Freshman Dean moving up the list at cornerback

FAYETTEVILLE - For a guy who wasn’t interested in playing quarterback, D.J. Dean did pretty well for the Newton (Texas) High School Eagles last season.

Dean passed for 1 ,062 yards and 11 touchdowns and rushed for 1,014 yards and 20touchdowns to help Newton go 13-1 and advance to the Texas state class 2A semifinals.

“I didn’t really like playing quarterback, but I was the just the guy for the job,” Dean said. “I had a little bit of an arm. I got to throw the ball a little bit.”

Dean also played cornerback at Newton, which is now his full-time job for the Arkansas Razorbacks. He’s done it well enough the first two weeks of fall camp that Coach Bret Bielema has named Dean among the true freshmen expected to play this season.

“I was a little bit nervous,but once I got on the field, I felt confident and I was ready to play,” Dean said. “I feel like I fit into the system. I just have to work hard every day and keep grinding.”

Dean has been getting second-team work at right cornerback - where Will Hines and Jared Collins are competing for the starting job- along with snaps at nickel back.

“I like nickel,” he said. “You get to blitz a lot and get in there and get a hit on the quarterback.”

Dean, who had 34 tackles and four interceptions last season, said he’s always preferred playing defense to offense.

“He’s shown a lot of explosiveness,” defensive coordinator Chris Ash said. “The kid has just got some really good football IQ.

“His care factor is extremely high. He wants to be right. He wants to be out there getting coached every single snap.”

Dean is listed at 5-10 and 180 pounds, but Hines said Dean added weight over the summer.

“Now he’s the heaviest cornerback, and he’s just a freshman,” Hines said. “He’s about 200 pounds and he can run for days. He ran the 400 in high school, so he’s got good stamina, and he’s energetic.”

At the Texas class 2A meet, Dean won the 400 meters in 48.85 seconds and also ran a leg on Newton’s 400 relay team that won in 41.48. He said his personal best in the 400 is 46.8.

“They say the 400 is a man’s race, so I guess that got me tough and ready for football,” Dean said. “It’s high level [track] competition in Texas, so you really have to dig down deep and go get it.”

Cornerbacks coach Taver Johnson said Dean has been fast, smart and physical in practice, especially for a freshman.

“That’s giving him an opportunity to play,” Johnson said. “We’ve got to coach him up where he’s competing every minute, every second, but we’ll get him there.

“He has the cover skills and the hips to flip and run with people. That’s encouraging to see for sure.”

Ash said it’s too early to know if Dean will be ready to play by the season opener Aug. 31 against Louisiana-Lafayette.

“I hope so,” Ash said. “But I like where he’s at, and I like where he’s headed.”

Hines, a sophomore who started nine games last season, said he’s impressed by how well Dean is making the transition from high school to college football.

“D.J. is learning really fast,” Hines said. “When he gets it down really good, he’s going to help a lot.”

Dean said he said he can bench press about 315 pounds and believes playing press coverage is a strength of his game.

“I try to get in there and jam ‘em up pretty good,” he said.

Dean said he also likes to do “a little bit” of trash-talking, even with the senior receivers he faces in practice.

“They trash talk, too,” he said, laughing. “That just makes me want to go a little bit harder.”

Dean committed to Utah before his senior season, but then he began getting more scholarship offers and narrowed his choices to Arkansas and Baylor.

Baylor’s program is on the rise with an 18-8 record the past two seasons, and the campus in Waco, Texas, is a five-hour drive from Newton- three hours closer to home than Fayetteville.

So why did he pick the Razorbacks over the Bears?

“S-E-C,” Dean said. “I want to play against the best competition. It’s always been my dream growing up to play in the SEC. Now I want live that dream.”

Dean didn’t arrive in Fayetteville until July for the second summer school session. He spent the first part of the summer in Newton.

“If I had come for the first session, it would have been the day after I graduated,” he said. “It was great to be with my family just a little bit longer.”

Dean said he stayed in shape by working out with his cousin, Kevin Shorter, who will be a senior running back at Newton this season and committed to Texas on Saturday.

Working hard at home is good, but Dean said he understood he had some ground to make up when he got to Fayetteville.

“Everybody else had been working out here with Coach [Ben] Herbert, so I had to work out just a little bit harder to catch up,” he said.

Johnson said it’s been evident in practice how hard Dean worked on and off the field to be ready for camp.

“D.J.’s done a nice job of learning the system,” Johnson said. “He’s a really conscientious kid, and he’s come in and studied his playbook.

“I’m trying to slow him down - and that’s a good thing.”

Dean said he loves playing for Johnson.

“He’s going to tell you straight forward what you need to do, and you better get it done,” Dean said. “Or you won’t be in there.”