IOWA WELL REPRESENTED ON CBS PRESEASON ALL-AMERICA TEAM

The college football season is just around the corner (10 days away for Iowa, just over a week for the folks kicking off on Thursday, August 28, and just a few days away from Eastern Washington and Sam Houston State getting things underway in FCS territory), which means it's time for those last few bits of pseudo-news to give us something to talk about to bide the time until real football.  Pseudo-news like preseason All-America teams.

CBSSports.com released their preseason All-America team today and it looks pretty nice if you're an Iowa fan.  Seeing Brandon Scherff on a preseason All-America team has become fairly routine at this point: Phil Steele, Athlon, Bleacher Report, and SI.com all made him second team selections, while USA Today gave him first team plaudits.  (There are basically four tackles that seem to be worthy of first team All-America honors, per the pundits: Scherff, Florida State's Cameron Erving, Stanford's Andrus Peat, and Texas A&M's Cedric Ogbuehi.  They pretty much rotate among the first and second teams on these preseason lists.)  So seeing CBSSports.com tab him as a first team pick is nice, but hardly surprising. It is the Summer of Scherff, after all.

But Scherff isn't the only Hawkeye to earn All-America consideration from CBS -- Carl Davis also earned first team recognition from the folks at the Eye Network.  And that is pretty surprising.  Not because Carl Davis isn't good -- he is, in fact, very very good -- but because it's just surprising to see him be celebrated as one of the best defensive linemen in the entire country.  Davis has been getting some recognition -- Athlon named him to their fourth team, Phil Steele put him on his third team, and Bleacher Report named him to their second team -- but first team defensive tackle is pretty heady territory.

Obviously, preseason All America nods don't mean anything in terms of actual future production and Davis will have to perform at an exceptionally high level this fall to live up to that designation... but if he does?  If Carl Davis really is one of the four or eight or twelve or whatever best defensive linemen in college football?  Well, if he does that, odds are we'll be watching Iowa put together a pretty special season.  So here's hoping CBS is right and Scherff and Davis have great seasons.  Let's hear it for the big guys.