Cornelius Jones, Wolverine

Spartanburg High School athlete Cornelius Jones committed to become a Michigan Wolverine on Monday night. Since he received an offer from Michigan in January, he claimed that the Wolverines were his leader. Jones finally visited Michigan's campus early this week for the Wolverines' summer camp and committed before he was to leave on Tuesday morning.

It's been difficult to track down specifics on Jones's statistics. Supposedly, in his first year playing quarterback in high school football, he threw for 1,100 yards and rushed for 656 more yards. According to this page from Maxpreps, Jones had only 1 passing TD and 11 interceptions. (EDIT: Jim Stefani's site says this: "As a junior QB, he completed 89 of 185 passes (48.1%) for 1,020 yards and 2 TDs and had 226 carries for 736 yards (3.3ypc) and 7 TDs") That doesn't look very promising, but I don't know how much to trust Maxpreps. Those statistics seem incomplete, and I wouldn't be surprised if (i.e. I'm hoping) those two categories were flip-flopped.

I have been unable to find video of Jones, so I won't offer much of a scouting report. According to Rivals, he threw very well at camp on Monday; he doesn't have the strongest arm, but he was accurate and threw a tight spiral. I'm guessing he has some fundamentals to work on, considering his junior year was his first year playing quarterback.

I would not be surprised to see the Wolverines continue recruiting the quarterback position. Uncommitted players like Munchie Legaux, Jeffrey Godfrey, and A.J. Derby are still out there, although Legaux and Godfrey's interests have fallen off and Derby has never seemed that thrilled with the Michigan offer. But Jones had stated a couple months ago that the Wolverines were recruiting him as an "athlete," not necessarily as a quarterback. At 6'2" and 197 lbs., he's a guy who could end up at safety or even linebacker; he also worked out at wide receiver at the camp on Monday.

I would also keep an eye on in-state schools like Clemson and South Carolina. Jones's coach stated that Jones looked in-state first but didn't get any offers, so he started searching outside the state. Nothing I've read about Jones indicates that he's still searching for those offers, but if he has a good senior season and the Tigers or Gamecocks see something they like, that could be a factor down the road.

(Picture via Rivals.com)