Cardale Jones need to follow the Matt Leinart/Jake Locker/Matt Barkley rule and leave school when your NFL draft stock is trading at its highest. Strike while the iron is hot! Sure, Locker ended up getting drafted pretty high, but it was still lower than it would have been had he left early like he was supposed to.
It’s funny how two USC quarterbacks comprise the “you gotta leave while the getting is good” rule, but hey Cardale Jones didn’t come to Columbus to play school. He’s made that clear already.
Jones has one redshirt year (2012), one year in which he barely played (2013) and one year in which he played three games. He started three games, he hoisted a trophy (“won a championship”) in three games. Now Cardale Jones can do the Jimmy B. Rabbit Smith “mic drop” and just walk away to the NFL. Sure his body of work is limited, but he’s got the Scouting Combine in Indy to wow the scouts.
This isn’t unprecedented. Brad Johnson played for 16 seasons in the NFL with the Cowboys, Vikings and Washington. In his entire college career at Florida State, he threw just 233 passes. Matt Cassel three just 33 passes during his entire body of work in college. Ye he’s had a Pro Bowl appearance in his 9 years and counting in the NFL.
There are two big name QBs in college football, wearing #5 that might relocate for next season. We’ve already covered Notre Dame’s Everett Golson here.
The Rumor mill churns around Ohio State’s Braxton Miller; who’s been linked to Duke, Oregon and Florida State.
Miller, or someone who is a signal caller in Columbus, needs to leave. Urban Meyer has an embarrassment of riches at the most important position in all of sports. It would be ridiculous if all three returned to the Buckeyes in 2015 and it would just hurt everybody’s self-interests.
Yes, but “the team! the team!” Hey would like to be somebody with the stats and accomplishments of Cardale Jones and J.T. Barrett and still be benched?
Of course, you wouldn’t.
Cardale Jones, J.T. Barrett, Braxton Miller, they need to make sure they stay healthy, and get playing time so that they can get paid later. Their labor is being exploited for free now, but it won’t be long until they get the chance to finally earn a paycheck, so what do they do? What does Urban Meyer do? What do the Ohio State Buckeyes do?
We’re a few days way from the college football national title game, the first of the playoff era. Former Buckeyes QB and current ESPN Analyst Kirk Herbstreit was on conference call along with fellow analyst Chris Fowler to preview the upcoming title game.
Herbstreit answered a question about the emergence of Cardale Jones, and discussed Braxton Miller, Barrett, the QB controversy etc.
Here’s the podcast below:
It’s a no-brainer for Cardale Jones; time to declare. Time to get paid.
Paul M. Banks owns, operates and writes The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with Fox Sports, Yardbarker Network, eBay and CBS Interactive Inc. You can read Banks’ feature stories in the Chicago Tribune RedEye edition and listen to him on KOZN 1620 The Zone. Follow him on Twitter (@paulmbanks)