Tag: Tony Jones Jr.

Notre Dame Football: Tony Jones, Jr. Declares for NFL Draft

Jones finishes with 1481 career rush yards at Notre Dame but will forever be remembered by Fighting Irish fans for a reception he had on a late November night in Los Angeles.

Just days after setting the Camping World Bowl record for longest run in game history, Tony Jones, Jr. is hanging up his gold helmet for a final time and heading to the 2020 NFL Draft.

Jones has his most productive season in 2019, rushing for 857 yards and six touchdowns while adding another 104 yards and touchdown in the receiving game.

Jones finishes with 1481 career rush yards at Notre Dame but will forever be remembered by Fighting Irish fans for a reception he had on a late November night in Los Angeles.

Jones is likely fighting an uphill climb to get drafted but does possess a great skill in pass protection.

I would imagine he figures it’s his best chance with a loaded backfield for the Irish next year that includes the new and highly regarded Chris Tyree, Kyren Williams, Jahmir Smith, C’Bo Flemister as well as seniors-to-be Jafar Armstrong and Avery Davis.

Regardless of what happens in the next level of his football career, Tony Jones, Jr. will go down in Fighting Irish lore for years to come.

Watch: Tony Jones, Jr. Camping World Record Long TD Run

You don’t need an extra gear when you stiff-arm an opponent for 17 yards and carry him into the end zone.

Tony Jones, Jr. has had some big plays in his career but almost in the form of Jonas Gray years ago, he just doesn’t seem to have that extra gear and be able to run away from defenders.

The good news though?

You don’t need an extra gear when you stiff-arm an opponent for 17 yards and carry him into the end zone.

Jones did just that in the third quarter of Saturday’s Camping World Bowl on an 84 yard touchdown run that set the record for longest run in the history of the Camping World (formerly the Blockbuster, MicroPC, Champs Sports) Bowl.

It appears Notre Dame was indeed ready to play on a Saturday when many around the team hinted at focus not being there for large parts of the week.

The run was also the longest ever by a Notre Dame player in a bowl game.  The Irish lead 27-6 in the third quarter at the time of this post.

Notre Dame Football: Plays of the Year – Number 8

Three blockers to take on three defenders all while it’s an incredibly easy throw for Ian Book to make to Tony Jones.  It may not have been as important as Book’s touchdown pass to Jones in the regular season finale at USC in 2018 but the execution is perfect on a type of play Notre Dame hasn’t executed well with any regularity for quite some time.

As we near the end of the 2019 calendar year its a good time to look back at everything that went on in 2019 both personally and for our favorite sports teams.  We’re counting down the 10 best plays of Notre Dame’s 10-2 regular season.

We will unveil the plays twice a day from now through Friday and feel free to leave comments in our forum if you agree or disagree or are just looking for some general Notre Dame or college football conversation.

Here’s what we have so far:
No. 10 – Cole Kmet Gives Notre Dame the Lead at Georgia
No. 9 – Kyle Hamilton Announces His Arrival

Which brings us to number eight:

Watching Notre Dame’s offense in recent years has left a lot to be desired in terms of the screen game.  How can you tell?  Just by reading that you already remember the most-successful and best looking screen pass of the 2019 season if you watched each Notre Dame game.

It’s something that has lacked execution for years and did for large chunks of this year.

But it was something that was finally executed perfectly in the final game of the regular season and got Notre Dame on the board for their first score of the day at Stanford.

Tony Jones, Jr. gets the love for capping the drive but the execution of this play is flat-out perfect.

Three blockers to take on three defenders all while it’s an incredibly easy throw for Ian Book to make to Tony Jones.  It may not have been as important as Book’s touchdown pass to Jones in the regular season finale at USC in 2018 but the execution is perfect on a type of play Notre Dame hasn’t executed well with any regularity for quite some time.

Stay tuned as we have seven more plays to count down before kickoff on Saturday.