NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) - Tyler Shough isn’t the only rookie quarterback in New Orleans.
On Tuesday (May 13), the Saints announced that they have signed former Iowa State quarterback Hunter Dekkers following a rookie minicamp tryout over the weekend.
Now Saints fans may be asking... ‘Who dat?’
Dekkers, 23, played at Iowa State as the current 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy’s backup. He became the starter in 2022, throwing for over 3,000 yards in 12 starts, but lost his NCAA eligibility after being implicated in a sports betting scandal.
According to ESPN, Dekkers was one of 35 people at Iowa and Iowa State who faced criminal charges or loss of eligibility due to sports betting. Dekker went on to plead guilty to a lesser charge of underage gambling.
Evidence in the investigation uncovered that Dekkers made 366 bets on a DraftKings account that belonged to his mother over three years.
“I wasn’t throwing games, I wasn’t shaving points, and I would never do that,” Dekkers told ESPN in March. “There was never any intent behind any of these bets. We weren’t trying to make money. We were just treating it like a video game, in a sense.”
Dekker didn’t play football in 2023 and played at junior college Iowa Western in 2024.
**MORE SAINTS**
The Saints showed interest in Dekkers early in the draft process, and they signed him after he went undrafted through all seven rounds.
The Saints now have four quarterbacks under the age of 27 who have yet to add an NFL win to their resumes.
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