Ready to report: Leighton Jones

The days are dwindling before Leighton Jones officially reports to Iowa City. The future Hawkeye can’t wait and has been counting down the days. He officially wraps up high school on Wednesday, with graduation set for June 3rd. Then the next week the Iowa offensive lineman will make his way to Iowa City.

We caught up with Jones for an extended conversation and you can read it here or listen to it in podcast form here.

Q: What have you been up to this spring?

JONES: I have just been working out every day and training. I’ve been trying to stay active and get stronger and more athletic. I’ve been trying to enjoy the last few days of my senior year.

Q: Do you remember your first contact from Iowa and what that was like for you?

JONES: I went to camp there before my junior year. My coach called me and said that I got invited to the tailgater, which is the big recruiting event that they do for the junior class. I was pretty pumped about that. It was my first visit and I was excited.

Q: Did you have any other offers at that point and then when does Iowa come to the table with the offer?

JONES: At that point I really had nothing. I was kind of under the radar because I didn’t have a position yet. Then after I went to the Iowa game against Indiana, I started to get more game invites and attention. That winter in February, I got the offer. I just had to stay patient with the coaches and wait for the offer.

Q: Who makes the offer from Iowa and who gets you on the phone first from the Hawkeye staff?

JONES: My communication with them kind of dropped going into November and December. I kind of was in the clouds with my relationship with the staff and then Coach Barnett started picking things up. He said after state wrestling that they were going to give me an offer. I finished up state wrestling and then three days later I got the offer. He said Coach Ferentz came into the room and said he has been waiting for me to get the offer, which I thought was pretty cool.

Q: When the offers happens, how close were you to saying, ok I am done?

JONES: (laugh) That was the one I was waiting for. Purdue offered me that day and then there were probably about 20 other schools that contacted me that day. I ended up committing the next week.

Q: What sold you on Iowa?

JONES: At first it was how they handled everything at their camp. I went to a bunch of camps within a three or four hour radius of my home and their camp was by far the best. It was organized and they treated all of us campers well. I liked the campus and the stadium too. At that point I was like, I could see myself playing here.

Once I got inside the position meetings during the recruiting visits, Coach Barnett was really transparent. He and Coach Bell were really honest with me. Coach Bell came to my school multiple times and he was honest with me saying that I looked good right now. I was like a lean 250, but I was growing, so I felt I was doing alright.

Then there’s the OL development. Coach Ferentz has been there for 25 years. Then when you look at the staff, it’s a lot of coaches that played there, like Coach Woods, Coach Betts, Coach Bell, and Coach Hodge. Coach Parker has been there for like the entire time that Coach Ferentz has been there. That really stuck out to me because that’s when all the transfer portal stuff started happening in college football, so my biggest fear was when I sign somewhere, will the coaches leave? I knew that wouldn’t happen at Iowa.

Q: How important was your relationship with Coach Barnett and how important was that in the recruiting process?

JONES: He really liked that I wrestled. That’s what set me apart from any offensive linemen in the country. His honesty was nice. He said he wasn’t going to call me every day and beg me to come to Iowa. He said if I want to come, then I am here. He says that to everyone. He took a really different approach than a lot of the other schools that are sending you graphics all the time and calling you three times a week. He told me he wanted me to be a kid and not put pressure on you.

My conversations with him before I committed were nothing about football. He wanted to know how my day was and how my family was doing. He would ask about my wrestling and how I was doing now. Once I committed he treated me like I was his family. I was his first commit as the OL coach at Iowa, so he was pretty pumped about that. We are really close and I can’t wait to get out there.

Q: You brought up wrestling. Iowa football recruits a lot of guys with a wrestling background. What do you think a wrestling background brings to the table that helps when you are a lineman?

JONES: Even if you are a terrible wrestler, you will get toughness and conditioning. You will see guys say that they are focused on football and I will say how are you going to get on the field when it’s -8 degrees and doing drills. Football will wear you out.

I have wrestled since I was really young. It taught me mental toughness, footwork, and the hand fighting. Iowa recruits a lot of wrestlers. A lot of really good one’s too. I remember the first spring practice I want to Coach Brian Ferentz was point around that he was a state champ and he was a state champ. I was like, OK, all these guys are studs. I think Wirfs was, Linderbaum was, and I think Blythe wrestled.

Q: There is a pretty good wrestler coming in with your recruiting class in Ben Kueter. Would you ever want to square off with him? How would that go?

JONES: (Laugh) I consider myself a really good wrestler in this area, but he is on a whole different level than everyone else. Maddux wrestles too and I think we would have a close match. He did really good at Fargo and I did ok there and Ben won. He wins everything. I can’t wait to go watch him at Carver.

Q: You did football and wrestling at the high school level. Could you imagine doing that at the college level? Did you ever consider it?

JONES: I had opportunities to do both and places like IU-Purdue and maybe some other places if I had kept going with that recruiting process. But, I was like, man my body hurts right now and that’s a lot of effort. If I wanted to be in the NFL, then focusing on football was the way to go.

Q: You were sold on Iowa fairly quickly, but were there other schools that showed interest or offered that gave you pause?

JONES: Back when I said Barnett would contact me after state wrestling and then offer. The day before I got the offer, I had three or four Notre Dame coaches call me and text me to try to get me on campus the day before Iowa was going to offer me. I grew up a Notre Dame fan, so I was like I don’t know what to do because that would have been a situation. Michigan contacted me, so did Missouri, Iowa State, and Northwestern. Illinois was going to offer me the next Saturday. Wisconsin was interested. Purdue offered me the same day and Indiana sent me a text the day before I committed.

Q: You also become a recruiter when you commit early and you seem to like to get involved on social media. What was it like to recruit guys in your class?

JONES: That was something I always wanted to do. I wanted to commit early and try to get guys to come with me. Some guys are like, I want to take my five visits and wait until December or get more pub. But, I had so much fun recruiting these guys in this class. I liked meeting them and developing relationships with them before they committed and getting deeper once they committed.

Q: When you took your official visit, who hosted you? What did learn on that visit that was different?

JONES: I had Tyler Elsbury. He was a cool guy. I think I had the best host. Meeting the guys without helmets and pads on, I related to those guys and I could see them being my friends. They are really good guys.

Q: You were voted Mr. Football for the OL in the state of Indiana. What did that mean to you?

JONES: I think in the state of Indiana, we had six guys who were power five, so that meant a lot to me and my coaches. This was really the first year I really played offensive line in high school. The other years, I was more of a blocking tight end. It meant a lot because I put in a lot of hard work to get to where I am right now.

Q: When is graduation day?

JONES: So our last day of school is Thursday, but mine is Wednesday because I am a senior. We get our diplomas on the third.

Q: When do you move to Iowa City?

JONES: Our move in day is June 11^th.

Q: How excited are you to get to Iowa City and what’s the roommate situation for you?

JONES: I am looking forward to it. Ever since I committed, this is the day that I have been looking forward to. I am going to be rooming with Trevor Lauck. We had a relationship going in even when Iowa wasn’t in the picture. I had respect for him and he had respect for me. We really bonded because we were taking the same visits too. Also, I recruited him to come here too and told him that he was going to be my roommate. (laugh) We are in the same position group too and we are going to be going through the same things.

Q: Do you know what number you are going to wear?

JONES: We haven’t been given numbers yet. Hopefully it’s 58. 64, or 59.

Q: You see guys coming out of the tunnel with Back in Black on. How excited are you to do that for the first time with your teammates?

JONES: I can’t wait. My first game at Kinnick Stadium was like an out of this world experience. I was like, this is different. I have been going to Purdue games, Notre Dame games, and IU games, and this is not the same. This is totally different. Once the song comes on and you come out of the tunnel, you get goosebumps. I can’t wait to be in pads and do it this time.