Noah Fant will likely become the eighth first rounder in Kirk’s tenure with the Iowa football team. Here’s where the previous seven are today.
When junior tight end Noah Fant announced his intentions to head to the NFL, it made a ton of sense considering he is all but a lock to be drafted in the first round. When that inevitably happens, he will become the eighth former Iowa football player in the Kirk Ferentz era to hear his name called in the first round of the NFL Draft.
In the history of the Iowa football program, there have been twenty players selected in the first round (36th best among all college football programs) and seven of those have come in the last twenty years under Kirk Ferentz.
Fant’s selection will place him in the company of some of the all-time greats in Hawkeye history. Among the seven first rounders since 2001, there has been one All-Pro, five Pro Bowl selections, and 44 combined seasons as starters. Additionally, he will join Iowa football legend and our top tight end in the Kirk Ferentz era as the second tight end in the history of the program to be selected in the first round.
While we do not know how Fant’s career will turn out, we do have a pretty good idea what the other seven did in their NFL career as well as what they are up today. Let’s take a look.
Dallas Clark
Dallas Clark is arguably the most recognizable player on this list from the widespread media. After a career with the Iowa football team that saw him win the John Mackey Award, voted a unanimous All-American, and be named to First Team All-Big Ten, Clark was drafted by the Indianapolis Colts with the 24th pick of the first round to pair with a young Peyton Manning.
Although he didn’t pan out to be a Hall of Fame candidate, Clark had an outstanding eleven year career in the NFL spending the first nine with the Colts before finishing his NFL journey with one year stops in Tampa Bay and Baltimore before calling it quits.
In eleven seasons, the Twin River Valley product amassed 505 catches for 5,665 yards and 53 touchdowns with 46 of those coming from Manning. His best season came in 2009 when he had 100 receptions for 1,106 yards, shattering the Colt’s reception and yards record by a tight end, in route to being named a First Team All-Pro. He also managed to collect a Super Bowl ring in 2006 when the Colts defeated the Saints.
Upon retirement, Clark went back to small-town Iowa and bought a 134-acre plot of land in Livermore where he tends to the farm and spends time with his wife and three kids. He has also dabbled in acting and studio broadcasting as well as assisting the NFL during the scouting combine, but otherwise, he’s living the quiet retired life.
Robert Gallery
Gallery has the claim to fame of being the highest first round draft pick in the Kirk Ferentz era, but unfortunately, he wasn’t quite able to live up to the billing that comes with that after being selected second overall in the 2004 NFL Draft by the Oakland Raiders.
Coming out of Iowa, he had finished his Hawkeye career with two All-Big Ten selections, a unanimous All-American honor, and the 2003 Outland Trophy (awarded to the nation’s best lineman).
The massive Gallery (6’7” 325 pounds) was considered one of the best lineman to ever come out, but he could just never figure it out at the NFL level and only lasted in the league for eight seasons, six of which were with the Raiders. In his 103 starts, he averaged more than a penalty every two games (63 total), and is widely regarded as a huge bust.
After retiring with the New England Patriots (before the season even began), Gallery took up a hobby of working on classic cars while living in Northern California with his family. He also spends his time helping his family in Manchester, Iowa work on the farm during fall harvest.
Chad Greenway
Chad Greenway will never be in the Hall of Fame, but he carved out quite a nice career in the NFL with the Minnesota Vikings, the team that drafted him with the 17th overall pick in the 2006 NFL Draft.
Joining the league as a 24-year old rookie from Mount Vernon, South Dakota, Greenway missed only one start in his first seven seasons. In his final three seasons, he made appearances in 44 games, starting 33 of those before calling his career quits after ten seasons.
He finished his career with 1,101 tackles, 18 sacks, 11 interceptions and 33 passes defensed and earned Pro Bowl honors twice as well as second-team All Pro honors in 2012.
Post-retirement, Greenway has been incredibly active. While he won’t make the NFL Hall of Fame, his contribution to the community is Hall of Fame-like. He founded the Lead The Way Foundation which services ill and disabled children in the Minneapolis and St. Paul communities.
In addition to his charitable contributions, Greenway started his own brand of Vodka, titled Grey Duck Vodka.
Greenway is married to his college sweetheart, and they have four daughters.
Bryan Bulaga
Bryan Bulaga was selected by the Green Bay Packers 23rd overall in the 2010 NFL Draft after leaving the Iowa football program with a year left of eligibility. Prior to his departure, Bulaga gave Kirk Ferentz and the Iowa football team 2.5 seasons of outstanding starting guard and tackle play and received the Big Ten Offensive Lineman of the Year Award in 2010. The two-time All-Big Ten tackle finished his career with Iowa’s Orange Bowl victory over the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets.
Since entering the NFL, Bulaga’s career has been solid, yet unspectacular. When healthy, he has served as the right tackle protector for Green Bay quarterback Aaron Rodgers. Staying healthy, however, has been the difficult part. The Barrington, Illinois native has appeared in all 16 contests just twice eight year career.
His on-field play hasn’t warranted any national attention in the forms of awards, but he service has been above average. According to Pro Football Focus, Bulaga has never graded out worse than 61.4, which happened last year in just five starts. Meanwhile, in four seasons, he has graded out above the 70 mark, including this year. For context, Pro Football Focus’s grading scale has 50 as the average mark with scores above that obviously meaning a better performance.
Bulaga has lived a pretty quiet life off the field, but he is turning 30 this offseason meaning the end of his career is likely just around the corner.
Adrian Clayborn
Adrian Clayborn never became the dominant pass rusher the Tampa Bay Buccaneers envisioned when they selected him 20th overall in the 2011 draft, but he has been a serviceable reserve throughout his career. The two-time All-Big Ten and 2010 All-American struggled to consistently stay on the field in Tampa as he started all 16 games twice, but also 28 combined games in the other two seasons due to injuries.
When it came time for Tampa to pick up Clayborn’s fifth-year option, they declined and he has since spent three seasons with the Falcons and is now a member of the New England Patriots. For his career, he has registered 32.5 sacks, 178 tackles, and 90 quarterback hits in 95 total games (51 starts).
Off the field, Clayborn is an advocate for children born with Erb’s Palsy, a condition that impacted Clayborn as a child.
Riley Reiff
Much like the other guys on this list, Reiff’s contributions in the NFL have not been earth shattering, but he is a serviceable player. Currently, he is the starting left tackle for the Minnesota Vikings, who he signed a five-year, $58.75 million dollar contract with after spending five seasons with the Detroit Lions who drafted him 23rd overall in 2012.
Like the other guys on this list, Reiff left the Iowa football program as a two-time All-Big Ten player and an All-American under Kirk Ferentz’s tutelage.
In his seven-year career, he has made 95 starts in 103 games and has committed just 25 penalties in that time with an anomaly (6) coming in 2015.
As it stands today, Reiff is the 25th best rated tackle in the league according to Pro Football Focus as he has graded out with a 71.7 grade this season.
The South Dakota native also has a brother, Brady Reiff who is currently playing on the Iowa football program and may be in line to start next year with the exodus of three senior defensive lineman.
Brandon Scherff
The most recent first rounder in the Kirk Ferentz era, Brandon Scherff, is off to a fantastic start. Scherff, selected fifth overall in the 2015 NFL Draft, stepped right into the Washington Redskins offensive line and hasn’t looked back since.
As he did in college where he won the 2014 Outland Trophy Award and the Big Ten Offensive Lineman of the Year Award in addition to being named First Team All-Big Ten and a unanimous All-American, Scherff is piling up the accolades quickly in his four seasons in the league.
He has made two Pro Bowl rosters and was named to the All Rookie Team in 2015. Moreover, outside of this season, he has missed just two games and he has never began the game second on the depth chart. This year has been sort of an outlier for the Denison, Iowa native as he ended up on injured reserve after just eight games and posted his worst Pro Football Focus rating of his career, 69.2, which is still 17th best in the league.
Where other highly touted Iowa football players have failed in their transition to the NFL, Scherff appears to be bucking the trend and, at this rate, could wind up in Canton someday.