‘OK, can I do this?’ Logan Jones proves that, yes, he can play center for the Iowa Hawkeyes

Editor’s note: Third in a 9-part series looking at each Iowa football position group ahead of the 2023 season

CEDAR RAPIDS — There really wasn’t one true low point, one part of a game, one game in particular.

For Logan Jones, it was a cumulative effect of missed play after missed play, one missed block after another missed block, that got to him mentally. There definitely were times, many times, when he wondered why he was playing center for the Iowa football team.

What did he do to deserve this punishment?

“It was like ‘OK, can I really do this?’” Jones said. “I questioned whether or not I was good enough to play.”

Many people questioned it. But you had to consider the virtually impossible place the junior from Council Bluffs Lewis Central was put into.

It was rough enough that he had to replace All-American Tyler Linderbaum, now starting for the Baltimore Ravens. He was being asked to convert from the defensive line to the offensive line.

The captain of the offensive line. Essentially on the fly considering he made the move during 2022 spring ball.

“He was thrown a ball with two weeks left in spring and said ‘Here, hey bud, you are going to be our center. We want you to learn a new position. We want you to be our center. And you’re also going to start every game in the Big Ten,’” said Iowa offensive line coach George Barnett. “That’s easy to judge from the outside. But, boy, the fire that he got thrown into and how he handled that and how he never flinched is totally impressive to me.

“It’s shown. Things have slowed down for him. He’s just a really good person, and he has just a very good way about him. He comes to work every day, he’s very consistent, very steady, he’s learning the position way better, his communication is much higher, as you could imagine. He’s a really smart kid, a tough kid, and just every day he plays, he’s going to get better.”

Jones smiled easily when you talked to him at Iowa’s recent media day. He was an imminently more relaxed, confident guy, and it showed.

He’s got a ton more room to grow and improve, but he’s getting there. No doubt.

“It’s hard to fail. Nobody likes to fail. But this is an imperfect game,” Jones said. “Coach Barnett always says you are going to fail, and the time to do that is in practice. So we make sure everything we do, there is a purpose. If you don’t think you’re going to fail, that’s just not the way it is. Everybody does. It’s what you do with the failure, whether you learn from it or not. If you don’t learn from it, then it is true failure. But if you learn, then it’s not, and you make sure it doesn’t happen again.

“This camp, I’ve failed a lot. The ‘D’ has gotten the best of me, I’ve gotten the best of them. It’s gone back and forth. You learn to play through that. Not let the emotions control you.”

With a year’s experience for guys like Jones and others, and a grad transfer in Daijon Parker (from NCAA Division II Saginaw Valley State), the hope is this Iowa offensive line will be immensely better than a year ago. It has to be if the Hawkeyes want to compete for a Big Ten Conference championship.

“I think the biggest thing our room has gone through this camp and in the spring is just the amount of competition we have now,” Jones said. “Coach Barnett has harped that we really need to compete for a spot. There’s only going to be five spots out there, so if you are a ‘2,’ you need to push that ‘1.’ If you’re a ‘1,’ you need to keep your spot.

“I think we’ve seen that in our room. Everybody wants to be competitive, everybody wants to push each other. The coolest thing is yeah there is competition, but everybody in the room loves each other and wants the best for each other. I think that’s where we’ve grown the most, just our cohesiveness.”

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