Kellen Jones Hauling in the Honors

Submitted by DGDestroys on

Just got this tweet from Tom

Michigan commit Kellen Jones was named 1st team all district, 1st team all state, and district defensive player of the year.

Quite the impressive resume. Can't wait to get this kid on campus.

jtmc33

December 7th, 2010 at 10:51 PM ^

Can't wait for him to haul in some TFLs in a 3-4.   I'm thinking 5th year Sr Demens and Soph. K. Jones starting in the middle in 2012....

RBWolverine

December 7th, 2010 at 10:53 PM ^

This kid's going to be a star.  It's a joke that he's still a three star on Rivals.  So pumped that we got him and he seems to love everything about Michigan.

john22

December 7th, 2010 at 11:00 PM ^

kid is going to be a monster.We need more guys like this at LB.Does anybody know if Kellen Jones is thinking about enrolling early?And also when will kellen jones get a fourth star on rivals and espn!!!1ST TEAM IN THE GREAT STATE OF TEXAS,COME ON MAN!!!

DGDestroys

December 7th, 2010 at 11:07 PM ^

1) No, it doesn't seem like Jones will be enrolling early, unless someone's heard otherwise. 

2) I wouldn't count on it happening any time soon. He's still 13 spots behind the last 4* ILB on Rivals, and they'll continue to view his lack of height (6'0), and lack of offer from Texas (Rivals generally frowns on players from Texas w/o Texas offers). He's even further away from a fourth star on ESPN. He might move up a little with such a strong senior season, but unless he hits the all star games hard, it probably won't be by much. And as far as I know, he doesn't even have an invite to any all star games.

DGDestroys

December 8th, 2010 at 8:52 AM ^

They were both somewhat-late bloomers (and just received their fifth star in the past Rivals update). They both had incredibly explosive senior years, and since Texas gets most of their recruiting class done on their junior day, they didn't offer either. Kellen Jones had a good senior year, but his size will keep him from moving up.

plaidflannel

December 7th, 2010 at 11:34 PM ^

He's not in a public school, which probably holds him back in the Rivals rankings so much. In the state of Texas, only 1 player in their top 50 attends a private school according to a quick scan I just did.

So the answer to your question is that he's not in the most competitive division in the state, but I believe he is in the highest private school division.

formerlyanonymous

December 8th, 2010 at 8:25 AM ^

The Texas set up may become less weird over the next decade or so. I didn't realize Texas was one of very few states to have it set up this way until I went to Michigan. It was strange enough hearing about private schools playing public schools, much less competing with them.

I did some light google searching a few years ago and saw that several states are looking to make a split similarly to Texas (Ohio, Arkansas, Illinois, and Georgia come to memory). I want to say most of those were because privates are over representative in their respective state playoffs.

Private schools in Texas tend to suck at football but do much better at smaller sports like baseball or soccer. With just ~700 students at the larger private schools, there's little chance to pull in the number of athletes you need to compete with public schools, especially when the bigger schools pull in 700 per graduating class.

Strake Jesuit is about as close to a competitive private school when it comes to playing the big Houston area schools. They still lose badly fairly often, but every few years, they could at steal a couple from 5A schools.

When you get up here to the buckle of the Bible Belt (Tyler, how quickly can I move away?), you get some bigger football powers in the private school ranks just because "God fearin' people are sendin' their children to a school of God." The privates can compete with the 3A and some 4A schools in the area, but not the one or two 5As in the area.

NoNon

December 7th, 2010 at 11:56 PM ^

...Houston area and was able to watch him play.  The kid is legit, and made some great plays (albeit, against outmatched competition in parochial league).

He is very instinctive, which more than makes up for the lack of an OMG Shirtless ranking - I'd compare him to a David Harris type-project in the making.  I don't think he will make an impact right away, but then again our defense is like, really bad (but you don't need to be told that either).

MGoRob

December 8th, 2010 at 1:00 AM ^

Anybody heard any further word on his concussion issue(s)?  I remember him being either taken out of a game or held back from some due to that type of injury.