(This article originally appeared on www.macreportonline.com.)
The neighborhood folks in Southfield, Michigan, might have thought they were watching the next Kevin Garnett. On the hardball courts of Lathrup High, they cheered him on; through the senior year where he averaged 24 points, 14 boards and 5 assists a night, through a three-year starting career, as the local papers named him first team all-Metro, first team all-Area, first team all-everything. They watched him dominate at three positions, creating matchup problems all over the court, and might have squinted and said: there goes the next KG.
The folks of Southfield were wrong. And Jason Jones was one of them.
“I always thought I was going to be a basketball player,” said Jones. “It just didn’t work out that way.” As a star Defensive End for the Eastern Michigan Eagles, the prep roundball star who modeled his game after Garnett now creates matchup problems of a different kind.
Jones combines speed and athleticism to create a package that has proven very difficult for MAC offensive lines to contain. After spending a portion of last season leading the entire nation in tackles for loss, Jones finished the year with 18.5 TFL, good for fifth nationally, but not, surprisingly, a spot on the first team all-MAC squad. And Jones leaves no doubt that the squad’s voting members gave him a little bulletin board material for the 2007 campaign.
“Of course that’s going to motivate you,” said Jones. “Of course it is.”
Jason Jones comes from an athletic family, where competition and motivation were common currencies. Jason’s brother, Brian, played basketball at Detroit Mercy and another brother, Michael, played football for Alabama State. Unlike some, who shy from the long shadows cast by their gloried predecessors, Jones saw his future lit by his brothers’ example.
“I knew from the first time that I watched them play that I was going to grow up and play basketball or football, too,” said Jones. “They were my role models. I always wanted to do what they did, and excel in one of these sports when I grew up.”
Jones is excelling for the Eagles in a big way. But the road hasn’t been the one he thought was laid out before him. In addition to spending most of his youth anticipating a basketball career, when Jones finally found himself on the gridiron in Ypsilanti, he was a tight end who, in his own words, “didn’t really understand the game of football yet.”
After a 2004 season that saw him snag 4 balls as a true freshman, Jones was moved to defense by an Eagles coaching staff that saw a brighter future for the talented athlete on the other side of the ball. The switch paid immediate dividends, as Jones logged 47 tackles while starting all 11 times. While Jones says he doesn’t recall a specific game or moment where he finally felt at home chasing down quarterbacks, instead of blocking for them, he does recall that midway through that sophomore season, he “just started really picking up the game of football, and picturing things before they happened.”
It was during that 2005 season that saw Jones first display his proficiency for making stops in the backfield. Jones posted 12 TFL that year, along with 6.5 sacks, both good for second on the team. Jones followed those numbers by posting the aforementioned 18.5 TFL in 2006.
“In my head, I just want to make every play,” said Jones. “I want to get off the ball, I want to make every play, all over the field. “
This season, Jones says he’ll be focused not just on staying home and maintaining his gap responsibilities, but on continuing to develop his footwork, which he considers his most glaring weakness right now.
The EMU record for TFL in one season is 26, and Jones says that even if he improves the footwork, that number may be out of reach.
“I don’t really think about numbers like that, I really don’t,” Jones asserts. “But I’m not going to lie, when you say it out loud, that’s a really big number. Especially with our offense improving and keeping us off the field so much…I don’t want to say never, but that’s a really big number.”
Of course, the numbers Jones cares about most are the same as Eastern fans – improving on last season’s lonely 1 in the win column. Last year’s EMU squad dropped several close finishes, including multiple games in which they led for three quarters, only to see their opponents walk away victorious. The 2006 Eagles dropped 4 contests by a touchdown or less, including defeats at the hands of instate rivals Western and Central Michigan by a combined 10 points. Those losses still smart, but according to Jones, the team is moving forward with the help of its shared experience.
“With ten starters coming back, its just reassured us all offseason that we have the players we need to make plays and get better,” Jones says. He also names several players who have stepped up their games significantly since last December, including defensive backs Jacob Wyatt and Chris May, and who will improve the Eagles’ chances of finishing more battles come MAC season.
“Our main focus this entire offseason has been on finishing and focusing in the fourth quarter, both defense and offense,” Jones insisted. “Last year we made too many bad plays, dumb penalties in the fourth quarter, things that just happened because we weren’t thinking right.” He then adds emphatically, “We must focus on finishing games.”
Just after finishing the troubling 2006 campaign, EMU Head Coach Jeff Genyk formed the Leadership Council, a core of players whom he wanted to take a greater leadership role, both in motivating teammates, and in establishing team policy and doling out discipline. Jones serves on the Council, and takes his role determining how to discipline team mates seriously, even when the infraction is a mere missed practice or film session. According to Jones, he and the council haven’t been afraid to hand out discipline, and Genyk has respected the majority of their decisions regarding internal team matters.
On game days, however, Jones says he stops telling others what to do, and prefers to lead by example.
“I’m definitely a keep to myself kind of guy in the locker room,” said Jones. “Just put on the headphones, and put on a bit of Lil John, or 36 Mafia to get me hyped, and that’s what I need to do to focus. I’m not going to get in guy’s faces before we’re even out there on the field.”
Like James Starks at Buffalo, and assuredly countless others across the conference, Jones harbors dreams of a MAC title, and says this season will be a disappointment if the Eagles aren’t playing in a bowl game somewhere over the holidays. While he acknowledges EMU has a long road ahead (“its going to be hard going from 1-11 to Detroit”), Jones prefers to reflect on the past philosophically.
“Last year prepared us for this year,” he said. “There’s no way we would have learned all the things we needed to do to succeed without last season.”
While it may sound crazy, Jones has certainly been part of dramatic reversals before; tight end to defensive end, future dream basketball prospect to quarterback nightmare. Can he complete the turnaround hat trick by leading the Eagles to a bowl game?
Time will tell, but one thing Jones is certain he still can do is play a mean game of one-on-one.
“I’d still be good. You never lose the game.”
Just don’t ask him to join your pickup game until January. He’s busy.
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