Morgan Park HS. Threw for over 2, 000 yards and 25 TDs. Parade and Army All American. Not too shabby. The Chicago sports guys at the time compared DJ to Chuck Long. I blame Charlie Weis for what happened to DJ at ND.
Weis was a fool to waste time with the spread option. No one disputes that. But Jones was 3rd on the depth chart for the "real" offense, and the fact that Kelly moved him to Linebacker and never had any interest in letting him try Q.B. afterwards speaks volumes about his talent for the position.
Further, the guy quietly enrolled at Northern Illinois, then practiced all week afterwards as the starter for Michigan, and then snuck out of the program the night before the team loaded the bus to head to Ann Arbor.
And then later, he was such a headcase that Butch Jones wanted nothing more to do with the guy and ran him off.
Weis is responsible for plenty of failures. Demetrius Jones' failure is not one of them.
Unless you count letting Jones start as a mistake? He's nowhere even close to being similar to Chuck Long.
He simply wasn't cut out to be a quarterback, plain and simple. Otherwise, he should have, by all rights, been able to seize the starting QB position at Central State.
Sharpley should have started in 2007, maybe giving way to Clausen by the end of the year (although Sharpley played better than he did in 2007). It was incredibly stupid for Weis to change his entire offense to suit Jones, only to scrap the whole thing after 1 half when it was obvious that Clausen was the best long term option. ND was not a deep team back then. Jones probably could have helped at another position (he was a solid LB for BK at Cinci). If he wasn't set up to fail by the staff, perhaps he doesn't bail on the team and has a solid career at ND.
The way Weis handled the QB situation in 2007 was the first of many huge mistakes that led to his firing.
DJ was a passing QB in HS. He was known as a passer, not an option QB. So what does CW do as a stop gap until JC is ready? Installs the option for DJ to run on opening day against G Tech. It was the ultimate fail, plus, what did CW know about running the option? This was big time D1 college football. Not some podunk HS you were playing who were running around like bobble heads trying to figure out how to stop a first time starter running an offense that no one at ND was familiar with. DJ was never going to beat out JC, but, at least run a damn offense that both CW and DJ were familiar with. Decided schematic advantage my rear end. What happened at Cincy and Central State is not the issue. What happened on opening day against Tech was the issue. Imagine your boss putting you in a situation with new responsibilities that neither you or him were familiar with and he still expected you to succeed. Not bloody likely. Anyway, it's just my opinion.
In practice, he was actually looking very good running the spread option offense. The hope was that we could use a dual package somewhat similar to what Florida did with the Leak / Tebow combination.
Make no mistake about it. He quit on the team. He would have had a chance to regain the starting QB position, but didn't even bother getting on the bus.
And, looking back on things, he regrets not staying at ND to play other positions. He could easily have had a shot as a linebacker in 2008.
I will say that Charlie's fault was not starting Evan Sharpley from the start of the season. Sharpley actually had a decent command of the Erhardt-Perkins offense, and would have been the best option that year, since Clausen was still sporting an injury.
Link: https://irish.nbcsports.com/2010/11/03/demetrius-jones-regrets-leaving-notre-dame/
(no message)
After DJ was yanked at the half, CW opened things up for Evan and Jimmy. Nine sacks though won't help any QB. It's almost like CW ran two different offenses in that game. When his experiment didn't work, he shelved it and ran something more pass orientated and the numbers and passing attempts show it. Even with that, the offense could not score. Sacks, fumbles, defense could not stop Tech's running game. This is on CW. There was a Chicago Tribune piece at the time that did indeed compare DJ's HS numbers and ability to Chuck Long coming out of HS. Now that article was a long time ago so I'm not going to try and dig it up. Besides, anytime I click on a Tribune article, it blocks me from reading the damn thing. Anyway, great discussion guys. Names from the past.
(no message)
Aside from the grammar errors, that are annoying but can be overlooked, some of it is just wrong, in my opinion.
The statement that youth football in Chicagoland does not act as development and feeder programs for the high schools is just false. Virtually all of the top programs use their youth system in that very manner. Development of those that are playing is not the big problem.
The problem with high school football in the Chicago area comes down to one thing. The majority of the top athletes do not play football any longer.
Football participation is down across all ages. Chicago has always been, and is now, a basketball first area. But now, year round AAU play, and particularly fall leagues prevent play in both sports. On top of that, there are more options for fall. Soccer has risen tremendously in the area over the last couple decades. More athletes playing soccer takes away from football, especially at the skill positions.
Even the catholic schools, which used to dominate the state in football, and where most of the Notre Dame players have come from in the past, have seen their numbers dwindle. Catholic schools have become better at the other fall and winter sports. So, safety concerns and the increase of other options for good athletes have combined to limit the number of top players in the area. I don't see this changing.
(no message)