After tribulations earlier in career, Iowa’s Logan Jones boasts confidence as third-year starting center

IOWA CITY — Logan Jones asserted his dominance.

The whistle already blew on the short run play in the Iowa-Washington football game, but the Iowa center continued to block a 230-pound linebacker, driving him to the sideline and even into the sideline tablet cart before finally relinquishing.

“Coach (George) Barnett asked if I heard the whistle,” Jones said. “I guess I wasn’t really listening for it. … He thought it was pretty funny. He laughed.”

The play had a literal cost of 15 yards on the obvious penalty, but it was a symbolic gain for Iowa’s offensive line. Two years after Jones was thrust into the starting center job in 2022, he has shown the ability to thrive on an offensive line that again is a strength for the Hawkeyes in 2024.

“He was such a good prospect two years ago,” Iowa Coach Kirk Ferentz said. “Now, he’s a really good football player just because he’s got every attribute you hope for — hard worker, very selfless.”

Pro Football Focus’ pass blocking efficiency rating measures Jones at 98.6 — a career-high — as he has allowed only one sack in 149 pass-blocking opportunities. As for run blocking, the Hawkeyes rank 10th nationally with 5.8 yards per carry.

Jones, Ferentz said, is the “kind of guy we want on our football team.”

“Everything he does is with purpose,” Ferentz said. “He's really wired in when he's working. He's very popular with his teammates. He's so invested. Comes from a great family, mom, sister, really good people.”

The results were not always positive for Jones on the offensive line, however, when he made the switch from defensive line to offensive line as he replaced Rimington Trophy winner Tyler Linderbaum.

“My first year, it was ugly,” Jones said candidly this week. “I didn’t really know anything, what I was doing.”

The timing did not help matters. After making the change in the spring, Jones essentially had about six months to transition from a reserve defensive lineman — one who did not see any game action in 2020 and only appeared in two games in 2021 — to an every-week starter at center in the Big Ten.

“I don’t know if I said it publicly, but I screwed that one up,” Ferentz said. “We should have done that in December. We should have approached him then until waiting for spring ball. That slowed his progress down, too. We could have done him a favor by getting over there quicker.”

If Jones was a coach, he would “probably be like, ‘Pull him, he sucks right now.’”

But Iowa remained committed to Jones as the team’s starting center. Jones has started 32 of Iowa’s last 33 games, with the one exception being when he had a high-ankle injury in 2023.

“They saw something in me that I didn’t see in myself at that time,” Jones said. “They stuck with me, even when it got ugly. I have a lot of respect for Coach Barnett and Coach Ferentz for sticking with me.”

In 2023, Jones “felt like I was playing at my most confident and highest level.” Now in 2024, Jones is even more confident.

“I’ve seen a lot of fronts, and I’ve played with these guys for three years now,” Jones said. “Love them to death. They make it easy on me. … I know what they’re going to give me, and I know what I need to do.”

To Jones’ point, Mason Richman has 45 career starts, Beau Stephens has 16 career starts, Connor Colby has 41 career starts and Gennings Dunker has 20 career starts. While not getting first-team opportunities in games yet this year, Nick DeJong also has 23 career starts.

“It gives you confidence, and that raises your level of play,” Jones said.

It also does not hurt that Iowa running back Kaleb Johnson has shown significant strides and is the second-leading rusher in the country (and first among Power Four teams) with 156.2 yards per game.

“When you got Kaleb Johnson back there running the ball hard, it makes it easier to go out there and just want to go kill somebody,” Jones said. “So it’s a lot of fun.”

Iowa’s offensive line was one of 22 across the country named to the Joe Moore Award’s midseason honor roll. Simply mentioning Iowa in the same conversation as the Joe Moore Award is something even Jones said he would not have imagined two years ago.

“Honestly, all credit goes to Coach Barnett and the way he operates and the way we do things,” Jones said. “He stuck with all of us, even when things got ugly.”

Barnett credited the offensive line for not giving up when the results were not as pretty two years ago.

“Now, if they listened to all the outside noise in 2022, they should have just packed it in and quit,” Barnett said earlier this month. “But they didn’t. They didn’t flinch. The great thing about Iowa football and Coach Ferentz’s program — you do believe in development. And you do believe in sticking with kids and working through adversity.”

Jones perhaps took the part about not quitting rather literally when he stuffed Washington’s Alphonzo Tuputala into the tablet cart.

“I saw some guys on their sideline start to swarm me a little bit,” Jones said. But he “saw Dunker right there, so I felt safe.”

The tape of that block sure looks much better than the tape two years ago. Just ask Jones’ backup, Kade Pieper.

“He watches it just to make him feel a little bit better about himself,” Jones said. “He told me that, yeah, it’s pretty ugly.”

Comments: john.steppe@thegazette.com

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