2026 NFL Draft: How Max Iheanachor Went From Soccer Pitch to Potential 1st-Round Pick in 4 Years
Few NFL draft prospects have helped themselves more in the last three months than Arizona State offensive tackle Max Iheanachor, who went viral in March when New England Patriots coach Mike Vrabel personally ran him through a few drills at his pro day. To have an NFL head coach fresh off a Super Bowl appearance flying across the country to work him out is a far cry from where he was four years ago, when he wasn't even the prospect that college coaches came to recruit at East Los Angeles College. In fairness, he'd never played football at that point. Just how far has Iheanachor come? There is the geography of being born in Nigeria and moving to California with his family when he was 13. Then there is a more incredible journey, from not playing and not knowing football to now being a top-50 draft prospect in just a few years. He's learned the game deeply enough that he recently added an NFL shield tattoo. "It's definitely something that means a lot to me," Iheanachor recently told reporters at his pro day. "I love football, love the game, so why not?" This wasn't always the case. Iheanachor pronounced ee-ha-nah-chore played soccer and basketball in high school, but Drew/King Magnet High School didn't have football. He was 6-foot-6 and 245 pounds, and an AAU basketball coach recommended him to Bobby Godinez, the head football coach at ELAC. "You saw everything you needed to see his ability to move, his height and weight, his frame," Godinez told me. "I knew he would be something special, so it just took a little convincing, and the rest is history. Once he stepped foot on that field, there wasn't a hesitation to work on what he needed to work on. He was all business." Iheanachor got into the weight room and added strength, redshirting his first year, getting up to 315 pounds and slowly learning the sport. Saga Tuitele, then the offensive line coach at Fresno State, was visiting ELAC to recruit another tackle when he noticed him. "I said, 'Who's that other kid?'" Tuitele recalled in our conversation. "His coach didn't pull punches, said he was not ready. But you saw he had a lot of potential, a big athlete who's hardly played any football. They said he doesn't know what he's doing yet, but he's not scared. He's not scared of contact or competition. I told him: 'You are nowhere close to a finished product.' He likes to be challenged." Iheanachor's first year playing football in 2022 saw him constantly learning on the job, and Godinez prioritized his development, even if his early inconsistency had assistants wondering if he should be starting. "I looked at them and said, 'That kid is going to make millions of dollars and will be a first-round draft pick. We're playing him and we're figuring this out with him,'" Godinez told me. "We need to adjust what we're doing. I'll never forget those talks with Max, just to make sure he was persistent enough throughout the whole process." Iheanachor was learning football at its most basic levels. Why is the team punting? What is a turnover? That awareness had to be built before you could get to inside-zone blocking schemes and higher-level technique. But Godinez said if he needed reminders of what Iheanachor was capable of physically, he would see that every day at the end of practice, when the team ran gassers across the field and the offensive lineman was running faster than his running backs and defensive backs. "There were times he was doubting the process, doubting himself," Godinez said. "Naturally, you look to your right and left and see people who have played football their whole life, and you're thinking 'God, I'm so far away.' I told him and his mom: Just stick with it. He's going to get it. You guys are going to be very happy with the results." Iheanachor started picking up college offers, and when Tuitele took a job at Arizona State, he reached back to the recruit, getting him to sign with the Sun Devils. Injuries pressed him into a starting role at the end of 2023, and he became a full-time starter the next year, helping clear holes for Cam Skattebo as he rushed for 1,711 yards and 21 touchdowns. He started at right tackle again throughout the 2025 season, showing steady progress once he got familiar with his new sport. He did not give up a sack in 2025, and helped his stock with a strong week at the Senior Bowl, lining up against a high first-round pick in Texas Tech's David Bailey and holding his own. Initially seen as a mid-round pick, he has slowly worked his way to being seen as a consensus top-50 pick, and potentially a late first-rounder. Iheanachor's background in soccer and basketball gave him a more athletic background than most offensive linemen, and that showed up when he ran the 40-yard dash at the NFL combine in 4.91 seconds, just a hundredth of a second off the fastest time for any offensive lineman this year. Tuitele said that helps an offensive lineman in two areas when engaging with opposing pass-rushers: footwork and balance. "The main thing is his footwork, his ability to move his feet suddenly, twitchy," Tuitele said. "He's a very sudden kid, where his movements are sudden. The second thing that basketball kids, and in particular Max, has is balance. You can have good foot speed, but if you don't have balance, you're just going to fall over. He has that part of it, and it sets him apart. And naturally, he just has tree trunks for legs, big calves, big thighs, big behind, all of that for power. He can generate power faster than a lot of people." Iheanachor's interaction with Vrabel at his pro day, with real hands-on instruction about hand placement, put a larger spotlight on the emerging offensive tackle prospect. It's impressive for a head coach to attend a pro day, but it's another thing to see him care enough to get a first-hand evaluation. New England has the No. 31 overall pick in the draft, and could see Iheanachor as an eventual answer at right tackle. At his pro day, he said he has personal visits lined up with the Arizona Cardinals, Chicago Bears, Philadelphia Eagles and Baltimore Ravens, among other teams. Los Angeles is still home for him, and he's come back to ELAC's campus to talk to current coaches and players. The school has a few basketball converts on the team, and Godinez said it was a full-circle moment to see him his old project now explaining the nuances of blocking and football with players trying to learn the game the way he once did there. There's football in his family now, as his younger brother Mark is now a linebacker at UNLV. The draft process is nearly complete, and Max goes into the event itself with no expectations he knew he can only control what he does in the key moments of evaluation, and the actual decision of when his name is called is something out of his control. "Be where your feet are at, control what you can control," Iheanachor said at his pro day. "Everything else will play out. We'll see on draft day, and whatever happens, happens, but I'm grateful for the opportunity."
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