‘A whole new thing’

IOWA CITY - Linebacker Josey Jewell was named Iowa's most valuable player in the TaxSlayer Bowl. He didn't do back flips over this. No one Iowa did anything celebratory after a 45-28 defeat at the hands of Tennessee in January.

It was a rough ride for the Iowa linebacker group in 2014. Jewell played weakside linebacker as a redshirt freshman. He was listed at 225 pounds, about 10 to 15 below industry standard. He was flanked by middle linebacker Quinton Alston, who, in his first year as starter, earned second-team all-Big Ten from coaches, and outside linebacker Bo Bower, a fellow redshirt freshman who was put on scholarship in August.

For Jewell and Bower, yes, it was probably a year too soon.

'I feel like, yeah, maybe we're still a little bit behind,” Jewell said after the TaxSlayer. 'We have a long ways to go, that's the exciting part.”

Linebacker coach Jim Reid is certainly excited about that part. Head coach Kirk Ferentz made some tweaks to his coaching staff in the winter. One of the moves was assigning the entire linebacker corps to Reid. Last season, Reid handled the inside linebackers, with LeVar Woods coaching the outside linebacker position. Woods was handed the tight ends this season.

In speaking with media on Wednesday, Reid didn't make any huge pronouncements on where linebacker ‘15 might be headed. He said the group with strive for improvement, however that might be measured.

'Let me just say, I'm not sure that it's going to be up [linebackers' performance], as much as it's going to be consistent,” Reid said.

Reid's first year at Iowa was 2013, when the Hawkeyes' defense was anchored by three NFL-caliber linebacker (Christian Kirksey, Anthony Hitchens and James Morris). Morris and Hitchens, the inside linebackers, collected 30.5 tackles for loss. Reid said that had less to do with what was called and more to do with experience and reading the play.

'Although we lose a guy like Quinton Alston who ran defense, really beautifully, made all the calls, did a great job,” Reid said, 'we have a nice consistency of real heady players who are very aggressive up the field and are athletic enough to bring us back, hopefully any ways, to that number [of tackles for loss] that we had in 2013.”

For now, Jewell is in place to take over the middle, Bower has moved to the weakside spot and true sophomore Ben Niemann is the starter at outside linebacker. Reid made it sound as if there would be some mixing and matching this spring.

'What we are trying to do now is have all the positions be fluid, so we can go from inside to outside,” Reid said. 'There's a lot of shifting that goes on.”

Jewell, Bower and Niemann are all sophomores, so the question remains, are they in the game ahead of their time?

'It's not all physical talent that allows to you make a TFL [tackle for loss], to make a sack, to make a great play,” Reid said. 'It's having anticipation. It's reading the line of scrimmage. It's seeing the splits. It's knowing what the formation is. It's knowing what the down and distance is.

'. . . So, I think that personally, not just me, but I think we all believe that we're heading in the right direction with this crowd and it's a fun crowd to coach because they are into it big time.”

Reid provided snapshots into the starting trio.

On Jewell (who's now listed at 230 pounds): 'Josey was actually defensive player of the game in a loss in our bowl game. But he had 14 tackles, and really, if you're his coach and you're told, I thought it was 18. He really, really played against a physical, run-oriented offense.”

On Bower (now listed at 6-1, 228): 'Bo is just a tough guy. He looks like a tough guy. He is a tough guy. He plays like a tough guy and he has a 3.5 GPA. That's what we're talking about.”

On Niemann (6-3, 225): 'Ben Niemann really fits the definition of Iowa football and being a linebacker. He is fast. He is athletic. He's tough and he can really, really think on his feet. . . . He just has instincts to the ball and he's got a great opportunity to get up there and show a little bit of what he can do right from the get-go . . . He's a high-speed athlete at linebacker.”

Reid had nice things to say about redshirt freshman Aaron Mends, a 6-0 212-pounder from Kansas City, Mo., who shadowed Bower at weakside linebacker during the beginning of Wednesday's practice.

'Aaron Mends is a fast-twitch, quick player, who has got electric feet. He's got a giant heart,” Reid said. '. . . He really can hit with really good leverage, fast. This guy is very, very, very quick. He's playing linebacker for us and he could be a defensive back. I mean, that's a skill that I believe that Aaron has.”

And on redshirt freshman Jameer Outsey (6-3, 235): 'Tough, can run very, very well. He's playing a tough position because he has to make a lot of calls and he's doing a very, very nice job in the amount of experience that he had last year. But he's going to be a very good player in this program. Gets up field, uses his hands really well.”

That's some on personnel, how about scheme? Iowa coaches did visit a few schools during the offseason, but Reid said don't expect to see changes to the 4-3 over defense that the late Norm Parker installed when Ferentz hired him in 1999.

'[Iowa's defensive scheme] one that is so flexible and adjusts very well to all formations,” Reid said about visiting and comparing notes with other schools, 'that it's almost kind of like you want to go there to make sure that you know what you're doing is, I'm not going to say right, but is right for you. There are a lot of people that have a lot of answers. Most of them have the best players.

'We have excellent players and an excellent scheme that adjusts to different formations.”

You have to allow the possibility for some growth here. Last year was the first where Jewell, Bower and Niemann could feel what it takes to shed a block, pursue a play, make a tackle. This is year 2, a whole new deal.

'A lot of experience happened this year,” Jewell said. 'We just have to keep it up. Next year, it's a whole new thing.”

l Comments: (319) 398-8256; marc.morehouse@thegazette.com