To ease minds....
A shame I didn't tape it (and even if I did, it would take me a while to get everything configured to capture the video), but I wish most of the people posting here could have seen the Pitt-Notre Dame game from last year. This was the game that J. Jones ran wild against the Panthers. It became silly after a while, because Pitt knew exactly what play was coming. Notre Dame must have run the same inside running play with a pulling guard a million times. On the clinching drive, where they took something like 8 minutes off the clock, they just ran it again and again.
Anyway, the point is that this game really showcased what Jones could do. He finished with 262 yards on 24 carries, and had touchdown runs of 25 yards and 49 yards. When you fast forward ahead in the season, you'll see that Kevin Jones had similar numbers against Pitt. But also remember that VT had a few other weapons on offense, whereas Notre Dame had essentially no passing attack or running threat at quarterback. Julius Jones ran through people, he ran around people, and he proved to be a workhorse all game long. And it wasn't that the line was simply opening up huge holes for everyone - teammate Ryan Grant had 27 carries in the game - for only 84 yards.
I can't predict he will be the back Dallas fans are hoping for, but after watching that game I feel more at ease with this pick. Maybe some enterprising person on this board will figure out how to get a copy of it and post some clips...
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04-26-2004
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