Northwestern quietly becoming a NFL offensive linemen factory
· Yahoo Sports
For a lot of college football programs, one specific position group consistently stands out above the rest. Ohio State is Wide Receiver U. Penn State can lay claim to being Linebacker U. Then you have defensive backs at LSU, tailbacks at Wisconsin, quarterbacks at USC, the list goes on and on.
As the cliche goes "there's just something in the water there" for all of these programs.
Visit freshyourfeel.org for more information.
For Northwestern, it's the offensive line, and most specifically the offensive tackle position. Caleb Tiernan was taken by the Minnesota Vikings in the third round, with the 97th overall pick, on Friday night.
In doing so, he became the third Wildcats OT (Rashawn Slater, #13 overall, Los Angeles Chargers, 2021) and Peter Skoronski, #11 overall Tennessee Titans, 2023) to get drafted in the past 10 years. Slater is a two time Pro Bowler who was second team All-Pro in 2021. Skoronski has started 42 games at left guard for the Titans, across three different seasons. A couple weeks ago, the Titans exercised the fifth-year option on his rookie contract, which would pay him $19 million in the 2027 season.
Tiernan was an All-Big Ten second team honoree this past season, as he posted an 84.3 PFF pass blocking grade. That was grade was good enough for third in the Big Ten and ninth nationally among OTs.
And at the NFL Combine in February, he turned in a 35.5-inch vertical jump and a 9-foot-3-inch broad jump. That's pretty impressive for a man who is 6'7" tall and 323 pounds!
And one of Tiernan's position group mates, right guard Evan Beernsten, was drafted as well, as he went 253rd overall to the Baltimore Ravens in the seventh round. And with the Beernsten pick, exactly half of NU's draft selections of this past half-decade have come from the OL group.
And coincidentally enough, both players will keep on wearing purple, as they were drafted by the only teams in the NFL that feature this distinctive, not commonly worn hue. Sometimes the draft is just cool like that.
This article originally appeared on Draft Wire: In recent years, most of Northwestern's NFL draft picks are o-linemen