Jay Higgins continues Iowa football’s trend of stellar middle linebackers

IOWA CITY — Nick Jackson was not afraid to give fellow Iowa linebacker Jay Higgins “a little bit of a hard time” as they walked out of the team facility to meet with reporters.

“It’s like, ‘Hey man, my bad, I guess I’ll hold the door for you,’” Jackson said.

It is a fitting gesture considering Higgins is statistically amid college football royalty with the numbers he has put up one-third of the way through the regular football season.

Higgins leads all Power Five defensive players with 50 total tackles through the first four games of the season. The senior from Indianapolis had 16 tackles in the season opener against Utah State and 18 tackles in the Big Ten opener against Penn State.

“He’s happy right now, but he’s not satisfied at all,” Jackson said. “He’s going to keep on improving.”

A lot can change between now and the end of the season, but Higgins’ 12.5 tackles per game would put him at a pace to finish the regular season with 150 tackles (with the opportunity to add to that in a bowl game and/or conference championship game).

Only three Iowa linebackers have ever topped 150 tackles in a single season — Andre Jackson with 171 in 1972, Abdul Hodge with 158 in 2005 and Chad Greenway with 156 in 2005.

Even linebacker greats such as Pat Angerer, Jack Campbell and Larry Station could not reach that plateau.

Higgins is quick to deflect credit for his early-season tackle numbers, though.

"It's a testament to Coach (Kelvin) Bell's D-line,” Higgins said. “Yahya (Black) and Logan Lee and (Aaron) Graves and even my D-ends just keeping those guys off me and Nick — I can't make a play without those guys."

Higgins has three pass deflections as well. One of those against Utah State was dangerously close to being an interception. A “buddy” who is a graduate assistant at Purdue has kindly reminded Higgins of that play.

“He sent me the video, so I know Purdue is watching tape on us,” Higgins said. “I know they think the ‘Mike’ backer can’t catch.”

Along with Higgins’ on-field production, he has filled the leadership void left by Campbell’s graduation.

“Jay has done a really good job both on and off the field in regards to the football as well as the leadership,” Iowa linebackers coach Seth Wallace said.

Higgins and the rest of the team’s leadership council read the book “Do Hard Things: Why We Get Resilience Wrong and the Surprising Science of Real Toughness” by Steve Magness.

“I got some leadership tips from there,” Higgins said. “If I can be more relatable to these guys, I don’t want to be the guy that’s always yelling at them … and basically telling them everything they do wrong.”

He also pays close attention to his body language to make sure “it’s good all the time.”

“I actually got that from Cade (McNamara),” Higgins said. “He’s big on his body language. I can't have guys look at me and see that I'm frustrated that they got another first down.”

Higgins’ leadership has figuratively picked up Jackson, the Virginia transfer, as he learns Iowa’s defense.

“He’s played the Will position, so he knows everything about it,” Jackson said. “He knows the defense inside and out. So the more I’m learning every single week, it’s just a tribute to him. It’s a tribute to coach Wallace and coach (Phil) Parker.”

But literally, Higgins has not been one to pick up Jackson lately.

When Jackson’s 2017 GMC Canyon truck would not start on Tuesday, he texted Higgins about giving him a ride to the football facility.

“He left like two minutes before me, acted like he didn’t see the message,” Jackson said in a lighthearted jab at his friend.

Higgins claimed he already was “in the training room, and I didn’t have my phone with me.”

“So then I couldn’t get here for another 15 minutes,” Jackson said from outside Iowa’s football facility. “I had to wait for some people to pick me up.”

Higgins’ excellence, as long as it does not involve driving Jackson around Iowa City, adds to what has been an impressive string of middle linebackers.

Josey Jewell was the starter there in 2015, ’16 and ’17. Kristian Welch started some games in 2018 and most games in 2019. Seth Benson had the bulk of the starts in 2020 before sliding over to weakside linebacker, and Campbell was the starter in 2021 and ’22.

Jewell and Campbell are on NFL teams’ 53-man rosters in Denver and Detroit, respectively. Welch is on Green Bay’s practice squad, and Benson was on Denver’s training camp roster before being cut in August.

“For us to be good defensively, that's just a critical position,” Ferentz said. “The way we're wired, if you go back historically, the guys up the middle are really a big part of what we do. So if you have two inside linebackers or two safeties that can't tackle or won't tackle, it's not going to work too well.”

The last two — Benson and Campbell — were teammates with Higgins for three years, giving this year’s starting middle linebacker a chance to learn from those who were in that spot before him.

As Higgins thrives, Wallace believes “a lot of credit has to be given” to Campbell and Benson, as well.

“Jay looked up to both of those guys in so many levels,” Wallace said, “and paid attention and tried to emulate and replicate. And now we’re starting to see that.”

Campbell and Benson, Higgins said, are “really responsible for how the defense has grown over the years.”

“I would like for people to say I mimic their effort on every play,” Higgins said.

Having another top-tier middle linebacker this year is like having “a coach out there,” defensive coordinator Phil Parker said.

“You have an extra guy on your staff basically that helps you out and gets you in the right things that you need to do,” Parker said. “He sees things a lot better than a lot of other guys do.”

Ferentz said it “takes the right kind of guy to be there” at middle linebacker, but Iowa also does not have a one-size-fits-all approach to the position.

The NFL Combine measured Campbell at 6-foot-5 and 249 pounds.

“Jack Campbell is a really unusual body type and all that, and he's an unusual person,” Ferentz said.

Benson was 6-0 and 231 pounds by the end of his Iowa career. Welch? 6-3 and 239 pounds. Jewell? 6-1 and 234 pounds.

Most importantly, regardless of exact attributes and dimensions, they produced.

Jewell had 120-plus tackles in 2015, ’16 and ’17. Campbell hit that mark in 2021 and ’22. Welch and Benson did not have the same big numbers, but both earned all-Big Ten honors during their Hawkeye careers.

Ferentz compared Iowa’s middle linebacker position to life in general.

“There's all kinds of shapes and sizes, all kinds of personalities,“ Ferentz told The Gazette during his Tuesday news conference. ”But the bottom line is can that player play effectively at that position? And fortunately, to your point, we've been lucky. We've had a lot of good ones at that spot.“

Comments: john.steppe@thegazette.com