There was a thought about doing something crazy when he popped up from the ground; after all it’s not every day an offensive lineman over 300 pounds finds himself in the end zone.
But, as Jones got up after catching a touchdown pass, he didn’t have much time to do anything with his teammates mobbing him in the corner of the end zone.
“Actually I thought about doing something crazy,” Jones said, flashing a smile, “but I kept it simple.”
For Jones, this was a long time coming.
The offensive lineman from Abbeville who already logged plenty of snaps at fullback already teased the potential of him catching a pass earlier in the season and—while it wasn’t necessarily how he drew it up—it goes down as the highlight not only of South Carolina’s 21-17 win but the best of Jones’s early career.
The play happened simple enough.
Jones lined up in the fullback spot, a few yards ahead of Kevin Harris and shaded to the left of Nick Muse. Then it all went down in the blink of an eye.
Jason Brown play faked to Harris at the three yard line and linebacker Wesley Steiner bit hard on the run, missing the nearly un-miss-able 6-foot-3, 305-pound Jones squirting out of the backfield.
“When I ran the play, I did not see Jason Brown,” he said. “Like I did not see him. But I saw the ball coming so I was like, ‘Oh crap.’ I just caught it, and yeah.”
By the time the linebacker realized what was going on, Jones already had a step on him and was falling into the end zone with Steiner falling over him, far too late.
“I thought he had me but I just beat him to the spot and caught the ball,” he said.
Jones—who grew up and played a little bit of fullback in high school—never caught passes while at Abbeville and would have to go back about a decade to find the last time he registered a reception.
“I played fullback my junior and senior year but I didn’t touch the ball,” Jones said. “This is my first time catching the ball since maybe I was 10 or 11. Yeah, it’s been a while.”
Jones’s fat-guy touchdown—as those kind of plays are oft referred to—will be the memorable play of South Carolina’s 21-17 win over the Tigers, a win getting the Gamecocks to the bowl eligibility threshold.
Practice makes perfect for Jones, who executed the play nearly to near perfection and gets a moment he—and the rest of South Carolina’s fan base—won’t forget.
And, judging by the fact he had the ball in his bag ready to take it home, he’ll have a souvenir to remember it too.
“I practice the same play over and over again this week, but I’ve seen it about 10 times right now,” he said. “My phone is going crazy with texts and all kind of stuff.”
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