Last season as Notre Dame was getting ready to take on Iowa State in the Camping World Bowl, linebacker Jonathan Jones knew he was ready to make a change.
So, he entered the transfer portal as a graduate transfer knowing he would have immediate eligibility wherever he went — but Jones wants to make it clear, even without having to worry about obtaining a transfer waiver, making a move like this is no stroll into the end zone.
“Especially if you're a fifth year, it's going to be a little harder to get into other schools,” Jones said. “It's the end of the fall, so lot of coaches are trying to get with their families or they're focusing on the bowl game or a championship. Your name is in the portal but they aren't really focusing on that at the moment. So, it really comes down to the connections you might have at another school because a coach used to coach at your school and now, he's at another school, or the coaches at your school will probably try and plug you in with different places.”
That ended up being the case for Jones, a Florida native. For him, his connection to the University of Toledo was not the pull of a hometown or home state; rather, it was defensive line coach Larry Black, who spent 2018 as a graduate assistant at Notre Dame before coming to Toledo last season.
“He knew who I was, he knew my situation,” Jones said. “As soon as I was in the portal he was one of the first guys to call me and said, ‘We would love to have you. I know what you're about.’”
Toledo opens up the six-game Mid-American Conference season on Wednesday as the Rockets host Bowling Green at 8 p.m. at the Glass Bowl. On the Rockets’ first depth chart, Jones is currently listed in the two-deep behind Dyontae Johnson at linebacker. Head coach Jason Candle said that Toledo plans to utilize him there and in the kicking game.
While Jones described his own play as “savvy, explosive, and fun,” Candle also said the one thing that has really jumped out in practices has been his energy.
“Sometimes energy can get confused with fake or fabricated emotion at times,” Candle said. “But I think he's a guy that's a high-energy guy, and it comes from a genuine place.”
While at Notre Dame, Jones appeared in 38 career games from 2017-19, tallying 16 tackles on defense and special teams. Coming out of high school, he was a consensus top-20 linebacker prospect.
Since arriving at Toledo ahead of the 2020 spring semester, Jones said he’s making himself at home and hasn’t left — he didn’t even go home once the coronavirus pandemic stopped workouts and spring practices, instead staying in his off-campus apartment and working out.
And as he has settled in, he’s more worried about looking ahead rather than looking back and 151 miles to the west to South Bend. According to Candle, he’s not been a guy “that wears his Notre Dame sweatshirt and pounds his chest and tells everybody where he went to school before.”
“That's a chapter in his life that he's proud of being there and getting a degree from there as he should be, but there are more challenges out there for him and I think he's looking forward to what's ahead for him,” Candle said. “So, he's in a heated position battle right now with some good players. It's been fun to watch those guys go compete. It's been fun to watch him be a part of our football team.”
Jones said he has always tried to take a humble approach to football throughout his life, and said he does that by asking himself “what have you really done?”
And as the Rockets went through workouts in the spring, he said the first thing he did was make sure that his new teammates knew that he was approachable.
“I'm not a Notre Dame linebacker now, I'm a Toledo linebacker,” he said. “I'm here to just win games and help the program as much as I can. So that's the approach I took.”
First Published November 2, 2020, 2:00 p.m.
