Northwestern EDGE Talks Matching Up With NFL Draft Prospect in Practice

Anto Saka spoke highly of his team's left tackle at Big Ten Media Days.

Northwestern Wildcats running back Joseph Himon II (6) celebrates with Northwestern Wildcats quarterback Jack Lausch (12) and Northwestern Wildcats offensive lineman Caleb Tiernan (72) after scoring Saturday, Nov. 2, 2024, during the NCAA football game against the Purdue Boilermakers at Ross-Ade Stadium in West Lafayette, Ind. | Alex Martin/Journal and Courier / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Northwestern has two early leading candidates to be selected in the 2026 NFL Draft--edge rusher Anto Saka and left tackle Caleb Tiernan. The cool part about that: they get to match up with each other every day in practice on the line of scrimmage.

Saka was one of Northwestern's player representatives on its designated day of Big Ten Media Days yesterday, and he spoke about how Tiernan has pushed him to get better.

"It's dog versus dog. He's, in my opinion, the best tackle in the country right now. He gets me better every single day," Saka said.

Saka is a teammate, of course, but Tiernan very well may turn out to be one of the top tackles in the country this season. If it wasn't arbitrary, he'd be the betting favorite to be Northwestern's "best" player in 2025.

Tiernan is a massive human being, standing at 6-foot-7 with a listed weight of 329 lbs on Northwestern Athletics' website. He was an All-Big Ten Honorable Mention last season after starting all 12 games at left tackle.

In 2023, Tiernan also started every game for the Wildcats on their most recent bowl team.

Meanwhile, Saka has NFL Draft hopes of his own. He's also huge, standing at 6-foot-4 and weighing 247 lbs. The third-year had 5.5 sacks last season, but his ceiling in 2025 is even higher than that. Profiling as a real NFL talent, it's fair to expect improvement on that number.

Tiernan and Saka are pushing each other in practice, and that's a good thing for Northwestern. Northwestern Wildcats On SI Lead Writer Gavin Dorsey called it "iron sharpening iron" in a post on X today. That's the exact kind of competition a team wants in camp.