IU vs. Ball State, noon, Saturday, BTN

BLOOMINGTON – Reakwon Jones’ potential sat untapped.

The IU linebacker spent his first three seasons in Bloomington as little more than a body, unable to emerge from the shadows of others at his position. Quality snaps eluded him, both because of teammates’ talents and his inability to change coaches’ minds. By the end of his redshirt sophomore season, he’d recorded just nine tackles in 21 career games.

The departures of All-Big Ten linebacker Tegray Scales and Chris Covington created a void coach Tom Allen needed filled.

The end of IU’s 2017 season in West Lafayette afforded Jones a possibility.

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“I knew as soon as that Purdue game was over it was a challenge to find the next good, great linebacker at Indiana,” Jones said. “Is he in this room already, or do we have to go get him? I felt that challenge. I know (Allen) said we have to replace a lot on defense. I just took it and ran with it.”

Nine months and seven days after the Boilermakers defeated the Hoosiers, Jones started IU’s 2018 season opener against Florida International. A veteran in years, not experience, his performance left a lot to be desired but took nothing away from his growth during spring ball and continued improvement in fall camp. Bigger, stronger, faster and smarter, the redshirt junior emerged from the offseason on a mission.

Jones’ role in IU’s game plan to stop mobile Virginia quarterback Bryce Perkins this past Saturday came, at times, as a spy who’d shadow Perkins' movements on the field. Coaches tasked him with containing the running aspect of Perkins’ dual-threat capability, and he impressed Allen and linebackers coach Kane Wommack with his athleticism and ability to move sideline to sideline to make tackles.

So much so he was named the team’s defensive player of the game.

“Really proud of Reakwon and he just needs to keep climbing,” Allen said after the game. “We need him to rise up. He has not played a whole lot, but that’s changing.”

Allen challenged Jones to raise his level of play at the end of last season and Wommack, who joined the program in January, said Tuesday he thought the leap Jones made this spring exceeded the expectations of many around the team. It’s not that the talent wasn’t there, Jones just had yet to amass the film necessary to show it.

When the two met and sat down together Wommack could tell Jones was hungry to get on the field, make up for the experience he lacked and learn in order to be great. Jones’ spring further proved that and earned him multiple spring practice recognitions from his coaches.

“There’s a standard there that has to be set by somebody on the field and he was probably the guy that did that,” Wommack said. “He knew what to do as good as anybody else in the room at that time.”

It was especially clear in how Jones discovered how to discern IU offense's attempts to distract the defense with what Wommack referred to as “eye candy.” His gaze focused on what mattered most. Jones played at a tempo others aspired to replicate and gained confidence he’ll admit he lacked previously.

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Confidence that’s allowed him to act on advice Scales once gave him.

“He just told me, ‘When you go out there, don’t think about nothing, don’t worry about nothing. Just trust in your abilities — you’re here for a reason,’” said Jones, who has eight tackles through two games this season. “That’s something that always echoes inside my head. When I go out there, I’m not here for no reason. I can play. I’ve just got to go out there and execute to the level I know I can.”

Wommack believes the linebacker group as a whole still needs to become more disciplined and firm in their knowledge of what to do, and when.

But there’s no reason that can’t be remedied as they gain reps over the course of the season.

“I like that he wants that,” Wommack said. “I want them to have that swagger and play with a different level of edge.”

Follow IndyStar sports reporter Jordan Guskey on Twitter at @JordanGuskey or email him at jguskey@gannett.com.

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