The Iceman Cometh: Matt Jones using past to transform into experienced leader for Baylor

With a little over six minutes left in Baylor’s first road game of the season, Matt Jones could feel the pistons firing and the puke bubbling up in his stomach.

“I really thought about taking an injury timeout,” Jones said.

Luckily for the Bears, he didn’t.

On the next play, Baylor cornerback Caden Jenkins picked up a loose ball and scored on a 72-yard fumble recovery, and the Bears rallied for a historic 29-point comeback win against UCF.

As soon as Jones saw the ball on the ground, the sensation of puking left him. When he noticed Jenkins pick up the ball, he took off as fast as he could and followed him to the end zone, where the celebration ensued.

But adrenaline and instinct only last for so long, he still had to puke.

“I went over to the sideline and I had to get it out,” Jones said. “People were cheering and tapping me, I just told them to leave me alone. Once I puked it all out, I saw everyone cheering and I saw UCF’s energy was down. I told (Coach Aranda) that we were going to win.

“I felt much better after that.”

Baylor’s Matt Jones was a three-time all-district player at Odessa Permian. He morphed into a leader of the Baylor defense this season, leading the Bears with 59 tackles and nine tackles for loss.

When Jones first got to Baylor, he quickly learned that what made a player stand out in college was being vocal, a stark contrast from when he was the quiet alpha during his three years playing varsity football at the legendary Odessa Permian.

It’s been a process, but it’s one that Jones has embraced.

His West Texas roots taught him how to be tough in a multitude of ways, and the lineage of successful linebackers at Baylor has taught him how to be a leader during the good and bad days.

“It’s one of the coolest things about coaching,” Aranda said. “The Matt that we had a couple of years ago, we have a brand new person, in terms of the leader and in terms of just the small things. Matt has really become a pro.

“To make that transformation is a scary one, and he’s done that. I’m thankful that he has, our team is thankful.”

West Texas Tough

Life was pretty good for Jones early on. Living in a small town 15 minutes outside of Odessa. He and his brother and friends would roam around, catch rattlesnakes, and nobody would get in their way.

It got a little easier to get in trouble when he moved in with his dad in Odessa to be closer to Permian for football.

Eventually, the three-bedroom house with a leaky roof and mice running around the floor that originally housed his dad, stepmom and stepbrother, was filled with eight or nine family members at a time.

“All the stress was just piling in a ball, so I couldn’t do it,” Jones said. “I’m surprised (my dad) let me go. I went two or three months without talking to my dad, which hurt because he’s my best friend.”

Jones moved from house to house among his friends. Sometimes, he would sleep in his truck before school and then go to football practice.

Just after he moved in with his dad, opioids found his mom, and not long after he moved out of his dad’s house, his brother got addicted to some more hard-core drugs. (He has since recovered).

“I always thank God because living in that house with the way the situation was and the way things were going, I honestly don’t think I would’ve made it out of there,” Jones said. “I don’t think I would’ve made it to college or kept playing football.

“Football is what saved me in a way. Even time I went to play football, everything went away.”

Jones developed into a dominant pass rusher at Permian and was a three-time all-district player and an all-state selection as a junior. He had 14 sacks his senior year as the Panthers got to the second round of the playoffs.

Football wasn’t the only thing that saved him.

His daughter, Brooklyn, was born during his sophomore year of high school, and he’s loved being a dad ever since.

“I was headed down a bad route,” Jones said. “I was putting things in my body I shouldn’t have, and I was hanging with troublemakers. I thank God every day for (her). Football was my way out and my way to give her a good life. She’s the reason why I keep going.”

Evolving in Waco

When Baylor went on the road under then-head coach Matt Rhule, he would pair up random roommates to stay together in the hotel. Many times, that would be an upperclassman and an underclassman.

Clay Johnston’s first impression of the freshman Jones was a quiet guy with an imposing frame.

The two became fast friends, bonding over their West Texas upbringings since Johnston is from Abilene. Jones talked a lot about Brooklyn and what it was like being a dad. The conversation rarely focused on football.

“He has a humble spirit and a good heart,” Johnston said. “I have a lot of respect for him and always enjoyed talking to him. We would get ready for bed and sit there and talk about life together.”

Baylor’s Matt Jones has taken the lessons he’s learned about being a vocal leader from older Baylor linebackers like Clay Johnston and Terrel Bernard to heart and applied it as a senior this season.

When Jones first walked into the Baylor locker room as a freshman in 2019 with his cool demeanor and a few tattoos on his forearm that now take up most of the left side of his body, then-linebacker coach Mike Siravo came up with the perfect nickname: ‘Ice Man.’

“He was a very reserved, but he was physically gifted,” Johnston, now with the Cincinnati Bengals, said. “I always talked smack to him. But I’m always going to say it like it is, so I told him to always play with a sense of urgency.”

Jones took the lessons he learned from the older players to heart.

He said he remembers watching former Baylor linebacker Terrel Bernard, currently with the Buffalo Bills, get into it with a graduate assistant coach about how he thought he should be starting over a player with much more experience.

“He was upset about that at first,” Jones said. “He kept his head on straight and he put his head down and worked. When he finally got the starting job, he had 15 tackles in his first game.”

After playing his first three years primarily at the jack position on the outside, Jones moved to inside linebacker last season and had his best season in Waco, finishing with 65 tackles, good for third on the team, with four tackles for loss and two and a half sacks.

This season, he’s taken that to another level, as he leads the Bears with 59 tackles and has already set a new career high with nine tackles for loss.

He’s led the team in tackles in four of nine games.

After shifting from different coaches and different groups to start his Baylor career, Jones said first-year inside linebackers coach Christian Robinson gave him the attention he needed.

“I had a specific coach, someone who could put all eyes on me, coach me and get me better,” Jones said. “A lot of what he says is wise, not just in football but in life. When he first got here, he told me I was going to figure it out. I kept that in the back of my head.”

Like the Baylor linebacker he’s looked up to, Jones wants to give the NFL a look. But even that will end at some point, and he seems destined to stick in football.

During the off week, Baylor held a scrimmage where the younger guys played and the older guys filled out the coaching staff. Jones was the defensive coordinator. It was the real deal with the headset, play calling and everything in between.

“We actually won, so that felt good,” Jones said. “But being able to call the plays and see the guys execute. Coaching made me fall in love with the game again.”