COLUMBUS, Ohio — When Cardale Jones takes the field at Ohio Stadium on Saturday, he’ll do so to an ovation that only a quarterback who led Ohio State to three consecutive postseason wins and the first College Football Playoff championship could earn.
But while Saturday’s spring game will be a celebration of sorts for the defending national champion Buckeyes, it will be all business for Jones.
Because although his starting spot in the exhibition is guaranteed, nothing after it is.
Just three days after leading Ohio State to a victory over Oregon in the national title game, the Cleveland native surprised the college football community when he announced he’d be returning to Columbus for his junior season. Despite starting just three games in his college career, the 6’5″, 250-pounder played well enough and possessed all of the measurables that could have made him a first-round pick in the upcoming NFL draft.
True to his unpredictable nature, Jones had other plans.
“The NFL after three games was really out of the question for me,” he said in a nationally televised announcement in Cleveland. “I want to go back to school and compete for the spot.”
And while Jones was adamant Urban Meyer hadn’t promised him that he’d reclaim the Buckeyes’ starting quarterback job, it wasn’t hard to see that he had a leg up on the competition.
With Braxton Miller still recovering from a torn labrum that ended his 2014 season before it started and J.T. Barrett…
Continue Reading: Ohio State Spring Game Is Cardale Jones’ Best Chance to Earn the Starting QB Job
