Tristan Wirfs will head into what could be his final season at Iowa viewed as the biggest athletic freak in college football by Bruce Feldman.
Tristan Wirfs is already a popular name among those taking an early look at the 2020 NFL Draft class and the Iowa tackle’s stock has received a bump before a snap has even been played in 2019.
Junior Wirfs was named No. 1 on Bruce Feldman of The Athletic‘s college football freaks list, which recognises the best athletes in the country.
His place at the top of the 50-man list is well earned. Wirfs, as Feldman points out, broke Brandon Scherff’s school power clean record with four reps of 450 pounds and also has a 35-inch vertical jump on his resume this offseason.
That effort, according to Feldman, would have been the second-highest vert by an offensive lineman in the last seven years at the NFL Scouting Combine.
Iowa has quite the tradition of pumping out phenomenal athletes. T.J. Hockenson and Noah Fant were the latest on the production line in the 2019 draft, while San Francisco 49ers star George Kittle was the top SPARQ athlete at the tight end position in 2017.
Athleticism, however, is not the be all and end all in the NFL and that is particularly true when it comes to offensive linemen. The tape will be the biggest indicator of whether Wirfs — a former state-champion wrestler — can be a premier tackle at the NFL level, but to this point the tape has been extremely impressive.
Indeed, Wirfs was a part of a Hawkeye offensive line that allowed just 16 sacks last season. If he and Iowa continue to protect Nate Stanley to that degree, then Stanley’s hopes of being a draftable quarterback will be boosted and the chatter around Wirfs as a potential top-10 prospect will almost certainly grow.