Here’s the second of the Tennessee secondary fellas that Mo Linguist stuffed into the class while the ink on the last one, and Mo’s own contract for that matter, were barely dry. And make no mistake: this guy committed to Linguist:

“The relationship I had with Coach Mo, I felt it deep down inside. Coach Mo is a great coach and I feel like he can get the job done for me on and off the field.” …

“Really the things he was saying I felt it so fast,” Jones said. “The things he was talking about, the future, the small things, I just took in those moments and knew they was real.”

I mean, ask my brothers what I sounded like after my first first date with my wife:

“I’m committing to Michigan because of the relationship I have with Coach Mo,” Jones said. “Really, it’s Coach Mo. The relationship we have is crazy. What we talk about and how we talk about it is real. I felt it in my heart. That’s where I want to be. I know it in my heart, so why wait?”

My wife and I met in late April and her rock star grandma, who passed away last Thursday, was knitting the chuppah by early May. Jones’s Michigan’s offer came on January 19th, and he committed the same hour we lost her, which is why I couldn’t get this up until now. We also took forever to find a date to do the thing in Ann Arbor, while Jones apparently plans to enroll by next winter. Let's see what's coming down the aisle.

GURU RATINGS

Rivals	ESPN	247	247 Comp
4*, 5.8, NR OVR, #13 S, #12 TN	4*, 81, #280 OVR, #22 ATH, #117 SE, #7 TN	4*, 90, NR OVR, #19 ATH, #6 TN	4*, 0.9021, #279 OVR, #15 ATH, #9 TN
4.02*	4.02*	4.00*	4.02*

Bottom row is my conversion of the above to a 5-star scale. Links are to profiles.

They all agree he’s exactly a four-star, and can’t seem to decide which position he’ll play. Rivals lists Jones as a safety (erp?) while the other two sites say ATH. They’re also pretty close on size, with 24/7 at 5-11.5, and the other two at 6-0, with all three giving a weight of 180.

Shelby County canceled the Red Devils’ 2020 season so we’ve yet to actually see Jones play for Germantown, which is one of the state’s largest high schools and plays in its top (6A) public division. Jones was at Fairley High, a 2A (second-lowest division) school, in 2019, so the competition on his latest highlight reel isn’t great.

[After the JUMP: Backpedaling]

SCOUTING

While listing him as an athlete because of his running back offers, 24/7’s staff have been talking defensive back. Sam Webb talked to dad, who confirms Kody would prefer the secondary:

“He'd rather play defense,” Mr. Jones stated. “Corner or safety. He likes to play running back as well. But I asked him and he said, 'Dad, I think I want to play defense.'”

The elder Jones also offered his scouting report:

“He's super athletic, has ball skills, great feet, great hips… and he just a dog when he's on the field. He's a quiet kid. Doesn't say much. But, man, when he's on the field it's like something just clicks in him."

Steve Wiltfong thinks Jones could play cornerback or nickel and is an elite athlete:

On film we see [him] making big plays at running back, in the return game and obviously in the secondary, a smooth, explosive prospect that can change direction, has that body control and after contact ability. He’s a physical football player.

Wiltfong got more about intangibles after speaking with Jones’s 7-on-7 coach:

“I love his intelligence, toughness and quickness as a player,” coach James Williams of Pro Process Academy told Wiltfong. “I think he transitions well. When he plays in the slot he has a unique ability to use his feet and hands at a high level and he has ball skills. I think he’s going to be a big help in the return game also.

Rivals’ EJ Holland saw Jones last January despite not trying to:

I had a chance to see Jones at the Pylon 7v7 event in Dallas last month. At the time, Jones was not a Michigan target, so I didn't watch him too closely. However, he did flash. Jones is listed as a safety, but Linguist is recruiting him as more of a corner/nickel type. Jones has great length and ball skills to go along with high level natural instincts. Jones brings versatility to the secondary and will be a candidate for multiple spots.

Jones in his own words is a Jourdan Lewis in body and spirit:

“I would say on the field my strongest attribute is straight man-to-man coverage," Kody stated to the 247Sports MSU [ED: Mississippi State] website. "I love it, because it’s just you and me on an island, and I plan on winning that matchup every time,” Jones stated. “I think something else that is good about me as a player that many can’t see is that I am a huge team player. I want to do whatever possible to win, whether that mean staying over at practice every day of the week for an hour to work on something, or hitting the weight room an extra time a day to get stronger. I want to be the best and most prepared player every time I step on the field.”

And he’s got some lofty comps:

Jones is what we call in football terms a Dawg. He is shifty, yet physical play maker on O and a aggressive ball hawk on D. “I compare myself to Alvin Kamara on offense” he said. “He is agile, can run, finds a way to make a play. He can do it from the backfield or in the slot position. On defense, I am more of a Tyrann Mathieu type. He plays physical. He is not scared. He does a lot of talking and backs it up. I like the way he flies around to the football.”

He probably doesn’t mean he’ll get called for atrocious penalties on uncatchable passes, but he’s choosing to play cornerback at Michigan so we can’t discount the possibility. Unfortunately Jones was only on Notre Dame’s board for a couple of weeks, which wasn’t even enough time for Tom Loy to convince himself the Irish can have him if they please, let alone for their awesome 24/7 evaluators to put out an article. This is all we have from the Domer well:

Widely-regarded as an electric, elusive, instinctive playmaker.

Some people—and some teams—are still saying safety, or nickel, which is kind of the same thing depending on the defense. Marcus Freeman, who was at Cincy last year before taking over as DC at Notre Dame, wanted Jones at cornerback and kick returner, and Michigan appears to have the same plans:

Jones is listed as a safety, but Linguist has talked to him about playing more of a corner/nickel role.

“He sees me fitting in well,” Jones said. “The first night he got the job, he called me. I think I’m the first person he offered. He said he saw a couple of plays of my film and liked my mindset. He loves my instincts and the way I think. He knew right away that I was his guy.”

Memphis, the other school that’s been after Jones the longest, also saw a cornerback. Those schools talking to him about offense had him at running back or a running back-ish slot receiver position. Texas A&M was one of those schools and offered a comp to another Memphis-area star:

“He told me that I can be the part that they need to their offense. That I'm like Tony Pollard, he said I remind him of Tony Pollard that I can catch, get a couple carries out of the backfield, also make people miss, he said my ability to make people miss and then my speed caps it off.”

As for Rivals listing him as a safety, they never say. The one interview he did with a Tennessee site, they asked him what he expects to play on defense and Jones answered cornerback, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

Also, Jones told a Maryland site he plans to enroll early. If somebody’s a subscriber to the Memphis paper The Commercial Appeal, local sports journalist Khari Thompson has a paywalled article on what Michigan’s getting in Jones.

OFFERS

Notre Dame (Freeman), Oklahoma, Oregon, Tennessee and Texas A&M were some of the other schools high on his list, with Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Virginia Tech, Cincy, and Memphis making a short-lived top ten.

Tennessee was the first to offer and probably the leading candidate before the program lit itself up like a paper bag drenched in fast food grease. Mississippi State offered last September, Starkville is close to home, and Jones has even popped up on their message boards in the past, so they were definitely up there. The FSU offer came when new head coach Mike Norvell moved there from coaching Memphis. Penn State, Maryland, Kentucky, Auburn, Arkansas (as a running back), Louisville (ditto), Vandy, West Virginia, South Carolina, Kansas, Georgia Tech, and Indiana were also in the hunt. Wisconsin, LSU, and Clemson also offered.

HIGH SCHOOL

Jones was at Fairley High School in Memphis before transferring to Germantown, a national blue ribbon public school in a pleasant, wooded suburb to the east. Let’s not glance over “wooded” either—the town boasts they’re #3 on some national list of municipal tree density, I’m guessing behind only Ann Arbor and some village in Alaska where a guy incorporated his pines.

Steven Seagal went there according to Wikipedia. Also from there is current Indiana CB Jaylin Williams, an All-Big Ten candidate last year who might be heading for a suspension for driving while intoxicated this weekend. Until Jones, Williams, a high 3-star, was the highest ranked recruit to play for Germantown in the Rivals database.

The 7-on-7 coach has had a lot more than than; Williams sent top-100 Erick Young to Texas A&M when Mo Linguist was there. EJ Holland:

Williams runs Pro Process Academy, which is based in both Houston and Memphis with the latter being a newer branch. PPA is much like Sound Mind Sound Body in the Detroit-area. The program provides training, mentorship and has a pair of club 7v7 teams. PPA has some more high end players that Linguist is looking at. While he hasn't offered any, it wouldn't be surprising to see him do so considering his relationship with Williams and the commitment of Jones.

STATS

The local paper reported 154 yards and three TDs in seven carries one week.

FAKE 40 TIME

Jones lists a 4.6 on his Hudl page with a 4.3 shuttle. He also lists his size as 5-10/165, so that hasn’t been updated in a while perhaps. It’s so FAKE it might even have been real.

VIDEO

As I mentioned, his junior year was canceled due to COVID. Here are the sophomore highlights from Jones’s previous school, when he was listed at 5-6/160:

Single-game reels can be found on his Hudl page.

ETC

You saw the thing about popping up on message boards. Please don’t be a dingbat on the internet.

Also, Geebus H. Price, Aquaman, don’t you ever sleep?

PREDICTION BASED ON FLIMSY EVIDENCE

Let’s address the “Athlete” thing. Without any printed reasoning, I think Rivals’ safety designation is just a legacy of the position Jones was playing for Fairley in 2019, which was running back and every spot in the secondary. He can lay a hit, and with a guy on a growth spurt you can’t be sure he won’t grow into a tweener, so safety is plausible, but this guy is a cornerback with early playing time aspirations who’s coming to a school in dire need of such.

The tape is less useful here than normal because Jones is “forget about it” faster than anyone he was playing against at Fairley, and he was, by his account, five inches and 25 pounds less than he was in August 2020. With so much talent pooling at major programs you see this less often today, but 30 years ago every D1 defensive back’s reel was a sequence of brief annoyance with, followed by the running away from, average American teenagers. You start charting how quickly the other team gives up the chase in order to calculate what they know.

A cornerback listed at 6-0 is also just as tall as those teenagers will say they are. Jones was about the same height as a Rivals reporter last summer, and was still in the middle of a growth spurt, so it’s reasonable to assume our guy will be in the Jourdan Lewis realm of “6-0” when he hits campus.

At that point, he’s almost certain to be in the mix for playing time, along with everyone else in what needs to and should be a huge cornerback class. Michigan right now has German Green and fear, and like I said, they added just one guy in the 2021 class. If the Wolverines do get Deon Johnson’s kid, they could still play Jones early in a rotation or nickel role. Cornerback does require some coaching, but to be playable outside you mostly need the chops. Think freshman Jourdan Lewis, except the gypsy isn’t mad at him.

That’s about the kind of prospect Jones is, if you’re looking for a comp. Lewis also returned kicks at Cass Tech, and had those gangly legs and standout athleticism. Jones’s feet on tape are incredible, his backpedal more impressive than that of anybody currently on the roster, and his makeup speed—Lewis’s calling card—is way too good for the level of competition. There are several moments when it looks like he’s about to make a monster play despite starting from a deep zone but the quarterback doesn’t get the ball within yards of his doomed target. We’ll of course need the 2021 tape to know for sure. With the missing year it’ll also be very interesting to see where his rankings go. I get the feeling he’ll stay in the top-250, unless there are height concerns.

Now, the caveat: When I whispered to my best friend in May 2008 that I really think he needs to include my new girlfriend in his August 2008 wedding because he’s going to be standing at hers sooner or later, he was like “Dude, we’re tight on spots and you’ve known each other for what, two weeks?” It may be love at first sight, but you don’t know how many hoodies this person owns, whether they leave the toothpaste at the bottom of the tube, or that she won’t fold your laundry (but her grandma will volunteer to at every opportunity).

Jones has yet to visit the campus, he had high interest from all over the SEC and other pro factories, and Michigan’s recruitment of him is barely older than the Biden Administration, so it’s doubtful any spurned suitors are going to delete his number. The good news is nowhere else is going to match the tree-to-person ratio of his hometown, nor have a depth chart quite as gaping.

UPSHOT FOR THE REST OF THE CLASS

Jones should also help Michigan take their shot at superstar Walter Nolen, a DT currently ranked the #2 overall prospect in that class. Nolen is from Memphis originally and recently moved back to another western suburban school there after a year at IMG Academy. I know I say even five-star DTs can’t help you immediately; Nolen probably can.

One cornerback in the class is not going to influence Pollard, let alone 5* in-state legacy Will Johnson, 5* USC commit Domani Jackson, 4* NJ CB/S prospect Jaeden Gould, or West Bloomfield 4* RB/CB Dillon Tatum, as Michigan could plausibly take all of them plus some local three-stars and get everybody on the field in due course. Gemon Green, who’s going into his fourth year in the program, was the only guy of those they tried last year who looked remotely playable, and Ja’Den McBurrows, a Florida 3-star, is the only guy they added in the 2021 class.

Michigan’s certain to search for help in the transfer market, and could find another Green among the guys on campus, but their long-term answer is finding some Dudes who will let them get away with the aggressively blitzy lifestyle Mike Macdonald learned in Baltimore, and compete with the ludicrous talent amassing at the playoff competitors. Taylor Groves and Kody Jones are two good early indicators that Mo Linguist is the kind of recruiter who could make that possible.