HOURS AFTER RETURNING from the 2024 season opener for Iowa Western Community College, a 42-41 road win at Georgia Military College, quarterback Hunter Dekkers succumbed to his emotions.

Dekkers had just taken a significant step in his unusual comeback attempt, one he hopes will lead him to the NFL. The moment was more than a year in the making, since he played for Iowa State before permanently losing his NCAA eligibility for betting on one of the Cyclones' games.

"I literally broke down and cried, because I was so emotionally invested in just going through such an up-and-down year to get back on the field," Dekkers said. "That's all I wanted -- to finally get there.

"It was just a surreal moment for me."

Playing junior college football was not a dream for the four-star prospect out of West Sioux High School in Hawarden, Iowa, but a life-altering decision jeopardized Dekkers playing football at any level.

In August 2023, Dekkers was charged in a state investigation that led to the nation's first major crackdown on college athletes and gambling since a 2018 Supreme Court decision paved the way for legalized sports betting. Dekkers made approximately 366 bets on his mother's DraftKings account totaling $2,799, including a $15 bet in 2021 on Iowa State to beat Oklahoma State, a game when he was on the roster but did not play.

He later pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of underage gambling. (The legal age to gamble in Iowa is 21, and Dekkers didn't turn 21 until July 4, 2022.) But based on the one Iowa State wager, the NCAA ruled Dekkers permanently ineligible in February 2024. Other athletes who gambled much more money, but not on their sport, received suspensions but retained some eligibility.

NCAA athletes who bet on their own team typically face permanent loss of eligibility, while those who wager on teams at their own school -- but not their own team -- face penalties beginning with the loss of one year of eligibility, according to adjusted guidelines approved in November 2023.

"It was a really s----y situation," Iowa State coach Matt Campbell told ESPN during Big 12 media days in July 2024. "You can make an argument, was [the punishment] right or wrong, it's not our decision. Legally, it happened. ... They did make a bad choice. What it costs them is up for debate for everybody.

"But ultimately, you were a teammate, and it hurt our team."

Dekkers, a promising quarterback for the Cyclones who impressively succeeded current 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy and dreamed of a future similar to Purdy's, learned he would not regain any NCAA eligibility. His NCAA career was cut short, but he didn't abandon his bigger dream.

After throwing for 3,806 yards and 32 touchdowns -- and 10 interceptions -- for Iowa Western last season, the 6-foot-3 Dekkers has entered the NFL draft. Numerous scouts found their way to Council Bluffs, Iowa, in the fall to see the quarterback with the accurate left arm and dangerous legs, and one scout who evaluated him said, "He definitely deserves a chance." Dekkers hopes to demonstrate even more at his pro day Wednesday, a prime opportunity to show he's an NFL-caliber talent. He has been training in Tampa, Florida, for months with former Super Bowl-winning coach Jon Gruden.

"I just hope a team is able to look past the one mistake that I made four years ago and truly understand who I am as a person and a player," Dekkers said, "and not let that one mistake define me."

DEKKERS' LIFE CHANGED forever on the morning of May 2, 2023, after a workout at Iowa State's facility, when he picked up his phone and saw texts from T.J. Tampa, his teammate and roommate. There were two men at the door of their apartment with badges, asking to speak with Dekkers.

Dekkers said panic set in. He couldn't fathom why the men were there. He said he skipped breakfast, raced home and met two agents from Iowa's Division of Criminal Investigations, who informed him that they were looking into identity theft and fraud in the area. Dekkers said he soon realized the investigators were probing sports wagering.

They also had a warrant to search his cellphone, which he turned over and received back several days later.

Scenes like the one at Dekkers' apartment were taking place in Ames and around the state that day. According to a 2024 ESPN investigation, Iowa DCI agents had fanned out after identifying clusters of wagering activity inside athletic facilities at both Iowa State and the University of Iowa through sports betting apps. Authorities traced the wagers to DraftKings and FanDuel accounts mostly registered to parents and significant others of college athletes, who are prohibited from betting on any NCAA-sanctioned sports at any level, and could face permanent eligibility loss for betting on their own sport.

ESPN spent four months in 2024 reviewing emails and court filings in the case for a story that ran in July. ESPN interviewed multiple individuals close to the investigation, including attorneys, athletes, parents, school officials and Iowa criminal justice employees, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to an ongoing federal lawsuit. The suit by more than three dozen athletes, including Dekkers, alleges law enforcement had violated constitutional rights by using geofencing software "illegally, and without a warrant" to target athletes who were betting on DraftKings and FanDuel.

At least 35 athletes and team support staff from Iowa and Iowa State -- including football, baseball and basketball players, as well as wrestlers -- were charged criminally and/or lost all or part of their NCAA eligibility. Investigators said that no outcomes of games were impacted by the wagers by any of the athletes.

Hunter's father, Scott, had a DraftKings account and saw a promotion that offered free bets for new customers, so he opened an account for his wife, Jami, and deposited $100. Scott shared the log-in info with Hunter, who used that account to place bets. He placed bets on sports like UFC, golf and college basketball, he told ESPN. In March 2023, Hunter made one $100 deposit in the account, according to the Dekkers family. The $2,799 was the total amount of money wagered and earned combined over the course of three years, according to an affidavit attached to a criminal complaint filed in August 2023.

An attorney representing Dekkers and others in the federal lawsuit told ESPN that many of the athletes' bets were parlays, which inflated the total number. A parlay is one wager that pays off only if multiple bets within that wager are successful.

Like all Division I athletes, Dekkers had signed an annual statement acknowledging NCAA rules, including not to bet on any NCAA-sanctioned sport at any level. 

"I wasn't throwing games, I wasn't shaving points, and I would never do that," Dekkers said. "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.

"It was just a mistake that I made, and I have to live with it for the rest of my life."

Dekkers and several teammates were in limbo during the late spring and summer. Iowa State barred them from using the team facility, so they began meeting for predawn workouts at Ames High School. Then, in early August, state charges came down. Dekkers faced tampering with records, an aggravated misdemeanor. Although his attorneys had predicted charges were possible, the news hit hard.

"I didn't really believe it would ever get to this point," he said.

Dekkers received his wagers record from DraftKings, and he said one item jumped out: a $15 bet on ISU football to win a 2021 game against Oklahoma State. Dekkers didn't appear in the contest, which Iowa State won, 24-21.

"I was in complete disbelief," he said. "I couldn't ever remember ever making that bet, or ever even thinking about making that bet."

Dekkers left campus shortly after being charged and moved his classes online. Late in 2023, he learned that the single bet on ISU football would remove his remaining NCAA eligibility, even though Iowa's Racing and Gaming Commission confirmed the wager did not compromise the integrity of the game. He appealed to the NCAA and received a final denial in February 2024. His time as a major college athlete was over.

"I have to find another next step to get seen, obviously," Dekkers told ESPN weeks after his appeal was denied. "I just have to take the long way to achieve my dreams of making the NFL."

DEKKERS' DEPARTURE FROM Iowa State weeks before the 2023 season -- amid negative media headlines and fan backlash -- was jarringly different from the way he'd come to Ames. He was the ultimate small-town success who became a big man on campus.

He grew up in Hawarden, a community of around 2,700 in the northwest corner of Iowa, along the South Dakota border and the Big Sioux River. "We don't even have a stoplight in town," Jami Dekkers said. Hunter comes from a line of farmers but decided early in life that he would pursue a different path.

"In grade school, it was occupation day, when everybody tells what their parents do," Scott Dekkers said. "I'll never forget. He came home and he said to my wife, 'Mom, does this mean I have to farm?' And she said, 'No, you absolutely don't have to farm.' Obviously, farming is not for everybody."

Hunter's interest was sports, and he played them all. Dekkers earned all-state honors in football, basketball and baseball, and also competed in track. After his freshman year, he came to assistant football coach Jerome Hoegh, who also coaches basketball and track at West Sioux High School, with a dilemma. His dad and head football coach Ryan Schwiesow thought his most successful athletic path would come in football. Hunter, meanwhile, really loved basketball.

Hoegh told Hunter that he could make it in either sport. He then asked how many 6-foot-3 jump shooters lived in a 100-mile radius, and then how many 6-foot-3 left-handed quarterbacks who could sling the ball 80 yards were in the same region.

"That might be your ticket, bud," Hoegh told Dekkers. "He was kind of sad about it because he, at the time, really, really liked basketball, but he figured out pretty quickly he was pretty special at football."

Dekkers led West Sioux to an undefeated season and a state championship as a sophomore, throwing 33 touchdown passes. West Sioux repeated as champions in 2018, as Dekkers had 4,215 yards of total offense and 48 touchdown passes, the second-highest totals in Iowa prep history.

But West Sioux played in Class 1A, the division for the smallest schools. Dekkers' numbers wouldn't be enough to generate recruiting attention from the top college programs.

In the spring of 2019, Dekkers traveled to St. Louis for an Elite 11 Regional event, where top quarterback prospects compete against each other. He did well and was invited to Nashville for a regional of The Opening, which provides a platform for top performers from regional camps. After making the half-day drive, Dekkers won MVP honors, vaulting him into the Elite 11 finals.

"Hunter's a great example of why we go out and do all the regional camps," Elite 11 chief Brian Stumpf said. "He had the physical stuff. He was a really hardworking kid. He was playing every sport under the sun and just competing. He had mobility and size. He was just from a very tiny school."

Dekkers went to Nashville with no FBS offers, but his performance led to opportunities from power conference schools Purdue and Indiana. Iowa State already was targeting a tall, left-handed quarterback recruit, Aidan Bouman, but Dekkers still decided to attend the team's camp in Ames. (Bouman was on the ISU roster for two seasons and is now a top FCS quarterback at South Dakota.)

"I was like, 'Screw it. I'm going to go to their camp just to show what they're missing,'" Dekkers recalled. "I went there and Coach Campbell still calls it the greatest camp performance he's ever seen.

"I don't think I missed a throw the whole camp, and they offered me right after the camp."

Dekkers committed to ISU weeks later. His roundabout recruiting journey was complete.

He would play in six games as Purdy's backup in 2020 and 2021, and then throw for 3,044 yards, 19 touchdowns and 14 interceptions in 2022.

But in August 2023, he was leaving campus, never to return and with little idea of what would come next.

"I was kind of just freaking out," he said.

AS IOWA STATE'S football team went through the season in the fall of 2023, Dekkers was back home in Hawarden, processing how he had gotten there.

"August was a really hard month," Jami Dekkers said. "He was very depressed. Every day was very hard, thinking, 'What now? What are we going to do?' This is coming from a kid who had never even missed curfew. He wasn't a kid with a lot of mistakes. He put everything he had into sports, and wasn't into an extracurricular besides that.

"As a mom, to watch him go through that was extremely difficult."

The start of the college football season brought on new emotions. Sometimes Dekkers would watch entire games, especially involving players he knew. Other times, he had to turn away.

"We definitely didn't look forward to Saturdays," Scott Dekkers said. "It just hit a little harder, hit a little closer to home."

Eventually, Hunter needed to leave the house, and he had a place to go: Rolling Hills Feedlot, the cattle farm Scott operates with his brother, Travis, about 3 miles away. Hunter's athletic obligations had always taken him away from the family business.

Scott and Hunter would typically head out around 7:30 a.m., work until noon, grab lunch in town and then return to the farm. For the first time, Hunter really experienced how his dad worked.

"We got to spend a lot of quality time together," Scott said. "That was good. Unfortunately, it had to come to that."

Hunter did workouts at the high school and throwing sessions in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, with quarterback trainer Kelly Meeker. Hoegh knew how much Dekkers gravitated toward sports, and convinced him to come to open gym for basketball at his old high school. He wound up helping out the basketball and baseball teams during his time at home.

"He kind of wanted to hide, but he came up, and all the kids gathered around him, like he was kind of a celebrity," Hoegh said. "That made him feel good, that people still looked up to him, at least around here, as the same guy. We still loved him. Everyone that I interacted with just felt bad. People were like, 'Dang, that stinks, man. That's terrible.'

"A $15 bet ended up completely derailing the direction he was going."

Dekkers' eligibility situation dragged beyond the 2023 season, but soon after his appeal was denied, he figured out his next football step. He had researched playing at an NAIA school, or in the Canadian Football League or UFL. Then, an NAIA coach mentioned junior college, which Dekkers had never considered.

Iowa Western was only 140 miles from Hawarden. The team had won consecutive NJCAA national titles. Dekkers contacted coach Scott Strohmeier shortly after losing his appeal, visited campus several days later and had his truck packed by the end of the week.

"He just wanted to play ball, he didn't care what level it was at," Strohmeier said. "When he showed up in the springtime, there were probably 15 kids who came up to me and they're like, 'Coach, that's Hunter Dekkers?' They all knew about him. And he really handled it extremely well. He didn't walk around like, 'Hey, I'm the big man on campus.' He just fit right in."

Dekkers and Iowa Western quarterback Nolan Geislinger, who was a freshman, quickly bonded. They're both from small towns in the upper Midwest -- Geislinger is a native of Watkins, Minnesota, near St. Cloud. Geislinger, who became Dekkers' backup, began chauffeuring Dekkers around in his Ford Edge, as they ate at a rotation of quick bites that included Panda Express, Qdoba, Firehouse Subs and Chick-fil-A.

On Monday nights, they joined Reese Baumgartner, Iowa Western's operations director, for dinner at 712 Eat + Drink, where they would order the same thing: Cajun chicken pasta.

"The one time I was talking about getting something different, he's like, 'No, you're not, we're winning. You've got to get the same thing,'" Geislinger said of Dekkers.

After splitting the first two games, Iowa Western won its final nine before the playoffs, where it fell in the national title game. Dekkers finished as the Iowa Community College Athletic Conference offensive player of the year, displaying "insane" arm talent, according to Geislinger. Opponents would bring up his gambling ban, but Dekkers was undeterred.

"I don't know why the other teams would talk crap about him when he was carving them up," Geislinger said.

Scouts from more than a dozen NFL teams visited Iowa Western during the season. Strohmeier told Dekkers and his parents to prepare for hard questions. Dekkers would need to explain why he deserved the opportunity. Strohmeier said every scout came away impressed after meeting with Dekkers.

"It humbled him so much," Strohmeier said. "He was embarrassed that this happened. He was a starting quarterback at Iowa State and now he's at a junior college. He just wanted to prove, 'I made those mistakes in the past. I'm mature, and here's what I'm doing now.'"

DECLARING FOR THE NFL draft was not a difficult decision for the 23-year-old Dekkers. A return to the NCAA remained impossible, and playing another year in junior college probably wasn't going to strengthen his case for the pros.

"I was ready to take the next step, for sure," he said.

Dekkers' first move was participating in January's Hula Bowl, one of several predraft showcases for prospects to perform in front of scouts. That helped solidify the idea he could compete with high-level college players after being away from Division I for so long. Seventeen players from last year's Hula Bowl were drafted.

It didn't take long for Dekkers to get the confirmation he was seeking. In his first practice that week, he said, he expected a bit of an adjustment to the speed of the game. Except, there wasn't one.

"That's when I knew I was all good," he said.

Another key opportunity came last week when Dekkers landed a chance to throw at Big 12 Pro Day in Frisco, Texas, an event held in partnership with the NFL that drew nearly 300 scouts and league personnel. Dekkers' agent, Juan Lozano, said the event was short on QBs, so organizers reached out to gauge Dekkers' interest. Dekkers threw mostly to backs and tight ends, Lozano said, so he didn't get to show off his arm strength.

But Dekkers has spent most of the past three months in Tampa, developing his game and training with Gruden, and Dekkers said he has never felt more prepared.

"[Gruden] expects greatness from everyone, especially at that position because he knows the game's in the quarterback's hands," he said. "So, I think he is the hardest on quarterbacks because he knows the quarterback is going to win or lose you that game."

Dekkers is hoping the work pays off Wednesday at the pro day at the University of South Dakota, not far from Hawarden, an opportunity he has thought about for months.

But there's still a reality Dekkers can't escape, no matter how well he performs: He's a difficult player for NFL teams to evaluate because of how much time has passed since his run at Iowa State and because of the lower level of competition he faced in junior college. There's no blueprint for scouting a player like him.

Predicting whether he'll be drafted is difficult. But several NFL sources agree he'll, at minimum, be a priority undrafted free agent. Dekkers is not on the QB Hot Board of ESPN NFL draft analyst Jordan Reid, who includes any QB he thinks will be drafted.

"He's a talented thrower," one scout who has evaluated Dekkers told ESPN. "His tape in 2022 at Iowa State was intriguing.

"Obviously, the year off in 2023 isn't good for a QB, and playing juco in the final year is tough from an evaluation standpoint. Someone will take a chance on him as a free agent."

Two front office executives from separate teams said Dekkers is among the players their organizations are tracking and projected he'll be an undrafted free agent.

Dekkers isn't picky about how he ends up on an NFL roster. Getting to this point has hardly been easy, and getting to the finish line won't be, either. As long as the door opens, Dekkers believes he can take it from there.

"I'm someone who is going to work his tail off no matter what people are saying," he said, "who's never going to quit until he achieves his dream. And I think that's something I've done every single day.

"The story behind my story, I think, is that people can hopefully learn from it and be inspired to never quit on something that they truly want."

ESPN's Kalyn Kahler contributed to this report.