Austin Blythe, C, Iowa: 2016 NFL Draft scouting report

2016 NFL Draft: scouting report for Iowa Hawkeyes center Austin Blythe, an undersized but ultra-productive interior lineman…

At A Glance…

Austin Blythe is a four-year starter from a football program at Iowa that does an excellent job of breeding NFL caliber offensive linemen. Kirk Ferentz and his staff do an excellent job of not only developing players physically and athletically, but in terms of their technique and making up for weaknesses.

Blythe is an undersized interior lineman who has played every interior line position for the Hawkeyes, but should settle on center as he moves forward to the NFL.

Blythe was an awesome high school wrestler, something that always would get brought up on the TV broadcast of Iowa games, but it’s especially meaningful because he chose football over the prestigious Iowa wrestling program, even though he had a state-record of pins coming out of high school.

He has earned both all Big Ten honors as well as All-American consideration in his four years of high level performance at Iowa, but what does he bring to an NFL team?

Blythe has made himself a habit of handling bigger offensive linemen, even though at times you can see what his weaknesses are very clearly.

Translatable traits

For me, the biggest strengths Blythe has are experience, strength, smarts, technique, and quickness. He’s not fast by any means, but he moves well for a big man and he’s going to need to because he has incredibly short arms for an offensive lineman.

His starting experience and high level of play are an indicator that Blythe is not only well-coached, but he has significantly improved and has learned to adjust to his deficiencies (short arms, lack of overall bulk and size). When Blythe has to absorb a blitzer, possibly one who is even bigger than him, he will struggle with that because he tends to catch those linemen better than he does punch them with his hands.

However, in the running game, when Blythe sets his sights on a target and drives someone backward, very rarely does the other guy win. Blythe plays with great pad level and uses his hand placement really well, so he’s able to physically dominate guys that he otherwise shouldn’t.

He sets out to punish people and you have to love that nasty streak in him.

Bottom Line

Because of Blythe’s lack of bulk or arm length, he’s likely going to be under-drafted. We saw this happen a couple of years ago with another really productive but undersized center in Matt Paradis, who actually compares pretty favorably to Blythe. Lance Zierlein made that observation in his scouting report here.

Pretty good call.

As good as Blythe is, there are times when his lack of size becomes an issue, and he can be engulfed by defenders and taken completely aback. Other times — the majority of the time — he’s as sound as they come.

I think we’ll see Blythe picked on day three and some team is going to get a possible starter for a very low price.