Hlas: Josey Jewell is, well, a jewel

IOWA CITY — "Preseason first-team All-America linebacker" doesn't quite leap off the page and into the national football discussion like "possible Top 5 NFL draft pick/quarterback."

Wyoming QB Josh Allen will put Kinnick Stadium in his rearview mirror and never look back. He's got it, 'it' being the kind of talent that should take him many miles and millions of NFL dollars from Laramie next spring.

But on a September day in Iowa, Allen was enclosed by Iowa linebacker Josey Jewell and a cast of defenders who held him to a puny 4.4 yards per pass attempt. Thus, the Cowboys were on the very short end of the 24-3 score in Saturday's season-opener for both.

The Hawkeyes' defense was an 11-man deal for 60 minutes, beautiful math for defensive coordinator Phil Parker.

'I think that front seven is as talented collectively as what I've seen in a long time,' Cowboys Coach Craig Bohl said. 'It hearkens back to some defenses I was around.'

He was linebackers coach at Nebraska from 1995-2002, and the Huskers' defensive coordinator the last three of those years. That covers six teams that finished first in the Big 8/Big 12 and one that was a national champion.

High praise, prodded by the poor second his superb quarterback finished against the team with the preseason first-team All-America linebacker, Jewell.

One play dramatically and permanently changed the course of this game. It involved Jewell pursuing Allen like a coyote chasing a rabbit.

Down 7-3, Wyoming sacked Iowa quarterback Nate Stanley and forced the ball from him at the Hawkeyes' 43-yard line with 50 seconds left in the first half. What looked like a gnarly finish to the half for Iowa at that moment became the opposite when it blitzed Allen on the Cowboys' first play of their subsequent possession.

Unblocked, Jewell chased Allen backward, backward, backward. Allen is a good running quarterback, but couldn't elude Jewell. Finally, from the Wyoming 39, Allen halfheartedly flipped the ball out of bounds. It was a basic white flag, which produced an official's yellow flag, because the 'pass' traveled nowhere near the line of scrimmage.

The intentional grounding penalty was assessed at the spot of the foul, and the 2nd-and-29 was a bad rabbit hole for the Cowboys.

'That was huge,' Allen said. 'We missed a free man on the backside and I rolled out. I thought maybe I could get around him, but I just didn't have enough time to turn around and throw it away. That was a bonehead decision on my part.'

'That was an interesting play,' Jewell said with typical understatement.

'He's a fast guy, so it's kind of hard to contain him. Just keep on running after him and hope that something will happen.'

It was more than hope.

Iowa saved some clock with two timeouts. Then, Wyoming butchered a punt as badly as you've seen a punt butchered in the history of punt-butchery, giving Iowa the ball at its foe's 32. Stanley threw a 27-yard touchdown laser to Noah Fant with: 22 left in the half for a 14-3 lead.

It began with Jewell running down Allen.

'(Jewell) is a great leader,' said fellow Hawkeye linebacker Ben Niemann, who was pretty great himself Saturday. 'He plays hard and he's a smart guy, so he gets us in sets we need to be in up front. I love playing with him.'

The other Iowa senior linebacker, Bo Bower, said 'We've been through everything together. Josey and I for five years, and Ben played as a true freshman, so the last four years with him. It's just a family. I know I can count on those guys and they can count on me.'

Jewell is appropriately named. What does he lack at the college level? Not knowledge, skills, instincts, physicality or leadership. He's a jewel.

'A lot of NFL folks here at the game today,' Iowa Coach Kirk Ferentz said, 'and I think they were looking at (Allen), not anybody on our team.'

Um, don't make bank on that. Pro scouts have pretty good eyesight. They'll be at the rest of Iowa's games, and not just to see opposing quarterbacks.