Senior RB Jay Jones May Miss Remainder Of Season
Running back Jay Jones diving in for a Jaguar touchdown against Kent State in 2013.
The news coming from the Jaguars on Sunday concerning Jay Jones was good. According to one of the assistant athletic trainers, Jones will have an MRI on Monday but it is likely his season has come to an end.
Jones, a 5’9″ 195-pound running back from Horn Lake, Ms. who came to South Alabama after two seasons at Northeast Mississippi Community College was injured on the game-winning drive against Georgia State on Saturday night.
Jones’ injury came on the second play of the three play 85 yard drive for the go-ahead score. On the first play Brandon Bridge tucked the ball and ran 65 yards to the Panther 20 yard line. Jones then took the handoff off up the right side of the line into a mass of Panthers and Jaguars for a two yard gain. It was unclear what exactly happened in the scrum, but towards the end of the play he appeared to fumble the ball. The nearest referee called him down and a review did not have enough evidence to overturn the call on the field. He was helped off the field and did not put any weight on his left leg.
On the next play, Bridge connected with Danny Woodson II for an 18 yard touchdown to take the lead.
Jones is the leading rusher for the Jaguars this season with 393 yards on 83 carries for three touchdowns as well as seven catches for 49 yards. He was also the leading rusher a year ago with 737 yards on 143 carries with five touchdowns. For his Jaguar career, he has 226 carries for 1,130 yards and eight touchdowns.
Stepping up to replace him will be senior Kendall Houston and redshirt freshman Xavier Johnson along with Terrance Timmons and T.J. Glover. Houston has 209 yards on 48 carries this season while Johnson has 188 yards on 34 carries, most of it coming over the last couple of weeks. Timmons has nine carries for 81 yards so far this season.
“You hate it for a guy who’s such a great leader and such a great player; you hate it for him first and you hate it for us as a team second to lose a really good football player and leader,” South Alabama head coach Joey Jones was quoted by AL.com after the conclusion of the Jaguar’s practice Sunday night. “We don’t know the final verdict yet, but it doesn’t look good right now.
“We’ve got Xavier (Johnson), we’ve got Kendall (Houston) and we’ve got Terrance (Timmons) and T.J. Glover is actually in the mix. We’re pretty deep at running back for this year so I think those guys will step up.”
After the win on Saturday, several of Jones’ teammates went on social media sending prayers and asking for the fans to pray for him as well.
This will be a short week for the Jaguars as they are scheduled to play Troy on Friday night at Ladd-Peebles Stadium for a nationally televised showdown against in-state rival Troy. Because of the short week, the players will not have Monday off, which they normally do. Instead they will come in Monday morning and have their normal Tuesday type practice and move their schedule up a day.