Urban Meyer owes his latest championship ring in large part to QB Cardale Jones. Jones stepped in when Heisman candidate J.T. Barrett was lost with a knee injury.
That didn’t stop Coach Meyer from being honest during the draft analysis of Jones.
“I think there’s going to have to be patience, an excellent quarterback coach that’s going to have to earn his trust,” Meyer said. “There’s going to have to be a great relationship there; he’s a relationship-type guy. He and [former OSU offensive coordinator] Tom Herman were very close and that took three years.
“It’s going to be dictated by the team that takes him, the amount of patience and the relationship he develops with the quarterback coach.”
He went on to explain why Cardale needs to fall into the perfect situation to succeed in the NFL.
“I think he’s a very sharp person. He loves football,” Meyer said. “Discipline will be big — when I say do the right thing, the best quarterbacks are complete students of the game and that’s all they do.
“The quarterbacks that weren’t — we’ve witnessed a couple tough situations in the NFL the last couple years — are the ones that are all over the place, more worried about social stuff going on and they fail. This will be big. How he attacks this opportunity is going to be key.”
A subtle jab at a former Cleveland QB?
Everyone knows exactly who Meyer was hinting towards and the fact that Jones struggles that much concentrating on his job as a QB is worrisome.
Meyer did say that he has all the tools to be a NFL QB and that eliminating some of the college distractions may help him.
“A really good skill set, intellectual, very smart, wasn’t necessarily very good at school,” Meyer said of Jones. “I wonder if that kind of set him back a little bit. That’s one difference between pro and college — now he doesn’t have to worry about classes and going to school and all that stuff. He can focus completely on football.”
Even with complete focus on the field Jones has some maturing to do before he is ready to become a pro; Meyer’s hopes he gets the chance.
“Whoever drafts him will have to have a little bit of patience,” Meyer said. “The unfortunate thing in the NFL: There’s not a whole lot of patience.”