Vi Jones was a big deal when he was a senior linebacker at Westlake High School in Austin, Texas. His final three of Florida, Florida State and USC is a dead giveaway to that fact, but for those into the rankings, Rivals.com rated him the No. 79 player in the entire country in the 2017 class.
That landed Jones a spot on ESPN’s national coverage of signing day. Jones remembered it being around 7:15 in the morning, and he was up an hour before that. It was while he was looking at his clothes in his bedroom with all the shirts he had gathered during the recruiting process that he came up with his idea.
When the ESPN crew handed over the announcement to Jones, he first unzipped his black jacket to reveal a blue Florida shirt. Then he pulled that off and underneath it was a Florida State shirt. Finally, Jones pulled that off to reveal his choice of Southern Cal. To make the decision clear, Jones put on the USC hat after that.
A video of that choice on YouTube.com has over 18,000 views, and it went viral.
“It wasn’t really a troll or anything,” Jones insisted, looking back. “That was my way of just announcing it. I didn’t expect it to be how it was. No idea it was going to be as big as it was.”
Jones left Southern Cal during the 2018 season and transferred to NC State. Now, for the first time he will face one of his finalists during the original recruitment.
He explained why he almost picked Florida State.
“I did grow up in Texas, but we would travel to Florida,” Jones clarified. “For me, I was talking to Coach Bill Miller, he was the linebackers coach at the time, and I also I really loved Coach [Jimbo] Fisher. I loved the plan they had for me, but I felt more comfortable with the decision that I had made.
“I remember talking to Coach Fisher when he came to my house on a home visit and just asking how long he planned on being there. He gave me a straight-up answer. That kind of helped me out with what I was looking for, helped me out with what I felt like I needed to do.”
Having gone through that, Jones does not have any sentimental thoughts about the game Saturday. He’s more focused on helping his current team snap a two-game losing streak.
Thus far this season, Jones has 29 tackles, including two for loss and a sack, in seven games three of them starts. He’s also forced a fumble, broken up a pass and blocked two punts, one of which was returned for a touchdown.
Jones, though, sees room for improvement.
“I need to be more consistent just finishing making tackles,” he explained. “I hate missing tackles, I hate missing opportunities to make plays in a game.”
Jones also knows from his personal experiences that while Florida State may be going through a challenging 2020 season, the Wolfpack better prepared on Saturday evening, a 7:30 p.m. kickoff on ACC Network.
“Florida State is a great program,” Jones said. “They won a national championship six years ago. It’s not like they don’t have good players or good coaches. They are a great team.
"They are not just going to come here and let us roll over them and beat them.”
——
• Talk about it inside The Wolves' Den
• Subscribe to our podcast on iTunes
• Learn more about our print and digital publication, The Wolfpacker
• Follow us on Twitter: @TheWolfpacker
• Like us on Facebook
