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Joseph Jones, Northwestern Wildcats football, No. 42

Joseph Jones won state champs in hurdles in high school. Can he clear the HURDLE to join Northwestern's linebacker corps oh Jesus that was bad

Just when I thought I was going to have to settle for a picture of a guy whose last name was "Jones" who played for St. Joseph's...
Just when I thought I was going to have to settle for a picture of a guy whose last name was "Jones" who played for St. Joseph's...
Bob Levey
Joseph Jones is 6'1, 200 pounds of speedy linebacking from the sticks of Illinois. A running back in high school, recruited as a safety -- wait, did I screw up the days again? How many days are there supposed to be? Best be 42. Yeah, it's a Saturday. That works.

Enjoy Joseph, the first of Northwestern's Joneses:

Origin myth

Jones is from Plano, Illinois, which apparently is a place juuuuuuuuuuuuuuust outside of the range you could conceivably say is somewhere in the Chicago metropolitan area, and per the Wikipedia, is home to Dennis Hastert, the place where the mechanical reaper was invented, and where a lot of "Man of Steel" was filmed. JOSEPH JONES IS SUPERMAN. Anyway, Plano is not in Texas, and Joseph earned all-conference at running back there, while playing a little bit of defense. But he didn't seem like a running back at the college level, and was considered either an athlete or a safety by scouting services, ranking as the No. 28 player in 247's composite from Illinois and the No. 112 safety in the country per Scout. Some services had him as a three-star, Rivals had him as a two-star. While not necessarily impressive in the ratings, Jones did impress on the track, winning state in the 110-meter hurdles. The fastest hurdler in Illinois, y'all!

Here's highlights, with the obligatory Fort Minor:

Analysis: who knows if he can make moves and stuff, woah, he's fast at running in straight lines against kids from the sticks. Like, really fast. He also seems difficult to tackle for said kids from the sticks.

At Northwestern

He wore a shirt. It was red.

Anagram of choice

Discovering the Wildcats' true inner selves through spelling

Joseph Jones, anagrammed is

NO JEEP JOHN

It's a guy named John who doesn't have a jeep. Look, what do you want me to do?

JONES POWER RANKING

There are five Joneses on Northwestern. Here is a ranking:

1. Christian
2. Tony
3. Daniel
4. Malin
5. Joseph

Sorry, Joseph.

Relevant musical selection

"Leave (Get Out)" The Counting Crows

Look, any chance I can get to post 2000's-era female R&B/pop-type singers, I will take. JoJo, it turns out, sorta peaked early: she was 14 when that song came out. Still a jam, though.

How he can help

I'm pretty intrigued by Jones' background as a speedster and track guy, translating to playing linebacker. Not something you see every day. And judging from said video, he is definitely quite fast. We are still unsure if he can, like, tackle people, but, well, that video proves the speed is a real thing. He's listed at 6'1, 200, which is on the smaller side for linebackers, which doesn't exactly ease that sentiment of whether or not he can hit people. I'd be interested to see him line up on the weakside as a passrusher in random spots, getting a sprinter with juuuust enough bulk to not get knocked off of his pursuit by the slightest of blocks in after the quarterback, but I'd be concerned by the prospect of him, say, manning MLB.

Depth chart projection

We don't have Jones cracking the two-deep. Sorry, bro.