Fast-rising quarterback Mac Jones ‘solid’ with his commitment to Kentucky

The past few months in the recruitment of high school quarterback Mac Jones haven’t gone exactly as he expected.

Jones, who in July became the University of Kentucky’s first commitment for the class of 2017, enjoyed a fruitful junior season — his first as a starter — at The Bolles School in Jacksonville, Fla., throwing for 2,400 yards with 26 touchdowns and just five interceptions.

A few weeks after his season ended, Jones got the news that Shannon Dawson — the coach who identified him at a UK camp last April, extended a scholarship offer and acted as his primary recruiter — had been let go as the Wildcats’ offensive coordinator.

A few weeks after that, UK running backs coach Chad Scott, who helped recruit Jones, also left the program.

“It was obviously kind of devastating,” Jones told the Herald-Leader this week. “But I knew that Coach (Mark) Stoops was going to make a really good hire, and he did. So I’m excited about that. Coach Dawson was a great coach, but it seems like it just didn’t really work out for whatever reason. And Coach Dawson is at Southern Miss and he’s found a home, and I wish him the best.

“But it seems like they’ve done a good job of finding replacements and shifting things around.”

Stoops hired Eddie Gran and Darin Hinshaw to lead UK’s offense, and Hinshaw — the Cats’ new quarterbacks coach and a Florida native himself — hopped on a plane to Jacksonville almost immediately.

The objective of that trip was to make sure Jones knew he was still valued by the UK coaching staff. Mission accomplished.

“It was an exciting meeting,” Jones said. “I immediately clicked with him. It was cool to know that he was a Florida guy. I got to know a lot about him, and he got to learn a lot about me. It was just a good conversation, honestly.

“It was good to see that I was his first priority, to come down and recruit me first and get to know me. That definitely was a compliment.”

Jones called the visit a “moment of relief” that left him secure in the knowledge UK’s coaches still very much wanted him to be the center of their 2017 recruiting class. With any concerns about recruiting allayed, Jones turned his attention to the camp circuit.

His results there have earned him national attention.

Two weekends ago, Jones competed at the Orlando stop on The Opening tour, which attracts the best high school talent at various camps around the country.

The 6-foot-3, 185-pound quarterback was named one of the top performers at the event. Soon after, Rivals.com bumped him up to four-star status and ranked him as the No. 15 pro-style QB nationally for the class of 2017. 247Sports rocketed him up its rankings to the No. 19 spot.

This past weekend, Jones was back in Orlando to compete in the Rivals Camp Series event. He was named the top quarterback in attendance.

Jones has been praised by various recruiting analysts for his poise, arm strength, accuracy and ability to read defenses at these camps. To hear him tell it, there’s still plenty of room for improvement.

“I thought I performed pretty well but not amazing or anything,” Jones said. “I threw the ball pretty well. I still have some things to improve on, and that’ll happen.

“I learned some new stuff, and I’m going to try and apply it to my game.”

Jones said continuing to get stronger will be a big area of focus in his development. He specifically mentioned adding strength to his lower body and incorporating his legs more into his throws to take some stress off of his arm and shoulder.

The attention from national recruiting websites has coincided with an influx of new scholarship offers, which Jones acknowledged he did not think would come at this stage in his recruitment.

In the past few days alone, he’s picked up offers from Arizona State, Washington State, Illinois, Indiana, Southern Miss, Rutgers, San Diego State and Florida Atlantic (his first offer from an in-state school).

It’s been widely reported that Jones plans to take several recruiting visits to schools that have extended scholarship offers, and he told the Herald-Leader he “might” do that to check out how other programs operate and make sure he made the right decision with UK.

He was also clear about the current status of his commitment.

“I’m definitely solid,” he said. “No doubt about that. I like the new coaches. Obviously, we’re pretty early in the relationship part, but after junior day and talking with Coach Hinshaw and Coach Gran and Coach Stoops, I feel solid and I like what they’re doing.”

Jones came to Lexington a day early for the program’s junior day event last month. He’ll miss this weekend’s junior day because of a previously scheduled 7-on-7 tournament back home but promised to be back in town for the spring game April 16 or one of the other spring practices so he can see UK’s new offense in person.

Stoops said on national signing day last month that he thought UK’s 2016 class stuck together because the leaders in that group made public declarations that they weren’t looking at other schools and quit taking recruiting visits, despite major scholarship offers that came their way.

Jones has taken on a leadership role in the 2017 class, reaching out to other commitments and top recruiting targets. And while he’s still looking at other colleges, he doesn’t expect those flirtations to last throughout the process.

“I definitely plan to lead the class and try to make sure everyone sticks together,” he said. “I think we’ve decided that everyone will have their recruitment done by this summer, so we’ll be locked up.

“So I don’t think decommitments will be a problem.”

This story was originally published March 1, 2016 at 2:56 PM with the headline "Fast-rising quarterback Mac Jones ‘solid’ with his commitment to Kentucky."