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2025 Iowa Athletics Hall of Fame Spotlight: Brandon Scherff2025 Iowa Athletics Hall of Fame Spotlight: Brandon Scherff
Football

2025 Iowa Athletics Hall of Fame Spotlight: Brandon Scherff

BY JOHN BOHNENKAMP

IOWA CITY, Iowa -- A quarterback that weighed 295 pounds wasn’t going to work.

Brandon Scherff (14BA, 14BS) was participating in the shot put at the Iowa high school state track and field meet when he was approached by Iowa football assistant coach Reese Morgan.

“He asked me if I played football,” Scherff recalls. “I said, ‘You bet.’ He says, ‘What position?’ I said, ‘Quarterback.’ He says, ‘Oh, no.’”

Iowa still wanted Scherff, an all-state football player and a state champion in the shot put at Denison-Schleswig, but it wasn’t because of the 1,200 yards he threw as a quarterback in his sophomore year.

“I got an offer from Iowa, and I said, ‘For quarterback?’ and Coach (Kirk) Ferentz said, ‘Absolutely not,’” Scherff says. “They saw something in me that I never, never imagined.”

What they saw in Scherff was that he could be an offensive lineman, and he turned out to be one of the best in program history.

Scherff won the Outland Trophy in 2014 as the nation’s best interior lineman while also earning consensus first-team All-America honors and the Big Ten’s Offensive Lineman of the Year that season.

“I think it was sophomore year, I remember sitting down with them, and they said that if you keep playing well and doing this, you’ve got a shot at playing in the NFL,” Scherff says. “As a little kid, that was a dream for me. And it kind of put it in perspective for me that, you know, it could happen.

“I mean, I went against Adrian Clayborn (10BA) and Mike Daniels (11BA) and Christian Ballard and Broderick Binns (12BA, 18MA) and Karl Klug (10BA) in practice. They kicked my butt day-in and day-out. And if it wasn’t for that, I don’t know if I’d be where I was. So I’m truly thankful for that.”

Scherff says Iowa’s reputation for producing top offensive linemen helped him when he began his quest to make it in the NFL.

“Any time you walked into a room at the (NFL Draft) combine and you said, ‘University of Iowa,’ they would say, ‘Oh, you know what you’re doing,’” Scherff says. 

Scherff was the No. 5 overall pick by Washington in the 2015 NFL Draft. He was an All-Pro selection in 2020 and played in five Pro Bowls. He played in Washington from 2015-21, then played for Jacksonville from 2022 through last season.

“It’s been something I could never dream of,” says Scherff, who retired from playing this summer. “Sometimes I would tell my wife that she has to pinch me, because I’m playing a kid’s game, and being able to do it as a job is pretty amazing. Now, having kids and being able to see them after games is absolutely wonderful. So I would say it’s a dream come true. And I will be forever grateful to have had that chance.”

Hall of Fame Spotlights

Brandon Scherff (Football)
Recipient of the Outland Trophy in 2014, an honor presented by the Football Writers Association of America to the nation’s best interior lineman in college football, both offensive and defensive… was Iowa’s fourth Outland recipient all-time… unanimous consensus first-team All-American in 2014, earning first-team honors by AFCA, FWAA, Associated Press, Walter Camp Foundation, SI.com, Phil Steele, Sporting News, USA Today, CBSSportsline.com, Scout.com and College Sports Madness… 2014 Big Ten Rimington-Pace Offensive Lineman of the Year… semifinalist for the 2014 Rotary Lombardi Award… second-team All-America by FWAA, Phil Steele and College Sports Madness and third-team All-America by Athlon Sports and Lindy’s as a junior… two-time first-team All-Big Ten selection… named to Big Ten All-Freshman team in 2011… started all 26 games as a junior and senior… two-time Roy J. Carver Most Valuable Player, Offense… member of Leadership Group for four consecutive seasons… permanent team captain as a senior… drafted by the Washington Redskins in the first round (No. 5 overall) in the 2015 NFL Draft, where he was an NFL All-Pro selection in 2020 and a five-time Pro Bowl selection (2016, 2017,2019-21).