Iowa’s Aaron Graves works ahead of schedule on football field, in classroom

IOWA CITY — If someone was looking at Aaron Graves’ class selection alone, one might not suspect the Iowa defensive lineman was a first-semester freshman.

Exploring health and human physiology. Human development through the life span. Human biology for non-majors.

“I don’t really have to take any gen-ed classes that I don’t want to be a part of,” Graves said.

It’s one of many ways Graves is ahead of the trajectory for many true freshmen.

Graves is at perhaps Iowa’s deepest position — defensive line, where seven of the eight players on last year’s depth chart are back this year — yet has found a role as an immediate contributor.

The 6-foot-4 lineman has played 98 snaps on the defense since making his debut in Iowa’s Week 2 loss to Iowa State, according to Pro Football Focus.

That’s the eighth-most on the defensive line, and the seven guys ahead of him have all been on campus at least two years.

His 25 snaps against Ohio State are tied for his career-high with the Nevada game.

Iowa defensive line coach Kelvin Bell knew before Graves stepped foot on campus that he’d be different from the typical incoming freshman.

“He's going to come in here looking like the rest of the guys that have been here three or four years,” Bell said in the spring. “He’s going to come in physically looking like Tarzan. We’ve just got to get him to be like Tarzan.”

A common eight-letter word in college football for freshmen — redshirt — was not under much consideration with Iowa’s Tarzan-like defensive lineman.

“That word has never even come up in any conversation,” Graves said.

Graves said Logan Lee has been the most helpful teammate for him. They are roommates when the team travels.

“He tells me, ‘If you have anything that you’re questioning, that you’re not sure about, just ask me right away,’” Graves said.

Lee and other leaders on the defensive line have a “really high standard that they set for everybody else.”

“He’s always keeping me accountable, keeping me on track,” Graves said.

The transition from high school to college has been “basically exactly what I expected,” Graves said.

“The intensity in practice is a lot higher obviously than high school,” Graves said. “But yeah, it wasn’t too much of a shock.”

There have been some challenging moments, though. The Michigan game quickly comes to mind.

“They’re some big boys,” Graves said of the Michigan offensive line. “There was a couple plays where I got beat, so that was definitely my welcome to college football.”

Head coach Kirk Ferentz said Graves “got taught a few lessons” against No. 2 Ohio State as well.

Graves said he’s working on “keeping my hands in” and other “basic fundamentals.”

Away from Kinnick, Graves already has junior academic standing despite only being on campus since the summer.

“Two years into it, he'll be a graduate,” Ferentz said. “He'll be certainly way more educated than I will be when he leaves here."

Graves picked up an associate degree from Iowa Central Community College by the time he graduated from Southeast Valley High School.

“My mom works at Iowa Central,” Graves said. “So she helped schedule, laid out four years of taking college courses.”

Taking his usual high school classes along with 60 credits of college classes — a process that would usually take someone six years instead of four — “wasn’t really that much harder,” as Graves sees it.

“We had a lot of dual-credit classes,” Graves said. “It wasn’t as hard as some people might think it was.”

For as easy as Graves makes it seem, not many people have done it. The only person Ferentz could think of off the top of his head who came close was former linebacker Tyler Nielsen.

“His graduation present was a 7 p.m. final on the last possible slot,” Ferentz said of Nielsen. “So I congratulated him for being a good student. That's the price you get, that's your reward right there for doing a good job.”

Comments: john.steppe@thegazette.com