Iowa football: Six Hawks make 2020 Senior Bowl watch list

The 2020 Senior Bowl watch list has been announced and somewhat surprisingly, there were six Iowa football players on who made the list.

Maybe I am a doubter, but when I wrote about who I thought would end up at the 2020 Senior Bowl from the Iowa football team, I severely underestimated who would even be under initial consideration.

I think the Iowa football team has a ton of talent, but I just don’t see all much of the senior talent being fondly looked at by the eyes of talent evaluators.

Apparently, I am wrong though because when the 2020 Senior Bowl announced their watch list there were six Iowa football players on the list: Nate Stanley, Kristian Welch, Nate Wieting, Landan Paulsen, Brady Ross, Michael Ojemudia.

With any watch list, this should be taken with a grain of salt as in-season performances will impact whether each of these players ultimately makes a 110-man roster, but unlike other watch lists, this isn’t a complete waste of time.

Jim Nagy and his crew that operate the scouting department for the Senior Bowl handle it like a true NFL front office and to be on the radar of these scouts is a big deal. It means there is likely going to be more attention on you during the season from their scouts as they to see if it makes sense to extend an invite to you for their event down in Mobile. Other watch lists seemingly just put any eligible player on the list in sort of a shotgun approach.

Personally, I am surprised to see Kristian Welch, Nate Wieting, and Landan Paulsen on this list. Only Welch has seen snaps as a starter out of these three, and even he was moving around quite a bit at the linebacker position last year. Not to take anything away from these guys, but I feel as if these are legacy inclusions and staff is almost operating under the assumption that whoever fills these roles obviously have the talent to at least sniff the NFL. These are arguably the three spots the Iowa football team is most known around the league for producing impactful NFL players.

I’m not complaining, I’m just pointing it out.

I do think, barring something disastrous, Nate Stanley is a lock to be in Mobile, and I think, despite the stats not being there, that both Brady Ross and Michael Ojemudia also have very good chances to be at the 2020 Senior Bowl in January.