AP FILE PHOTO - Jacksonville Jaguars offensive lineman Brandon Scherff (68) points to the defense during an NFL football game against the Indianapolis Colts on Jan. 5 in Indianapolis. The Colts defeated the Jaguars 26-23.

Brandon Scherff has called it a career.

In an interview for the University of Iowa football program’s website, the five-time Pro Bowler and 2020 first-team All-Pro guard revealed he retired from football during the summer following a 10-season career with Washington and the Jacksonville Jaguars.

“It’s been something I could never dream of,” Scherff said in the story ahead of his induction into the Iowa Athletics Hall of Fame. “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.”

A first-round pick out of Iowa in the 2015 NFL Draft, Scherff quickly proved Washington correct in spending its top selection on him, proving himself as a rock-solid, dependable guard from his very first season. Despite battling a number of injuries, Scherff appeared in 11 or more games in all but one season: 2018, a campaign cut short by a torn pectoral.

Scherff occupied a place among the NFL’s elite guards throughout his career, but never commanded the spotlight. Arguably the most noise he made was when he signed a three-year, $49.5 million deal with the Jaguars amid their well-publicized spending spree in the 2022 offseason.

Upon completing that deal, Scherff retained value this offseason and drew plenty of interest on the open market, but never came close to signing a deal. Instead, Scherff walked away from football this offseason in a fashion fitting for his position, doing so without pomp, circumstance or even an announcement.

Scherff 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 and Mike Daniels and Christian Ballard and Broderick Binns and Karl Klug 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.