Jarron Jones ready to (finally) make his impact

Earlier this week we speculated about the role senior nose guard Jarron Jones would play against Ohio State. After meeting with the local media on Monday, it might be time to adjust those predictions.

The 315-pound defensive lineman missed the entire regular season because of a knee injury suffered in August. But Jones declared himself ready to play against Ohio State, hoping to give the team 30 snaps after a month of conditioning and practice with his teammates. It’d be a nice finish to a frustrating season for Jones. And according to the South Bend Tribune’s Eric Hansen, Jones was kicking himself that he wasn’t back in time to play Stanford.

“I blame myself a lot for that game,” Jones told Hansen on Monday. “Even though I didn’t play, I blame myself for that game. ... What happened was I ended up not traveling, because I was late to practice. And I actually had the intent of suiting up that game.”

Jones blamed a marathon session of videogame Call of Duty for the tardiness, the type of fall-asleep-with-the-controller-in-your-hands move that can only be understood by college students (or those of us that played videogames back in their dorm days). While it’s questionable (and probably far-fetched) that the Irish coaching staff would’ve risked putting Jones in a game when he hadn’t even fully re-engaged in the team’s practice regimen, Jones’ return for the Fiesta Bowl will be coming just in time.

Last week, I might have pegged Jones for 15 to 20 snaps late last week. But Brian Kelly thinks Jones will have the chance to do much more—as much as his conditioning level allows.

“Where he’s really going to help us is on first and second down,” Kelly said, pointing to the challenge of slowing down Buckeyes star Ezekiel Elliott. “But he can help us on third down. His push inside is undervalued in terms of what he can do internally in his physical push to the pocket.”

While it certainly won’t be all game, seeing Jones paired with classmate Sheldon Day will be bittersweet not just for Irish fans, but for Jones himself. Expected to form one of the best defensive tackle tandems in the country, Jones can only wonder what this season would’ve been like had he not suffered an MCL injury just weeks before the Irish were slated to play Texas.

When talking to Irish Illustrated’s Tim Prister, Jones asked a question that pained just about every person who cheered for the blue and gold this season.

“If I had played, what kind of season would we have had defensively?” Jones wondered. “If we had everybody, what kind of team would we have had then? That’s the ‘what if’ we’ll have to live with the rest of our lives.”

The consolation prize is a 2016 season spent on the same team as his brother, incoming freshman Jamir Jones. Not to mention another fully-loaded roster that might have to replace some key contributors, but looks every bit as talented as the team that won 10 regular season games.

But before that, Jones finally gets his chance to do more than rehabilitate a balky foot and a torn-up knee in 2015. And if the Irish can beat Ohio State, Notre Dame’s 127th team may not have accomplished their overall mission, but they will have done something mighty impressive.