It’s been a little while since we got much good recruiting news, but Notre Dame received some good news this week when Jarron Jones, Rivals.com’s #7 DT in the country, decommited from Penn State and opened his recruiting back up after a recent visit to Notre Dame.
Jones, a 6-5, 308 lb monster of a DT from New York, took an unofficial trip to Notre Dame last week and the trip went well enough to get Jones to reconsider his commitment to Penn State according to his local ABC affiliate.
“I talked to the coaches, they were upset about it but they won’t stop recruiting me. We talked and everybody’s on the same page though.”
Recent visits to Penn State and Notre Dame moved Jones to consider taking his commitment back.
“Notre Dame is a smaller school and that’s the kind of place I need to be. Aquinas is a smaller school and I’ve been doing a lot better there. It’s just a better way to explore my options.”
Jones did say that Penn State is not completely out of the picture but the fact that he opened up his recruiting shortly after his visit to Notre Dame is a good sign for the Irish. On top of Penn State and Notre Dame, Jones is considering Virginia Tech and North Carolina and expects to make his decision before his senior season.
Notre Dame had an amazing haul along the defensive line last year, but has yet to pick up a commitment in the defensive trenches this season. Getting Jones, a prototypical defensive end in a 3-4 defense would be a heck of a start. With his size he would fit in perfectly at strong side defensive end in Bob Diaco’s defense and could slide inside to defensive tackle when the Irish use some 4-3 looks as they did down the stretch last season.
Here is some video of Jones (hat tip to Matt at SportsCrack.com for finding the video).
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Jones is a huge prospect who is just dominant at the high school level and would add to Notre Dame’s impressive haul of defensive lineman over the last two classes if Bob Diaco, Notre Dame’s recruiter for the area, can get Jones to select the Irish. Diaco has a pretty good track record going up against Penn State for elite defensive recruits in the state of New York – let’s hope he can work his magic again this year.
What a beast! Go get him Bob!