcome to another episode of Preferred, Walk On, a PFF college football show.

I'm your host Max Chadwick and I'm the show.

We're going to be some of the biggest stars in the sport and next up is Iowa cornerback

Cooper DeGene, who I talked to back in May.

He's my number five corner in college football and he's the number two corner in the 2024

NFL draft, according to PFF draft analyst Connor Rodgers.

As always, you can check out the feature article on DeGene over at pff.com.

If you want to watch the interview, check out the YouTube as well, just search Preferred,

Walk On.

Major thank you to Dave Sofaro, to some every single one of these interviews and we've

got plenty more coming, so make sure you subscribe to the channel.

But without further ado, here he is, Iowa cornerback Cooper DeGene.

Was there like a moment growing up where you knew that, hey, I'm kind of better than

everyone else here on the field right now, maybe maybe a career in football is possible

for me.

So actually, like once I, when I got into high school, I thought I was going to play basketball

in college up until my sophomore years when I released the football thing started to

take off for me.

I played receiver that year and then I started to get some interest from some schools like

Iowa, Iowa State and then some other FCS schools and stuff like that.

But then I didn't really think much of it until going into my junior year is when I probably

had my best season in high school and that's when things really started to take off.

...