Kendrick Bourne’s Steady NFL Rise Not A Surprise To Former Eastern Washington Teammate Cooper Kupp

Cooper Kupp started each of his 52 games at Eastern Washington University after redshirting as a freshman. The Jerry Rice Award and the Walter Payton Award met the eventual winner of the NFL’s receiving triple crown. And so did first-team All-American honors on four occasions and Big Sky Offensive Player of the Year honors on two occasions.

But it was a tandem in Cheney.

From 2013 through 2016, he and Kendrick Bourne set Division I FCS records with 639 combined catches for 9,596 combined yards. The Eagles went 41-13 over that span.

“I remember watching Kendrick’s film after my first year,” Kupp told reporters during Monday’s Super Bowl LVI media night. “Our receivers coach said, ‘We got this guy coming in. We think we really like him. Check his film out.’ So I watched him, and I was blown away by just how great of a route-runner he was, how strong he was after the catch. He had the twitch.”

Kupp, 28, landed with the Los Angeles Rams in the third round of the 2017 NFL draft after catching 73 touchdowns and earning an invitation to the Reese’s Senior Bowl. Bourne, 26, landed with the San Francisco 49ers as a rookie free agent after catching 27 touchdowns and earning an invitation in the NFL Players Association Bowl.

“So many things about his game that I think are very impressive,” Kupp said of his former college teammate, who started 32 games and checked into 53. “He continued to grow, too. I mean, he came in and he ended up true-ing as a freshman. He just got better year after year.”

One wideout now finds himself in February as a Pro Bowler and first-team All-Pro with 145 receptions for 1,947 yards and 16 touchdowns. The other now finds himself coming off a career campaign of his own.

After four seasons in the same NFC West division as Kupp, Bourne signed a three-year, $15 million contract with the New England Patriots last spring. The pact featured $5.25 million in guarantees and $750,000 in annual per-game roster bonuses.

But additional incentives were hit as Bourne reeled in 55 passes for 800 yards and five touchdowns, including a 75-yarder.

It’s a glimpse of what Kupp had seen en route to the FCS semifinals.

“A little inside scoop on Kendrick is before our last year together, I actually sat down with him and I told him straight up, I said, ‘You are a better receiver than I am,’” Kupp recalled. “And if he was able to get kind of some things in order, he was going to just take off. And I think he really did just that. You’ve seen kind of his career arc just moving to the NFL, getting better year after year with the things that he’s doing. My conversations with him, just the mentality that he has now, you can just hear it in the way that he talks about this game.”

Bourne was targeted 70 times during his inaugural year in New England’s offense. He ranked seventh in the NFL with 7.1 yards after the catch per reception, per Next Gen Stats.

To go with the receptions, the initial 12 carries of his stay in the league became 125 yards while the initial throw became 25 yards and a touchdown.

“He’s locked in on things, and he’s going to be a really good receiver in this league for a long time because that mentality is just going to carry him over,” added Kupp. “He’s got so much room still to improve. He’s just going to eat up that space. It was just so much fun playing with him.”