Aaron Graves brings confident, jovial spirit to Iowa’s defensive line

IOWA CITY — Despite already winning a district championship and securing a top seed in the playoffs, the mood was somewhat mournful when Aaron Graves’ Southeast Valley team lost a game at the end of the 2021 regular season.

“You would have thought we lost the freaking Super Bowl,” Graves said. “Guys were crying.”

Far more memorable than any aspect of that game, though, was what the future Iowa defensive lineman said to his coach after the game.

“We won’t lose again this year,” Southeast Valley Coach Mike Swieter remembers Graves boldly telling him. “You don’t just tell a coach that.”

Southeast Valley then did exactly that. The Jaguars outscored their opponents, 210-75, in the Class 2A playoffs to win a state title.

Graves’ confident (and sometimes jovial) approach — whether it be playing against other small-town high schools in Iowa or against the best of the Big Ten — has suited him well in his football career.

“I love having him in the room, whether it’s us out here battling together on the field or we’re joking off the field in the locker room,” defensive end Deontae Craig told The Gazette. “You need guys like that that know how to have fun, but also take it seriously when it’s time to be serious.”

One of Craig’s favorite moments with Graves happened during spring practices when they — as Craig confidently put it — “executed a very good pass rush game together.”

“We shared the same disappointment when we didn’t make the teach tape for it,” Craig said.

Graves’ confidence was especially on display when he was a freshman in high school and Iowa State came to Gowrie to watch Graves lift weights.

“He goes, ‘Why did you have them talk to me?’” Swieter said. “I said, ‘Well for opportunity.’ He goes, ‘I want to play for the Hawkeyes.’”

Graves laughed when reminded of the interaction with Swieter and remembers his coach trying to sell him on the idea that “you always want a safety net.”

“I was like, ‘I don’t really want anything to do with them; I just want to be a Hawk,’” Graves said. “I was like, ‘Yeah, they don’t need to come back.’”

It is especially remarkable considering Swieter does not “bring Division I coaches too often to Gowrie, Iowa.”

“Every single kid that I’ve ever coached in my lifetime, if I would have said, ‘Hey I got an Iowa State coach here to talk to you,’ they would’ve been like, ‘You’re the greatest coach! Awesome!’”

Dominance at 2A level

Graves’ confidence is not much of a surprise considering what he accomplished in high school. He played offensive line, defensive line, punter and kicker.

He had 11 sacks as a freshman in high school, which was second-best across the state in Class 2A. In practices, Swieter had to tell Graves that he “can’t go this hard in practice.”

“That’s our starting linebacker that you just pancaked,” Swieter remembers telling Graves. “You can unleash all you want in a game, but we can’t kick the crap out of our own kids.”

Iowa, seeing his potential, offered a scholarship the summer after his freshman year. (Graves was lifeguarding when he received the call from Iowa Coach Kirk Ferentz with the scholarship offer, and Graves remembers asking him, “How do I commit?”)

When Southeast Valley lost in the playoffs in 2020, Swieter said it was because the opponent would “audible to the other side every single play.” So Swieter switched to a 3-4 defensive front in 2021, with Graves playing at nose tackle and attracting constant double-teams.

“A lot of teams’ game plans were just to take the center and the two guards and wedge-block me every play,” Graves said. “So that kind of got annoying, but it definitely prepared me for college football.”

On the offensive line, Swieter “quit counting how many pancakes” he had.

Swieter “got calls from other big schools” during Graves’ high school career, but the talented lineman was dead-set on Iowa.

“If (Nick) Saban called from Alabama, he would have been like, ‘No, I’ve already committed to the Hawkeyes,’” Swieter said.

Graves’ growing role at Iowa

Now in his third year at his dream school, Graves is expected to start at defensive tackle alongside Yahya Black.

“I’m excited to watch him play this fall because he’s done some good things in a backup role, in some limited reps, and he’s going to get the lion’s share of reps this year,” Iowa defensive line coach Kelvin Bell said of Graves.

Graves took 577 snaps as a sophomore in 2023, according to Pro Football Focus, and 230 snaps as a true freshman in 2022. He had 4.5 tackles for loss and 2.5 sacks last year.

He also had the benefit of learning from a veteran defensive line in 2022 and 2023, which included Logan Lee, Noah Shannon and Joe Evans. (Lee was drafted, and all three are on NFL training camp rosters.)

“They helped me kind of sink in and be comfortable here and just kind of have the mentality of finding something to focus on every day,” Graves said. “When you break it down like that, you’re not so focused on being perfect and perfection.”

When Graves instead focused on “getting better” early in his Hawkeye career, “you feel a lot more confidence.”

Now, he is helping take the place of Evans, Lee and Shannon from a leadership standpoint.

“He’s earned a position as a leader on this team,” Bell said. “The guys listen to him, the guys trust him and he plays the game for the right reasons — for his brothers, for his teammates.”

A leader — like when he told his high school coach that the team was not going to lose again and followed through on that promise.

“That’s a memory that I’ll remember for the rest of my life,” Swieter said.

Comments: john.steppe@thegazette.com

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