Iowa linebacker Nick Jackson has a chance to make history with unanticipated 6th-year opportunity

IOWA CITY — As a sixth-year college linebacker, Nick Jackson gets “all the old jokes.” The jokes come from every direction, too, including his position coach.

“I keep kidding Nick that he’s a seven-year,” Iowa assistant head coach and linebackers coach Seth Wallace said. “Might be because of the receding hairline.”

The fact Jackson is even at Iowa in 2024 to take the old-guy jokes is something that was far from certain at this time a year ago. When he transferred from Virginia to Iowa, he only had his extra COVID-19 year of eligibility remaining.

Fellow linebacker Jay Higgins thought the Hawkeyes “were getting him for six months,” and he was far from the only one to think that way.

“His choice to come back here was really not something I don’t think many people predicted,” Wallace said.

That choice is a result of the NCAA’s decision to grant Jackson a waiver for one more year of eligibility. (The waiver was on the basis that his 2022 season was shortened because of the mass shooting that killed three of his Virginia football teammates.)

“Even having the opportunity was just such a shock last year that I couldn’t even really process it,” Jackson said earlier this month, looking back at the NCAA waiver approval.

Not anticipating another opportunity to play college football, Jackson already had plans to train ahead of the 2024 NFL Draft in Florida.

“I had my bag packed and everything really when I went to the bowl site,” Jackson said when talking to reporters in the spring. “So I wasn’t planning on really coming back.”

But then Iowa successfully re-recruited the linebacker for a sixth season of college football. Higgins “didn’t want to over-talk him.”

“Sometimes when we’re golfing, I’m trying to tell him the break and how fast the greens are,” Higgins said at Iowa’s annual media day. “If I start talking all that, his ball strikes bad. So I just try to leave little snippets for him and get out of his hair.”

Jackson mentioned the opportunity for further development when discussing his decision to return earlier this year. The other seniors coming back for another year “didn’t hurt the situation” either.

“The NFL is not going anywhere,” Jackson said. “You have an opportunity to get better. I think with coach Wallace, I’ve been developed so much. … Another year under the belt with him, under his wing and stuff like that — I can learn so much more.”

Having Higgins and Jackson return was a major coup for Iowa’s defense, which has led the country in yards allowed per play in back-to-back seasons. National writer Phil Steele ranked Iowa’s linebacker unit No. 1 in the country ahead of the 2024 season.

“When he decided to come back for another year, I just knew there was potential to really grow this thing,” Higgins said. “When you can get a full spring ball, another fall camp, we’re really testing the waters of what we can do.”

On an individual level, Jackson also has the opportunity to make history in his sixth and final year of college football. With 464 career tackles entering this season, he needs another 114 to break the NCAA all-time record for career tackles.

That’s not so far-fetched considering he has finished the last four seasons with more than 100 tackles and had 117 in 2021. The biggest obstacle might be his own teammate, considering Higgins amassed a program-record-tying 171 total tackles last year.

“Jay might have to turn a couple down and let Nick pick them up,” Wallace lightheartedly said.

Higgins talked about doing “defensive slides in front of people” to essentially “funnel them his way.”

“I’m doing everything in my power to get that done for Nick,” Higgins said. “Telling my son one day that I played against a guy who literally leads the (career) tackles in college football — that’d be pretty cool.”

Perhaps the one person not thinking about Jackson’s shot at history is Jackson himself.

“I’m focused on this team really,” Jackson said. “I’m trying to win as many games as possible, trying to do whatever I can to help this team win.”

His possibility of the record “just shows you how old I am that I’m in that category.” In case he forgets that, his teammates surely will be happy to remind him.

“God forbid I just walk and move my back around or something like that, they’re like ‘Oh wow, that’s year six for you,’” Jackson said.

As for Wallace’s comments on Jackson’s receding hairline, Jackson is wisely mum on any irony in the 45-year-old linebacker coach’s comments.

“No comment, no comment,” Jackson said. “I like playing.”

Comments: john.steppe@thegazette.com

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