Super Bowl 56: Yakima’s Rams phenom Cooper Kupp, whom UW ignored, vs. iffy Bengals pass D
Cooper Kupp’s Washington-rooted family is used to people telling them he could be — should be — on the Seahawks instead of the Rams.
A lot of people tell the Kupps that.
But long before he got to the NFL, Los Angeles’ All-Pro wide receiver, the NFL offensive player of the year, the guy who just helped retire Tom Brady and the key to Super Bowl 56, could have been a Washington Husky.
The Yakima-based Kupps with Pierce County and UW roots still think Cooper should have been a Husky. Just like his Grandpa.
“We tried,” said Craig Kupp, the Pacific Lutheran University Hall of Fame quarterback and father to the soaring star, who logged a dominant Jerry Rice-like season for the Rams. He’ll try to crown it with a victory in Sunday’s Super Bowl, against the Cincinnati Bengals in Inglewood, California.
Cooper Kupp entered A.C. Davis High School in Yakima in 2008. He was 5 feet 5 and 115 pounds. He left Davis in 2012 as a do-it-all receiver, running back and quarterback — who wanted to play at UW. He wanted to follow his grandfather. Jake Kupp was a Huskies lineman who played for the New Orleans Saints in the 1960s into the ‘70s. He is a member of the Saints’ Hall of Fame.
When Cooper Kupp was leaving high school, Steve Sarkisian had just finished his third season as Washington’s coach, turning around a program that had gone 0-12 in 2008 under Tyrone Willingham. Sarkisian and his staff overlooked Kupp 10 years ago.
So Kupp went to Eastern Washington, in Cheney. He smashed records with more than 6,400 yards receiving with 73 touchdowns in the Big Sky Conference and the Football Championship Subdivision, instead of in the Pac-12 and at UW.
“That was too bad,” Craig Kupp told The News Tribune. “We tried everything we could. My dad was pretty disappointed. We just couldn’t get the light of day from U-Dub.
“It all worked out, though.”
Gloriously, for the Kupps.
Last month Cooper became the fourth player in NFL history and first since Steve Smith 17 years ago to win the league’s receiving “triple crown.” That’s the most catches, yards and touchdowns in a season. Kupp — who’s grown way up from his freshman year at Davis High in Yakima, to 6-2 and 194 pounds — had 145 receptions, 1,947 receiving yards, and 16 receiving touchdowns for L.A. this season. The catches and yards were each the second-most in NFL history.
Kupp joins Rice (with the San Francisco 49ers in 1990), Sterling Sharpe (for Green Bay Packers in 1992) and Smith (Carolina Panthers, 2005) as the only players to lead the NFL in catches, yards and receiving touchdowns in a season.
A huge reason for Cooper’s meteoric season: his father, a former NFL backup quarterback, said Rams coach Sean McVay, who moved away from two-tight end formations once Gerald Everett left in free agency to Seattle. That meant more chances for Kupp in 2021.
“Last year, the year before, the Rams went to ‘12’ personnel (one running back, two tight ends. He wasn’t involved in that package very much,” Craig Kupp said.
Cooper Kupp’s snaps counts went from 80% in each of the 2019 and ‘20 seasons for McVay and L.A. to 94% in 2021. He had nearly 200 more plays this past season.
Thanks, Mom and Dad
Craig’s wife Karin is, another PLU Athletics Hall of Famer. They met during her starring days leading the Lutes to the NAIA national championship in 1988 and ‘89.
Karin Gilmer Kupp is the daughter of Tom Gilmer, yet another PLU Hall of Famer in the family. Cooper’s maternal grandfather was a quarterback, fullback, safety and kick returner for the Lutes from 1954-57. Oh, he also still holds PLU punting records and also excelled for the Lutes’ track team in hurdles, jumps and relays. Tom Gilmer became a longtime coach and algebra teacher at Franklin Pierce and Washington high schools in Tacoma.
Craig and Karin Kupp attended most of Cooper’s games this wondrous season.
One of the few they missed in person: Los Angeles’ rescheduled win over the Seahawks in late December. An outbreak of COVID-19 among 29 Rams players led the NFL and its players union to postpone the game from Sunday to the first Tuesday game in Seahawks history.
Kupp’s parents had problems changing their travel plans to fit in the rescheduled game. So they kept their original plans. They spent an unexpectedly football-free weekend with Cooper, his college-sweetheart wife Anna and their two young boys in southern California. Older son Cooper Jameson is 3 years old.
Grandpa and Grandma Kupp already had plans for later that week: to spend Christmas with Cooper’s younger brother Ketner at his young family’s home in Lakewood. Ketner Kupp got a tryout at linebacker for the Rams and was briefly Cooper’s NFL teammate in the summer of 2019. He just finished his first season as the linebackers coach at PLU.
They all watched on television as Cooper crushed the Seahawks with nine more receptions, 136 yards and both of the Rams’ touchdowns that Tuesday before Christmas. Kupp’s TDs brought L.A. back from a 10-3 deficit in the third quarter to a 17-10 lead and a 20-10 win that effectively ended Seattle’s playoff hopes.
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Now all the Kupps are going to watch Cooper in the Super Bowl against the underdog Bengals. The Rams are here because Kupp sprinted past Tampa Bay safety Antoine Winfield Jr. with 27 seconds left in a tie game and caught the 44-yard pass from Matthew Stafford to set up the Rams’ winning field goal.
Brady, who had rallied the Buccaneers from being down 27-3 in the second half Jan. 23, retired in the wake of Kupp’s catch and the Bucs’ playoff loss. Kupp had nine catches for 183 yards with a 70-yard touchdown in that game.
Kupp’s playoff heroics at Tampa Bay reinforced the idea that maybe a quarterback — Aaron Rodgers, Brady — need not win the NFL most valuable player award, for a change.
Thursday night, Kupp finished third in the league MVP voting, behind Rodgers and Brady. One non-quarterback has won NFL MVP over the last 15 seasons: Adrian Peterson in 2012, for Minnesota. Peterson, who played one game this past season for the Seahawks, had to rush for more than 2,000 yards that year to win it.
Kupp was named the NFL’s offensive player of the year on Thursday night instead.
“He’s my son and I’m going to be biased,” Craig Kupp said, “but he’s a pretty special kid the way he has this philosophy: he wants to get better every day. He sets a goal that he wants to get better every day.
“He’s been like that since high school. And he just keeps doing it.”
Back from major injury
Kupp did it all three seasons after he tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his knee, late in the Rams’ 2018 season. He needed reconstructive surgery. The injury meant the last time the Rams played in the Super Bowl, three years ago, Kupp had to watch his L.A. offense score just three points in losing to Brady’s New England Patriots.
“Missing that Super Bowl, that’s one of the hardest things I’ve been through,” Kupp told reporters this week in Los Angeles at a Super Bowl 56 media session. “The conflict it creates in you, when you are both cheering and pulling for your guys...I have so much respect and love for the guys I get to play this game with, and you want them to succeed. You’re pulling for them. But every step of the way, every time they succeed, it hurts you that much more because you want to be part of it, as well.
“So there’s a conflict within you that’s equally wanting them to succeed and do it but also wanting to be there and knowing you can’t be a part of it, like you want to at least. That’s a very difficult thing to go through.”
No more. He’s way through it.
He’s the key to Super Bowl 56.
The pick
Can the Bengals’ 26th-ranked pass defense this season keep up with Kupp’s dazzling and precise moves from the slot in coach Sean McVay’s Rams schemes Sunday?
No.
Joe Burrow’s magic for Cincinnati has never been more brilliant. He’s coming off rallying the Bengals from being down 21-3 in the AFC title game to beat Patrick Mahomes in Kansas City to get Cincinnati to its first Super Bowl since the 1988 season.
But Aaron Donald, Von Miller and Leonard Floyd give the Rams a decided advantage with their pass rush against Burrow and the Bengals’ shaky offensive line.
Yet Kupp, especially on third downs, on the most important plays of the most important game, will be the reason Los Angeles will become the second consecutive team to win a Super Bowl on its home field, after Brady’s Bucs did it last year. That’s after 54 years of no team playing a Super Bowl in its home stadium.
Kupp will cap his magical season by doing to the iffy Bengals pass defense what he’s done to everyone else this season. He will become just the second offensive player not a quarterback to be the Super Bowl MVP in the last 13 years. Pittsburgh wide receiver Santonio Holmes is the last offensive player to not be a QB and win Super Bowl MVP, for his nine catches and wondrous toe-drag touchdown that lifted the Steelers over the Cardinals in Super Bowl 43.
Rams 34, Bengals 27.
This story was originally published February 11, 2022 at 5:05 AM.
