Hello: Cornelius Jones

South Carolina quarterback Cornelius Jones, who runs 6'3" and 185, committed to Michigan after his first day at summer camp. Despite holding a Michigan offer since last June, he remains mysterious to… uh… everyone.

GURU RATINGS

So, yeah. As mentioned: Jones is a near-complete mystery, totally unranked so far in an era when if you aren't ranked by mid-June you're probably a MAC-level prospect. There are good reasons for this. He has no highlight film and hasn't hit up any camps or combines I am aware of. And he spent his early high school years not playing football.

Despite this, Michigan saw fit to offer him when his varsity snap count stood at a robust zero:

Cornelius Jones hasn’t played a down for the Spartanburg Vikings varsity football team yet, but Michigan has seen enough to offer him a scholarship.

The junior quarterback received his first offer Tuesday, after Vikings coach Freddie Brown sent the Big Ten school a five-minute video of Jones from a scrimmage.

That Tuesday was last June. His coach, perhaps alone amongst all people, wasn't surprised:

“After I sent the tape, no, I wasn’t surprised at all,” Brown said. “I can see who he’s going to be in this offense in two years.”

There's another small bit from Brown on his commitment:

"I think it's a great decision," said Spartanburg coach Freddie Brown. "He looked in state first. He didn't receive an offer and he moved on. He's a great player and a good kid. He'll start out as a quarterback. He threw a lot of balls the last couple of days at camp. Their system is a lot like our system."

The only other free internet discussion of any variety about Jones comes from this local TV guy:

Spartanburg’s new quarterback Cornelius Jones could eventually remind longtime area fans of another player by that same last name.  A decade ago, Gaffney’s Kentrell Jones glided past opposing defenses and threw bombs when rolling out and that’s who this Jones reminds me of, in a much rawer form.

If you, like me, are not familiar with South Carolina high school football you're probably saying to yourself "who the hell is Kentrell Jones?" Well, he's apparently enough of a high school legend that people were comparing him favorably to five-star Willy Korn last year and has video of a 1997 state championship high school game on the YouTubes. After that game he disappeared and may have re-emerged as Drake's backup quarterback… or something.

So there you go. Or, rather, don't really.

OFFERS

As of April:

--Cornelius Jones (6-2, 185) of Spartanburg favors Michigan at this point. He has offers from the Wolverines, Duke, Wake Forest and Stanford. He's also hearing from North Carolina, Georgia Tech and Virginia. Jones went to junior day at USC and Clemson but hasn't heard from them since.

Did I mention Jones currently sports a 3.7 GPA? It's not quite Holmes Onwukaife's offer from Harvard, but dang that's a bunch of high profile academic schools.

Despite the high GPA there something unfortunate in Jones' past:

Jones hasn’t played football in the Spartanburg system for a couple of years after he got into some trouble, he said. He was one of the players that Brown went out into the community and got back in school during the spring.

“He’s given me another chance, and I want to make sure I make the most of it,” Jones said.

Since that article was published just after Jones' sophomore year of high school, the trouble must have happened in, like, middle school. I can't imagine what sort of trouble an eighth-grader can get in, but in any case that's well before my personal strike meter starts ticking. That may explain the instate schools' reticence to recruit him, I guess.

STATS

Jones had no stats until last year, of course, and what stats he had indicated he was still pretty rough:

As a junior QB, he completed 89 of 185 passes (48.1%) for 1,020 yards and 2 TDs and had 226 carries for 736 yards (3.3ypc) and 7 TDs

Raw.

FAKE 40 TIME

This man is so obscure he has no fake 40 time.

VIDEO

And neither does he have any video.

PREDICTION BASED ON FLIMSY EVIDENCE

Well… WTF, guys? I have no idea what to tell you here. Jones hasn't even been rated by a single scouting service. His stats are eh, his offers aren't great, and the in-state schools apparently had zero interest. None of these are good indicators.

Despite all that, I'm not too peeved. The super-early offer and continued pursuit implies that Jones was a guy Michigan was, for whatever reason, highly enthusiastic about. He's done pretty well so far at Michigan's camp. A QB offer from David Cutcliffe means something even if he's at Duke. And with Forcier, Robinson, and Gardner in front of Jones the fourth guy on the roster should ideally be a developmental prospect with a lot of athleticism, high upside, and the ability to play elsewhere. Check, check, check. There are plenty of reasons bigger schools would avoid a flier on Jones, and reason to believe Michigan got in on the ground floor of a diamond in the rough they can afford to spend some time on.

UPSHOT FOR THE REST OF THE CLASS

Jones fills the second QB slot in the class and shouldn't scare off Gardner any; unless there's a decommit—which I guarantee you is completely impossible and will never happen—Michigan looks done at quarterback. The only other quarterbacks on the board with offers are AJ Derby, who doesn't seem interested, Munchie Legaux, who is now talking like he is a huge longshot to depart the South, and Jeffery Godfrey, who Michigan may have some shot at but is talking up FSU.

So if Godfrey doesn't get recruited heavily, Michigan is done. And successfully: plan A was Gardner plus a developmental prospect who has the athleticism and willingness to move to another if QB doesn't work out.