Notre Dame Freshman T.J. Jones Makes a Great First Impression

It didn't take long for Notre Dame freshman T.J. Jones to make his presence felt against the Perdue Boilermakers this Saturday. On the fifth play of the opening drive Dayne Crist connected with Jones, working out of the slot against a cover-two defense, for a 15-yard first down.

Jones' final numbers for the day were three catches for 41 yards and a touchdown with a long of 21 yards and 13.6 yards-per-catch average. Good numbers for a true freshman making his first start in front of 80,795 hungry Irish fans.

What the box score doesn't show is how comfortable Jones looked in the spread offense; his timing with Crist was impeccable. As one of four players to enroll early, it was evident early in the game that the extra time on campus made a big difference.

Jones enrolled in January as a highly touted recruit out of Gainesville Ga. and had Coach Brian Kelly talking about him immediately after the Blue-Gold game. "He's physical, he plays fast and he's smart," is what Coach Kelly had to say about Jones after a four catch 56 yard one touchdown performance in the spring while getting the start for the Blue squad.

While it appears that early enrollment was a good choice, Jones has a great network of family to help guide him, his father Andre was a defensive end for the Irish from 1987-91, his uncle is Daniel Phillips of the Washington Redskins, and his godfather is none other than Notre Dame legend Rocket Ismail.

If Jones continues to progress in this offense it is going to take some of the double teams off of Mike Floyd and create a problem for defenses like the Tate-Floyd tandem did last year. Add the skill of Theo Riddick into the mix and you have three underclassmen capable of breaking a game open at any given moment.

The stars seem to line up perfectly for Jones, by getting into school early under a new coach with a new offense he was on the same level as players that have been around for three or four years.

Sometimes what we see in the box scores doesn't tell the whole story.