Jones received an athletic scholarship to attend the
University of Alabama, where he played for coach
Nick Saban's
Alabama Crimson Tide football team from
2008 to
2012. After
redshirting his initial year at Alabama, Jones started all 14 games for
Alabama's 2009 national championship team at right guard. He subsequently earned Freshman All-America honors from
College Football News and Phil Steele. In his junior season, because of team needs, he switched from guard to left tackle where he started all 13 games for another
Alabama national championship team. Following his 2011 junior season, he was a first-team
All-Southeastern Conference (SEC) selection, and was recognized as a unanimous first-team All-American. He was the winner of the 2011 Outland Trophy given to the best lineman in college football. In his senior year, again because of team needs, he switched from tackle to center. He started every game at center for the team that won another National Championship in 2012. He did not receive a second Outland Trophy but won the Rimington Trophy given each year to the outstanding college center becoming only the 2nd person in history to win both an Outland and a Rimington. He is the only person to win an Outland and a Rimington at two different positions or in two different years. Barrett Jones ended his Alabama career winning 3 BCS National Championships—each Championship at a different position—as an All-American guard, an All-American right tackle and an All-American center. Off the field, he has earned a degree in accounting, graduating
summa cum laude in August 2011 with a 4.0 grade point average. He graduated in December 2012 with his masters again maintaining a 4.0 GPA. In addition, he was honored as one of 11 members of the 2011 Allstate AFCA Good Work "which honors football student-athletes for exemplary community service." Jones won the 2012
William V. Campbell Trophy, an award given by the National Football Foundation & College Hall of Fame to college's football's "best and brightest." He is a 2010 and 2011 Academic All-American and in his final school year of 2012–13, he earned distinction as both the
NCAA Division I Football Academic All-America Team Member of the Year and the
Academic All-America Team Member of the Year for all NCAA Division I sports. He received the 2011 ARA Sportsmanship Award and 2011 Wuerffel Trophy for combined athletic, academic and community service achievement. On December 6, 2012, Jones was awarded the
Rimington Trophy as the best center in college football. Finally, he was named one of the 2014 recipients of the
Today's Top 10 Award, given annually by the NCAA to 10 outstanding student-athletes who graduated in the school year before the award presentation. Jones suffered a serious foot injury in the first quarter of the SEC Championship game but played the entire game so well that his teammates did not even know he had been injured. Even with the injury, in the BCS Championship game four weeks later, Jones earned praise for handling
Notre Dame nose tackle
Louis Nix III mostly by himself, giving left guard
Chance Warmack the freedom to maneuver downfield to block Fighting Irish linebackers for
Eddie Lacy and
T. J. Yeldon. After the game, he announced that he had a
Lisfranc injury of the left foot with at least 2 torn ligaments. He was scheduled for surgery immediately upon returning home to Alabama. As a result, he was unable to participate in the
NFL Combine. ==Professional career==