Notre Dame sophomore tight end Aliz’e Jones will miss the entire season due to academic issues, coach Brian Kelly confirmed this afternoon. Jones will be allowed to practice with the team, but not play.
Jones, a huge recruit in ND’s 2015 class, started five games last year and caught 13 passes for 190 yards. However, while those numbers might not look like much, he was the second-leading returning receiver on the 2016 team (Torii Hunter the only one ahead of him), and was slated to take on a much bigger role in the offense this season, no matter who plays quarterback.
Jones, of course, is only the most recent in a long line of expected key players to be declared academically ineligible the past few years, beginning with Everett Golson in 2013 and continuing with the ‘Frozen Five’ in 2014 and Greg Bryant (RIP) in 2015.
For his part, Jones posted a message on Twitter owning up to his shortcoming in the classroom and emphasizing that he will stay at Notre Dame, saying he “love[s] Notre Dame and everything about it”.
“I’m going to be a better student, teammate, player and man,” Jones added. “While I won’t be able to help my brothers on Saturdays, I’ll do whatever I can to help this team achieve its goal of winning a national championship.”
Very sad for him, but kudos to Jones for handling the news about as well as is possible given the circumstances.
Disappointing for the team, Jones really showed flashes of brilliant potential last year and with Smythe and Weishar rounding out the position group with their 7 combined catches through 5 combined seasons… we’re looking at a year of being weak at tight end and that will take some getting used to.
Glass half full to wrap it up, I’m looking forward to seeing guys step up. With what should be pretty good QB play and pretty good line play we should be able to put them in a position to succeed.
The prior instances you cited (Golson and frozen 5) were due to cheating. My impression from his tweet was that this was due to grades. Which do you think this is? Obviously, the latter, while still very frustrating, is less serious, IMO. Seems more likely to be the latter based on him being able to practice…you may want to clarify.
There’s been no confirmation, but the fact that Jones is still allowed to practice with the team (Golson and the Frozen 5 could not) indicates that this is just a grades issue.
I thought Kelly was quoted as saying grades were in and everybody was ok? Did I dream that? I remember because it was a pleasant surprise to read it.
Same here. I am confused…
He did say it just recently. Maybe this was a summer situation where he needed (and they expected) like a B+ in a class and he ended up getting a B- or something along those lines. I’m about positive I read this about Greg Bryant as well (but I’m not sure if that report was accurate).
Either way, this was a gut punch since Kelly indicated they were in the clear, and now suddenly, Jones wasn’t.
Word is that Jones was in the midst of an appeal; if the appeal had gone in his favor he would’ve scraped by, but obviously it didn’t.
Ouch, my balls…
just as they were recovering too……
As somebody pointed out on Twitter, Stanford’s wonderful run of basically no academic issues continues apace…
But, sour grapes aside, this is a bummer. I think it makes it marginally more likely that Zaire becomes the quarterback, because it’s increasingly clear the best strategy for this offense will be running the football. Oh, god, did I just become an NDNation commenter? I still don’t want a fullback, so I guess not.
Stanford’s policy for the entire student body, not just athletes, is that they can drop a class up to the day before the final. Pretty hard to become ineligible when you have that safety net. The policy is there to encourage students to take more challenging classes, but a side effect obviously is that it’s a big help with athletics.
I don’t think the loss of Jones will do anything at all to the offensive strategy. Don’t get me wrong, I was really looking forward to seeing him on the field this year, but you’re talking about a guy who had 13 catches last year and was still likely to be a backup at tight end (behind Smythe) and/or X (behind St. Brown). He would’ve been a contributor for sure, but it’s not the same type of blow as losing Hunter, for example.
Princeton’s policy is similar–not as extreme for undergrads, but there’s a very late deadline to decide if you are taking a course pass/fail or for no credit, etc. For grad students, it appears, I can drop a course on the final day. Which just seems odd to me.
I’m glad he’ll still be practicing with the team. Keep developing, stay engaged, hit the turf in ’17!
Why the hell are grades causing us to lose a player for a WHOLE SEASON? I’m all for academic integrity, but seriously, that is messed up.
good question
I’d imagine it makes you ineligible for the semester, which runs through December…which is the whole season.
Does anyone know if NCAA rules require you to count a year spent out for grades, or if he can take it as a redshirt?
He can redshirt, absolutely.
Right, that’s the way academic probation works – if you don’t make grades, you’re ineligible to participate in athletics for the following semester. And since an entire football season happens to be contained within a single semester, well…
As E notes, yes he can indeed redshirt. The NCAA doesn’t care why you don’t participate – as long as you don’t, you can count it as your one “normal” redshirt season.
Sucks for Jones but glad he’s seemingly going to take his lumps and try to do better and stick it out. Lord knows I did much worse at the same age.
For on the field, stock in Equanimeous St. Brown just went up, up, up. He was already going to be a red zone target, now he might be THE red zone target.
One has to wonder if CBK, had a talk with Luatua and his potential transfer knowing that there was a chance Jones wouldn’t make the cut this year. In CBK, we trust.
I stand corrected.
Possibly, I guess. But realistically, Luatua is a tackle-eligible and Jones is a jumbo receiver, so I don’t think one affects the other all that much.
Both at the TE position though. Yes you do different things with them. But if you have a two tight end set and one releases and the other blocks, still better to have more bodies than less.
Silver lining. At least we don’t have a breaking news banner of doom. Sucks about Jones, this one hurts
[…] what tops all of this off – Alize Jones. After missing the entire 2016 season for academic issues, Jones returns as one of the top tight ends in the nation. The 6’4 sophomore has one season […]
[…] what tops all of this off – Alize Jones. After missing the entire 2016 season for academic issues, Jones returns as one of the top tight ends in the nation. The 6’4 sophomore has one season under […]