:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/46885886/GettyImages-55735875.0.jpg)
#33 Malin Jones
Class: RS Sophomore
Ht/Wt: 6-0/225
Position: Running back
Hometown: Naperville, IL
Twitter: @M_Jonezy23
Thoughts: Last season’s transfer market was absolutely crazy and to put it bluntly, Louisville pretty much got every player they went after. With the high profile recruitment of Josh Harvey-Clemons, Shaq Wiggins and JaQuay Savage a player like Malin (from Northwestern) went slightly unnoticed. Malin was a solid three star prospect out of high school and was pursued by Louisville, Notre Dame and Iowa as well as his eventual landing spot at Northwestern. After a redshirt in 2012 Malin appeared in eight games his freshman season and was only given a handful of attempts. Late in the year Jones was disciplined for a “violation of team rules” but was reinstated to the program prior to the spring game the following year. During the summer of last year Jones announced his intention to transfer and found his way to Louisville.
In the Cards Spring game earlier this year Malin got the bulk of the carries for the WHITE team and performed okay (11car/28yds) considering he was going up against one of the best front 7’s in the nation this year. As I talked about yesterday with Jeremy, Petrino has no problem using a multitude of backs to get the job done and I have no doubt there will be certain scenarios where Jones is the best man for the job. If you look back to 2006, one of Petrino’s more successful teams, he shared the ball almost to a fault. Seven different players had more than 15 rushing attempts on the year (including Brohm) and four players had over 48 attempts. For us old hats who remember that season it was almost like clockwork that Kolby Smith (pictured above), Stripling, Allen or Brock Bolen would come out for specific plays or specific situations. It just made sense. I envision 2015 being very similar to that. Radcliff will carry the bulk of the load, just like Kolby Smith did, but LJ Scott, Jeremy Smith and Jones will assist (and James Allen if he gets cleared). Speaking of 2006, in case you missed it last week Kolby Smith appeared on the Ramsey and Rutherford Show and went so far as to say that “this group may be a little better” than the 2006 team. That should get you excited.
Sweet Tweet:
Soccer really would be so much more interesting if you added a second ball for overtime
— Malin Jones (@M_Jonezy33) July 9, 2015
You just blew my mind Malin. I’m on board.
Speaking of soccer, I have never been a big soccer fan. I always leaned more towards baseball as an athlete, and basketball and football in terms of watching it on TV. I never had an interest at any time in my life to sit down and watch a soccer match…until the last World Cup. Sure, you can chalk it up to patriotism but I actually enjoyed watching them play. Here recently I caught 3 or 4 games of the CONCACAF Gold Cup, once again to root for the home country. Although they underachieved I thought that….[text redacted due to strict personal 5 sentence limit on all soccer conversations, thanks for your understanding]