MOBILE, Ala. – University of South Alabama football fans first saw the name Jeremé Jones on Feb. 4, 2009, when he was among the 31 individuals listed as signing a National Letter-of-Intent with the program at a Mitchell Center celebration on campus recognizing the Jaguars’ first-ever recruiting class.
Fast forward to September of last year when the Jags faced Hargrave (Va.) Military Academy in their official debut, though, and Jones’ name was nowhere to be found. The obvious question is, what happened?
USA head coach Joey Jones and his staff eventually inked 40 student-athletes in that inaugural recruiting class including junior-college transfers, with 32 making it on the roster last fall. Some did not have the grades necessary to qualify per NCAA regulations and opted to attend junior colleges. Others showed up on campus but quit before the first game rolled around.
And then there is the group that went through the process of what is called greyshirting; the individual who signed in February does not enroll for the fall semester, go to class and participate in football activities, but instead begins classes the following spring. They are allowed to take part in spring practice, and the process does not cost them any eligibility as they are considered a true freshman when the next fall arrives.
Which is what Jeremé Jones — along with Will Thompson and Tyrone Williams — did in the fall of 2009.
“The process of greyshirting is really important, although the NCAA is starting to tighten the rules on oversigning,” explained USA head coach Joey Jones. “It’s a helpful tool because if you’re going to sign 20 kids in a year and that’s how many scholarships you have, you may have one or two kids who are borderline academically; if you sign one or two more, they become greyshirt candidates where you can still get them but they would count on next year’s numbers. Another reason it can help is in giving kids a chance to mature physically; for us, if we have an offensive lineman who is going to get better the more years he is in the program, who is 245 pounds but we know is going to weigh 320 one day, it gives him an extra year to grow.”
Another reason that individuals are being asked to greyshirt is due to the makeup of the roster. “We look at our total numbers, and if we feel like we may be over at a position then we have to pick someone from among that group,” he added. “We let them know early that there is a possibility they might greyshirt, but it doesn’t happen much; it’s usually two candidates a year we even ask to do that.”
Much has been made of oversigning in the last couple of years, but Jones feels the key for USA’s staff is to make sure that the possibility is introduced as early as possible during the recruiting process.
“It can be somewhat of a negative situation, you have to be careful how you present it. I think the biggest thing is being honest with these players up front and not dropping it on them late in January,” he stated. “We want the student-athlete to make a great decision for him — obviously we want him in our program, but if it is in his best interest to go somewhere else then we will let him know up front that this is a possibility so he can make a wise choice.”
A native Mobilian, Jones began playing football in the fifth grade, but that was as much because of his father’s history with the sport. Ricky Jones was a quarterback at Alabama State from 1988-91, helping lead the Hornets to the Southwestern Athletic Conference title his senior year.
“I got started late. I started playing in fifth grade, though I didn’t really want to,” Jones said. “But my dad saw things in me that I didn’t at the time, so he just told me to go out there and try it. Because I was kind of good, I stuck with it.
“I watched football, but I wasn’t an avid fan. I knew a little bit more than the average kid because of my dad and how much he talked about it with me.”
At the time, and through the rest of grade school, Jones — who now stands 5-foot-8 and 160 pounds — was the same size as most of his classmates. He began as a quarterback, switched to running back and eventually made the move to wide receiver in the seventh grade. When Jones got to McGill-Toolen High School, he started returning punts and kicks as well. “When I got to high school, I just stuck with wide receiver and special teams,” he stated. “I don’t remember asking for it, they just put me there because I was quick and athletic. I didn’t realize it because it wasn’t that way in middle school.”
By his final season, Jones had found many ways to help the Yellow Jackets — he would end up as part of the school’s winningest senior class — as they advanced to the semifinals of the state 6A playoffs when he was a junior and went 9-3 the following fall. He earned honorable mention all-state and first-team all-region recognition as a senior, when he caught 61 passes for 950 yards, rushed for 200 yards and returned two punts for touchdowns. But despite those accolades, as well as an invitation to play in the Alabama-Mississippi All-Star Classic after his final season, Jones had just two scholarship offers — from South Alabama and Alabama State.
Since the Jaguars had yet to take the field, there was no telling how Jones, or any of the other recruits the USA staff were pursuing, would feel about committing to the start-up program.
“I think in the first year there was some doubt,” Joey Jones confirmed. “When you are trying to evaluate something and there is nothing to look at — no field house, no players you can ask what the program is like — you can only listen to coaches who are selling a dream. It was tough, but the excitement of playing in a new program and the excitement of playing time were the two biggest factors that helped us draw kids to our program. Beginning in the second year and moving forward, though, I think the perception has changed.”
Jones the coach — who was also considered an undersized receiver during his playing days at Alabama in the early 1980s — knew long before the school’s first signing day ceremony that he wanted Jones the player as part of the program’s initial recruiting class. “Jeremé came to our camp the summer before his senior year. I watched him change directions, and he would make moves suddenly at the line of scrimmage; the defensive backs playing press man couldn’t lay a hand on him,” the coach remembered. “We offered him [a scholarship] that day. I can tell when guys can play, and if you can separate from defenders I don’t care how small you are.
“He also has great hands and body control — when the ball is in the air, he is positioning himself to catch the football,” he continued. “Some guys react late to the ball, but when the ball is off the quarterback’s hand Jeremé starts adjusting his body at that point.”
Initially, Jones never thought he would play football at USA. “My first reaction was like everybody else’s — they aren’t going to be good, I don’t want to go there,” he observed. “But when they started watching me and I took a look into the program and got familiar with it, I didn’t feel the same way.”
But a couple of key factors would end up in the Jaguars’ favor.
“The big reason is because I’m from here, this is home, so there wouldn’t be a need to get situated in a different place,” he explained. “Another reason is because the coach who recruited me [former assistant Dameyune Craig] was real cool and down-to-earth, and I liked that a lot.”
In Jones’ case, the decision to greyshirt was made because of an injury he had suffered, although it was not football related. When he was a junior, he decided to compete in track — “I got involved because of the competition and to stay in shape. And I didn’t really run except for the 4x100-meter relay, I jumped because that’s what I liked” — and ended up advancing to the state meet in each of his final two years at McGill-Toolen.
But in his last spring in high school, Jones hurt his knee competing in the long jump.
“I was injured during the track season my senior year of high school, but it didn’t really bother me until I came in and started doing summer workouts,” he recalled. “It seemed that everything we did would aggravate it, so I decided to have surgery done and instead of sitting out a few games and playing my first year I sat out the whole season to heal and come back in the spring. I thought by doing that I would know more when I came back the following fall.”
So surgery was completed to repair the meniscus in his right knee, and Jones was left to work out on his own all fall. He did not enroll in classes at USA, and was not able to take part in any organized practices.
“It was hard. I tried to look for work but couldn’t find any, so then it got boring because I did the same thing every day,” Jones stated. “I would work out with Titan Athletics from 4:30-6 in the afternoon, and I didn’t like it that much after about a month-and-a-half.”
For a lot of individuals in that situation, there is a chance to fall behind physically and mentally since they cannot participate in conditioning or take part in practice. “It was real different, especially because I couldn’t do everything since I was rehabbing my knee at the time,” Jones said of that possibility. “For a while I thought I might be falling behind a little bit, but I didn’t let it happen by continuing to work hard.”
And there can be no guidance from the coaching staff at the school they plan on attending. “The bottom line is that they have not signed with you until that January, so they can be recruited by other schools,” Joey Jones stated. “You have to treat them as any other recruit, and can only make one call per week during contact periods.”
What was also hard for Jones was missing out on the Jaguars’ 7-0 debut season as the program went undefeated in its first-ever year of competition. Since he was a local recruit who lived in the city Jones was able to attend games at Ladd-Peebles Stadium, but in the end he did not make every one. “I went to games, but I don’t think I went to all of them; I went to three or four,” he said. “I kind of wanted to stay away because seeing how much fun they were having made me upset, I knew I could’ve been down there with them but I wasn’t because of the injury.”
Beginning in February, when the Jaguars opened their second spring practice, Jones was finally able to become part of the USA football program. He wasn’t nervous about meeting a bunch of new players since he had continued to visit old roommate Corey Besteda last fall — “I remembered them and they remembered me,” Jones said — but was concerned about how he was going to hold up physically.
“I was nervous, I wanted to see what my knee was going to do and if I still had those football instincts,” he recalled. “And I didn’t want to mess up.”
He made enough of an impression on the staff to find his way on the depth chart both at wide receiver and as a punt returner entering the fall, and has contributed in both roles this season as the Jags are off to a 7-0 start entering Saturday’s meeting with Georgia State. In his collegiate debut, Jones ran back three punts for 93 yards including a 54-yard return for a touchdown in the fourth quarter as USA opened the season with a 56-0 victory over Pikeville (Ky.); he has fielded 11 punts and collected 213 yards, an average of 19.4 yards per return. And though it has taken slightly longer to catch on with the offense, Jones has six receptions in the last two contests, including four in the Jaguars’ 24-21 win at UC Davis last weekend.
“One thing about Jeremé is, he’s a tough guy — he’s little, but he’s tough,” explained his position coach, Ron Antoine. “To be a smaller guy playing inside receiver where you have to go against linebackers and run across the middle, that’s a big attribute to have. Athletically, Jeremé is very quick. Sometimes, when teams like to press the inside receiver, he doesn’t get held up; which is a bonus for us as an offense to know that our inside receiver is going to be able to get off the jam.
“Jeremé already has some natural ability, you don’t coach that a whole bunch. The main thing that we have been trying to do is get him to understand how to use that, when to use a particular move. It’s about teaching him when and how to use that athletic ability. The other thing he has is good hands. He catches a lot of balls out in front, which allows him to be able to run after the catch, especially in tight quarters; he can tuck the ball quick and start running.”
“Jeremé has already learned a lot, but there is definitely instinct to it,” added Tommy Perry, USA’s special teams coordinator who has worked with Jones in the return game. “A good part of it is understanding the lanes and how far they can run to go catch a punt. If you have watched as the season has progressed it has gotten a lot better. Before, if it was outside of five yards he would just let it go; now, he has enough confidence that if he has to call for a fair catch he can still get there and protect himself instead of letting the ball roll for another 10 yards.
“Last year we had some issues catching the football, we didn’t have a true punt returner, whereas now we have two in Jeremé and T.J. [Glover]. He has progressed in that quite a bit that we have confidence in him back there — we know if Jeremé gets underneath the football, he will catch it, which is reassuring.
“We saw it in the spring. We could see it as a slot receiver with Jeremé being able to make defenders miss. As soon as we saw that the first week, we knew that he could return punts. You can see when he has the ball in his hands that he can make the first guy miss, that he understands the concept of the punt return and how to get back to the right lane.”
Jones attributes his quick start to both the level of competition in spring and fall practice, as well as the benefit of starting in the spring thanks to the gresyhirting process.
“It’s actually harder against us because we have so many great athletes, that has really helped get me prepared to do it in a game,” he stated. “I got a few wake-up calls getting hit hard when I didn’t really expect it [in the spring], but as time went on I learned how to avoid them and move around.
“It has been easy this fall because I got here in the spring,” continued Jones. “The spring is when I went through a learning curve, where to line up and the depths of my routes. When the fall came I had to dig deep to remember those things, but it came back pretty easily.”
While Jaguar fans may have forgotten about Jeremé Jones, the multi-purpose threat has taken advantage of both a new program in his hometown and an unusual situation in the recruiting process that has become commonplace in the last few years to make sure they know who he is now.
For more information about South Alabama athletics, check back with www.usajaguars.com. Season tickets for all Jaguar athletic events can be purchased by calling (251) 461-1USA (1872).
—USA—
