Still Basking In Championship Glory, Cardale Jones Forced to Mull Over Future

DALLAS — After helping Ohio State to an improbable National Championship win against Oregon Monday night, Cardale Jones has big decisions to make regarding his future.

Once a third-string quarterback who head coach Urban Meyer says he nearly dismissed on more than one occasion, Jones has swiftly become one of the biggest stories of the postseason and the first-ever College Football Playoff. And after three monumental wins against the Ducks, Alabama in the Sugar Bowl and Wisconsin in the Big Ten Championship Game in just three career starts, a handful of potential paths await him amidst an unusually crowded and competitive quarterback room in Columbus. 

Because of this, Jones, who is a redshirt sophomore, can make plans to the enter the NFL Draft and forgo his final two seasons of eligibility with the Buckeyes. 

And with several measurables to play professional football — he is 6-foot-5 and 250 pounds with an M1 bazooka for a throwing arm — there is a notion that there might be no better time than now for Jones to capitalize on his rising stock compared to the uncertainty that should await him at Ohio State with fellow quarterbacks Braxton Miller, a three-year starter, and J.T. Barrett, who went 11-1 in Miller's absence, expected to return.

For the time being, Jones said he too plans on coming back to school, "but you never know what the future holds."

Jones said: "It’s definitely a ‘who knows’ right now. It’s up in the air sort of. I know my number one priority is to graduate from the Ohio State University and walking away with, you know, something that no one can take away from you.

"Football, you know, definitely has a timetable on it in my career, but my degree is one of the most important things to me."

If he chooses to stay at Ohio State, he will potentially be pitted against Miller and Barrett for the team's starting job next season. All three have been starters and all three have won in such a capacity. 

When Barrett suffered a broken ankle in the regular-season finale against Michigan in late November, Jones entered the fray with little to no meaningful game experience and thrived. Since taking over the starting job, he has passed for 742 yards and five touchdowns.

"The competition has always been heated … that’s why you see guys step up and play as if they were a starter," Jones said.

"Like when Braxton went down two years ago, Kenny took the ball down the field against Purdue and we won the game. When Braxton went down last year, Kenny stepped up — two or three games he started — and the offense was moving the ball. When Braxton went down this year, J.T. stepped in and he did what he was doing and turned into a Heisman Trophy candidate."

And now, all three might battle for one job.