Iowa football: Three hawkeyes inside top-100 CFB players

With high expectations entering 2019, it’s no surprise the Iowa football team landed three players on Sports Illustrated’s top-100 CFB players.

Sports Illustrated released their top-100 players of the 2019 college football season yesterday and three members of the Iowa football team found themselves on the list.

Junior defensive end AJ Epenesa was the first Iowa football player on the list checking it at 14.

Behind him was left tackle Alaric Jackson who fell to number 65 and his right tackle counterpart, Tristan Wirfs, who just barely made the cut at 91.

I have no disagreements with the inclusion of either of these three guys, and there is nobody else currently on the Iowa football team’s roster that warrants selection in the top-100 players in the entire college football landscape, but I do disagree with the placements.

Prior to the rankings, Sports Illustrated provided this loose guideline for selection:

"The most important factor we assess is how significantly each player’s production will impact his team’s success this season—not how good he was last year, where he sat on 2018 statistical leaderboards or what type of NFL draft prospect he is."

So with that being said, how in the heck is AJ Epenesa at 14? Not only is that an outrage, but he is behind not one, but three other defensive linemen.

Epenesa’s potential is through the roof, he has elite size and strength and will likely be a top-5 draft selection next year. 14 is way too low. I would have been okay with anything top-8.

Now on to Jackson, I think it’s always tough to grade offensive linemen and their impact on a team’s performance, but an offensive tackle with NFL size and power playing for a pro-style offense and coached by two offensive line gurus isn’t top-50? Alrighty then.

I’m not going to die on the Jackson hill because I think Wirfs is better, which brings me to my final contention with these rankings. Wirfs is at 91.

There are 9 other offensive linemen ahead of him, yet if you look at most draft boards Tristan Wirfs is a potential top-10 selection in the 2020 NFL Draft. He’s an absolute physical freak and it’s not just his projection at the next level that is high, it’s his production as well. Again, like Jackson, he’s playing for a team that values offensive line play more than almost any other school, and he is already one of the best in the country. Yet, he’s disrespected by being placed so low on this list.

As I have said many times over the past few months as projections and rankings have come out, these things ultimately don’t matter in the grand scheme of things, but it’s confusing to me to see these guys rank so low, when they fit all three criteria that should determine what a top player in college football is.