Iowa Hawkeyes OL Tristan Wirfs underrated by Athlon Sports

Iowa Hawkeyes offensive lineman Tristan Wirfs has built quite the legend over the course of the offseason, but did Athlon Sports forget about him?

Picking pre-season All-American teams for all of college football is a tough job and an inexact science, but Iowa Hawkeyes offensive tackle Tristan Wirfs seems like a shoe-in for everyone’s first-team right tackle pick, right?

That’s what I thought when I opened up the annual Athlon Sports College Football publication, a piece I am annually excited to bring home from the store.

As I was reading through the All-American team, I didn’t notice Wirfs’ name on the first-team list, which I thought a bit curious. I figured he was surely on the second-team list then, but when I scanned it over and saw Iowa offensive tackle Alaric Jackson on the list instead, I started to get confused.

Did Wirfs suffer some offseason injury I didn’t hear about?

No, no he didn’t (thank goodness).

So I went down to the third-team All-American squad, thinking surely Wirfs would be on it. He wasn’t.

I figured something was up so I went to the Big Ten section of the publication, thinking Wirfs would, at the very least, be among the five offensive linemen selected for their first-team pre-season All-Big Ten squad.

Nope.

All the way down there at the bottom of the second-team All-Big Ten team was Wirfs’ name, finally, mercifully. Athlon Sports recently released their top four All-American teams to online readers, and Wirfs made the cut on the fourth-team.

There’s nothing wrong with Wirfs being considered a top 20 offensive lineman in all of college football. I think it’s off the mark to say he’s not one of the top five, however, and it has nothing to do with his ridiculous hang clean record at Iowa.

Wirfs already has a highlight reel of driving guys out of frame on some of his blocks. He’s considered among the favorites to be the first offensive lineman selected in the 2020 NFL Draft if he declares early.

A lot can happen between now and the 2020 NFL Draft, and I’m not normally one to make a big fuss about pre-season All-American lists, but Wirfs should be on all of them as a first-team selection.

Kirk Ferentz, a noted offensive line guru and a stickler for playing guys with seniority through his 21 — twenty-one — years as Iowa head coach, started Wirfs as a true freshman in 2017.

No player in the history of Hawkeyes football in the Ferentz era has started as a true freshman at either tackle position other than Wirfs.

That says a lot.

The former US Army All-American is primed to receive a ton of attention in the national spotlight this season, but it doesn’t seem like Athlon Sports is quite ready for it.