Hlas: Brandon Scherff another Hawkeye millionaire ditch-digger

The first Big Ten player picked in the Top 10 of the NFL draft since 2008 hugged Commissioner Roger Goodell Thursday night, and held up a Washington Still-Called-The-Redskins jersey with his name on it.

He wasn't from the big, bad national-champion Buckeyes of Ohio State, or the three-time Big Ten division-champs of Wisconsin, or the Michigan State program that has won 11 or more games in four of the last five seasons.

No, he was Brandon Scherff, offensive tackle, University of Iowa. And his No. 5 selection by Washington brought more national attention and glory to the Hawkeyes than anything his team did on a football field last season.

Although, the highlights of Scherff tossing around a Nebraska defender got so much airtime Thursday that you would have thought Iowa won that game against the Cornhuskers, and convincingly.

The Scherff pick hammered home the point once again that Iowa is a meat-and-potatoes program, though you wouldn't want to pay the grocery bill for all the meat and potatoes Scherff has gone through in his five years in Iowa City.

It was Iowa's fourth first-round player in the last six years, which is way ahead of the Big Ten curve. Three (Bryan Bulaga, Riley Reiff and Scherff) were offensive tackles, and Adrian Clayborn was a defensive end.

Several other Hawkeyes have gone after the first round in the last few years and have been excellent additions to their teams, most recently defensive end Mike Daniels and defensive back Micah Hyde of Green Bay, and linebackers Christian Kirksey of Cleveland and Anthony Hitchens of Dallas.

If nothing else from Iowa football in the 2010s has excited you, at least you've seen a lot of very talented individuals.

Scherff came to Iowa as a 3-star prospect out of Denison, Iowa, and leaves as the fifth player selected in this year's NFL draft. That's a Midwestern sports version of the American dream, something similar to the one realized by Bulaga and Reiff.

Before them came Anamosa's Marshal Yanda, a third-rounder in 2007 who at the unsung position of offensive guard has become one of the NFL's highest-regarded players at any position.

So the Hawkeyes have had tons of good meat and potatoes over the years. Which is why they have never lingered in the bottom half of Big Ten football for very long under Kirk Ferentz.

They know where they are, they know who they are, and they know developing fundamentally sound tanks as blockers has been the name of their offensive game. It doesn't matter that it's no more glamorous than downtown Denison.

However, wouldn't it be nice to have a single ex-Hawkeye to get excited about on autumn Sunday afternoons and maybe set a blueprint for others to follow? People don't tune in NFL games to watch offensive linemen. How many defenders in the league do you make a point of watching?

No, football fans at every level focus on quarterbacks, then running backs and wide receivers. While Iowa has had occasional all-Big Ten players at those spots, the following remain statistics that are almost jarring:

No former Hawkeye wide receiver has caught a pass in the NFL since Tim Dwight in 2007. No former Hawkeye quarterback has completed a pass in the NFL since Mark Vlasic in 1991. No former Iowa quarterback, wide receiver or running back has been a first-round draftee since Chuck Long and Ronnie Harmon in 1986.

Granted, tight end Dallas Clark left some memories and receiving stats to remember in Indianapolis. Former Hawkeye tight ends have done a lot of good business in the pros.

Anyway, the Iowa sales pitch to top high school offensive linemen is short and sweet: We can get you to the NFL. You may even become a multimillionaire.

The recruiting spiel to quarterbacks may be this: You'll be protected by players who are headed to the NFL and may become multimillionaires.

Iowa football should sell itself as the populist program. The blue-collar grunts end up with the wealth. Score one for the ditch-diggers.

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